Ok well, I did this thing where I watch a real movie for a change... Went with the one that was talked about then.
Scenes From A Marriage (Bergman, Movie version, 1974) – There's quite a few many films by Bergman that I've never seen and that I have no intention of seeing, for some reasons. Others I've watched multiple times, and none that I really disliked (though stuff like
Winter Light doesn't speak to me much). This is one of those I've seen a few times (never seen the longer TV version though, maybe some of these comments would need reconsideration if I did). The film itself might appear as subpar for the Bergman crowd. It comes after cinematic feats – pretty much right after
Cries and Whispers – and is far away from previous works by the masters (both Bergman and Nykvist). I think this is conscientiously so and has nothing to do with it originally being a TV miniseries. No aesthetic achievement, just a “realistic” autopsy of a marriage, a realism that will serve as a counterpoint to the film's discourse on marriage. The movie retained the episodic TV structure, which emphasizes the idea of these vignettes being “scenes” - they're technically sequences, but I think the significance here lies in their scenic aspect: they are “representations” - both as performance and as image. There's an important critic of marriage in the film that is brought forth by its association to representation, performance and fiction. Marriage is a contract (and shouldn't exceed 5 years says the husband), but in Bergman's film, marriage is - first of all - theater. It comes in subtle reminders, but it's always present: it's all a show. The husband names it quite clearly when exposing his disdain for the relation: it's always been about appearances, how they should act in accordance of the idea of a healthy relationship, how they would look in the eyes of people looking at them and at their relation, always
putting on an act, etc. There's quite a few direct allusions to theater throughout the film (I'll come back to those), but it also comes in more clever reflexive manners. The most exhaustive (and interesting) of these occurrences comes when they are put in the spectator chairs for the representation of another couple's meltdown. Their friends drank a little too much and are having some fight at the end of the evening, and it's pure theater – they know how the scene is going to play out (the wife says it's
always the same thing, “next will come the insults”), they execute it with drama and showmanship (he recites
Abide With Me), and she gets out of stage, framed between two curtains. He then says they'll finish the scene at home, and that the ending is usually not suitable for spectators. As for direct allusions, there's plenty: they met while they were both part of a drama group at school, she later says she really wanted to be an actress, and they often go to the theater, and after the divorce, they reconnect by chance, seeing each other at the theater. At some point they come home after seeing Ibsen's
The Doll House, in which a couple divorces after they realize that even though they were together for a long time, they don't understand and respect each other (I guess the TV version doesn't show the representation either, which would make for an interesting
mise en abyme). The husband also uses theater to lie to his new lover when the wife tells him about the notebooks (“I'll sit here and you can read to me. Then I'll go home and tell Paula I went to the theater” - not only associating theater to lying, but also linking his wife's reading to a play). The notebook is also a reflexive element that echoes Bergman's own creative process: “In the autobiographical book
Images (1995) he also continuously refers to his notebooks in the description of the process of filmmaking.” [
The playfulness of Ingmar Bergman - Rossholm, 2018 - p. 28] The film opens on an interview of the couple, making clear right from the start that they are a representation. It then goes on to explain that it is marriage itself that is a representation, and that it cannot sustain this contradiction: being at the same time false, a representation, and true, an honest bond based on true love (the characters long for their truth throughout the film). It's a brilliant film, but I think it's been outdone by some of its offspring: Baumbach's
Marriage Story, or Woody Allen's
Husbands and Wives (among others, it's probably the Bergman film that had the most influence on Woody Allen, starting with
Anny Hall), films that manage to add emotional impact to their intellectualization of the couple.
8.5/10
Also had to watch crap, because I can't fall asleep on a Bergman (I guess that's a little ironic).
Invaders From Mars (Hooper, 1986) – This film proves two things that didn't need to be proven: 1) Hooper was a terrible director and his first Texas film was lightning in a bottle and 2) Spielberg directed
Poltergeist. The film itself is very ambitious, it aims at being a remake, an homage, it's tongue-in-cheek without being comedy, and it's voluntarily cheesy but tries to remain respectful of the material. It's close to
The Stuff, or
TerrorVision, without being a comedy, and without being overly self-consciously campy. The result is, if not efficient, pretty unique. If you aren't familiar with the tone of some of the 50s sci-fi films it pastiches, you'll think it's very clumsy, and you'll think the sets and creatures are ridiculous (the way to “behind the hill” is a very nice allusion to the sets of the original
Invaders From Mars). Problem is, in my opinion, that if you're not familiar with the 50s films, you might just end up thinking they were all a pile of fuming shit, because that's pretty much what Hooper's film make them feel like. Its an homage that is a way lesser film than the many films it alludes to. Burton did a similar essay with
Mars Attacks!, with much better results. Luckily, it was all just a dream.
3/10 (for effort)
