Scenes From a Marriage - Criterion Collection (1974)

Monumental

Leo Tolstoy once opined that all happy families are happy in but a few ways, while those that are not suffer in many unique ways. This apothegm was never more well evinced than in filmmaker Ingmar Bergman's five hour 1973 Swedish telefilm Scenes From A Marriage (Scener ur ett aktenskap), a miniseries that was even more influential in Europe than the American television miniseries Roots, which captivated American audiences only a few years later. Bergman's miniseries was repackaged for foreign markets into a 169 minute film version that, in 1974, was almost universally lauded by critics in America. Although, because it started out as a tv show, it was ineligible for Oscar consideration in America, it did win the National Society Of Film Critics Award for Best Picture, and, in 1977, PBS aired the entire uncut series. In many ways, it had more in common with such offerings as the U.K.'s Up Series documentaries, or PBS's An American Family, which chronicled the ups and downs of the real life Loud family. It was a film that also radically departed from many prior Bergmanian paradigms, even as it continued his in depth exploration of the interior human landscape.
Gone was the poetic and dazzling cinematography of Sven Nykvist, as it was replaced by an even more obsessive look at the human mien, especially the gloriously radiant features of actress Liv Ullman's face. Ullman portrays Marianne, the female lead of the series, a thirty-five year old liberal leaning divorce lawyer who is married to a more culturally conservative forty-two year old professor and researcher at the Psychotechnology Institute, as well as a wannabe poet named Johan, played by Erland Josephson. We never learn the couple's surname, which only adds to their everycouple iconography, and the intimacy viewers feel with and for them. The couple's two daughters, Eva and Karin, make only a brief appearance at the start of both versions, although they are mentioned a few times more in the series. As the film version opens, the couple is being interviewed by a female writer (Anita Wall) for a woman's magazine, after ten years of marriage, and there are some awkward moments that belie the problems awaiting them just under the surface of their claims of being almost a too content couple. We are not sure whether this scene is the present- meaning 1973, or ten years earlier, for the series will progress over a decade. The tv version goes farther than the film version, and the first scene, or night's viewing, is titled Innocence And Panic. We see more hostility bared- overtly and covertly, and find out the interviewer is a passive/aggressive old schoolmate of Marianne's whom she is not too fond of.... ultimately, Scenes From A Marriage is a great work of art, and one that will still have relevance as long as human beings involve themselves in mating rituals. While it details a marriage, that marriage fails not because of the husband's midlife crisis, nor does it even fail because of the wife's first infidelity and over-compensatory smothering, but because the two characters were simply ill suited for one another- personally, emotionally, politically, sexually, and philosophically. No matter how well they knew each other, and we know that they know each other all too well, basic incompatibility cannot be overcome. Thus the greatest lesson the film teaches is not how to act during marriage, but to choose well before entering into it, because that is the single most important choice a would be spouse can make, and gives rise to the maxim that Tolstoy spouted. Were that not so Scenes From A Marriage would not be as engrossing, insightful, and relevant a work of art as it still is, as it would be like so many other marriages and films in the real world- thriving on the low hum of ignorance that its participants and viewers enjoy.
September 17, 2008

"We're emotional illiterates..."

At one point in Bergman's incredible "Scenes from a Marriage," Johan tells his soon-to-be ex-wife Marianne that their marriage has failed in large part because both of them are "emotional illiterates." We were born with silver spoons in our mouths, he says, and educated in the best schools. But we weren't taught a thing about our souls.

"Scenes," one of Bergman's best films, is so intense that I find myself glad it's a series instead of a single piece. I need the time between segments to catch my breath. In it, Bergman uses the crumbling marriage of Johan and Marianne to invite the viewer to reflect on his or her own degree of emotional literacy. How many of us, like Johan and Marianne, cling to a false peace rather than face very real tensions in our relationships? How many of us confuse our own insecurities and hang-ups with blemishes in our partners? How many of us, like Johan at the beginning of the film, are so arrogantly narcissistic that we take our partners for granted? How many are like Marianne at the film's beginning, so insecure and desperate for approval, that we suborn our own identities to our partner's?

Like all Bergman films, there are incredibly bleak moments here. But also like all Bergman films, there's a great deal of hope, although things certainly don't get wrapped up in a traditionally happy ending. As we follow the film's protagonists, we see them both becoming transformed for the better, although the gestation has been bitter and sometimes brutal. Johan becomes more fragile, more vulnerable, less arrogant. Marianne becomes less mousey, less subordinate. In the process, they grow better able to love one another. Self-knowledge seems a necessary condition for emotional literacy.

