Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander -- What Makes This Movie Great? (Episode 119)
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- Опубликовано: 20 сен 2021
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What makes it great IMHO is the contrast between Ekdahl and the bishop. One is a promiscuous and sloppy but genuinely kind, silly old man. The bishop is a rigid moralist, a repressed sadist and a hypocrite. Absolutely one of the best movie villans ever, the kind that chills your bones.
yes, thank you.
@@LearningaboutMovies Maybe I just repeated what you said.
no I am happy for commenters to elaborate.
And the scene where he asks Alexander what is truth kind of reveal this sadism, in the fact that he at once exposes and suppresses Alexander by forcing him to answer.
By Ekdahl you refer to Gustav Adolf. However, I think with that juxtaposition it is interesting to see Carl as the conflicted one inbetween. He has to playfulness of his brother but is tormented by his own conscience and his unfortunate sitation.
The longer version of the film is broadcasted every Christmas day on Swedish TV. I have seen the movie a couple of times. I have to say it´s a masterpiece in every single way. At that time the actors were on of the best ever. Jan Malmsjö (priest) is doing one of his best roles ever. Great movie!
thank you.
Alltid tyckt att Malmsjö fått för lite uppmärksamhet och kredd för sin roll. Han är total världsklass.
When I watch the shorter version I always miss the scene where the brothers of the bishop wife comes to the bishop and tries to talk some wit and understanding into him.
JARL KULLE is outstanding in his emotional outburst towards the fundamentalist preast !
One of the funniest moments in film that emotional outburst.
I just saw TV version couple of weeks ago. Wow.. I am still thinking about this movie nearly every day. Now I am wondering if I should watch theatrical cut because I really want to see this again!
excellent! I hope you enjoy that theatrical version.
Only one word total masterpice
I wasn't sure whether to put a colon before or after "total."
I saw the shorter version at the cinema in the early 80's & didn't quite get it. Now older, I have just seen the 5 hour version and so glad because of the character development & building of tension. I loved the mystical elements that contrast religion, good versus the evil of the Bishop, the unconventionality of an arty family & the power of the women in the family. A very accomplished film on many levels.
Max von Sydow fired his agent over this film. He wanted to make it in Hollywood and got an American agent to represent him. It was only later when he wondered why he hadn't heard anything from