An unforgettable film. The Criterion edition provides both the full television version and the truncated theatrical one. Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson put in stunning performances, so intense that one can only imagine how draining they must have been for the actors. The only thing I can think of that's even remotely comparable to it is Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"--the play, not the horrible Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor film--or, better yet, Anna Karenina.

July 20, 2008

Scenes from an emotional marriage!

The movie begins with a magazine interviewing a successful business couple, Johan and Marianne, and their two young girls appear for a minute. And from this introduction, one can see the selfish Johan reflecting on the marriage as he seems self-absorbed with nothing warm to say about his wife of 10 years, Marianne. It's indicative that the marriage is faltering.

Marianne and Johan are professionals, she an attorney, he a professor. The viewer begins to dislike Johan; he's arrogant, disrespectful, distant father, and a real jerk for cheating on the lovely Marianne. We don't see his lover, he just joins her in Paris. On the other hand, we look at Marianne as weak and emotionally dependent on Johan. But Marianne makes the transitions as a single person, while Johan remains wishy washy.

Bergman's movies involve close-up, intense dialogue, and subtle or very emotional drama. There aren't a number or variety of locations. Much takes place in the home. There is a lot of dialogue which means we the viewer must receive the correct amount of translations. It is said that with subtitles, viewers generally lose about 20 percent of translation.

This is a lengthy film, which was based on a television series. Like any Bergman film, it is emotional and consuming. The follow-up to this is Saraband. Saraband captures the marriage 30 years later where Marianne encounters the son and grandson of Johan. This is equally, if not more, enjoyable! MzRizz
January 7, 2008

Genius, But Some Perspective in Order

It's absolutely mind-blowing that only the hacked down 3h version was seen in the US before this box was released. I don't subscribe to the Bergman is an insane original genius school. Instead, I think that what is great about him is the fact that he is constantly trying new things, and this is a radical film. What's great is that it is so in many ways, and some of them almost sneaky. The breaks in time are the key here. The action recommences and the viewer is left to try and fill in both backward and forward in time. And as O'Neill said, when theater works, time disappears.

As radical as it is as a film, at the same time, it is, like everything else after it, a spawn of O'Neill's insanely brilliant "Long Day's Journey Into Night." From this perspective, it, like everything else, must wither, at least partially. LDJIN has a philosophical density that Scenes does not achieve. At the same time, though, the sheer genius of LDJIN is that the cycle of ascribing blame never sets, and each turn is followed by some undoing. Actually, Scenes achieves this in a way that is totally disarming and powerful, making for a shattering ending.

Great, totally engrossing experience. (If you like this, get Sidney Lumet's 1962 version of Long Days Journey.) November 27, 2007

Like a Beethoven's piano sonata

Like Beethoven in his piano sonatas, the genius of Bergman builds an extremely impressive whole out of many small and seemingly simple elements.

At the surface level, the film is about a marriage between Marianne and Johan (played superbly by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson). At a deeper level, the film is an honest insight into the human condition, with all its complexities (physical and metaphysical) including despair, joy, self-deception, self-obsession, cruelty, etc. Bergman's understanding of the human condition is on a par with that of the German-Swiss novelist Hermann Hesse.

The director relies primarily on the rich dialogs between the two main characters, as well as the intimate, emotion-capturing close-ups, to develop and convey his story. Scandinavian minimalist simplicity that pervades this film is an excellent choice, as it allows us to focus on the substance. The master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, as one would expect, did not disappoint us.

Bergman takes his time to fully develop the two main characters. This comes at a "cost" in terms of the length of this film. I am more than happy to bear that cost. All great masters know that it simply takes time to develop a character. This is true for films, novels, or even operas (Mozart and his use of operatic arias comes to mind).

This film reminds us that no one is perfect and no marriage is perfect either. A marriage can fail even when the two people give their best, let alone when they don't. We are also reminded that freeing ourselves from the imperfections of a marriage, our own personal imperfections and shortcoming will not, of course, just disappear. To be married (or not) becomes almost immaterial. Most of the time, we are, in essence, alone in this world (even when surrounded with other people, including family members).

I personally prefer the 5-hour TV version. I cannot find a single reason why I would want to deprive myself of the two hours that were cut from the theatrical version. November 17, 2007

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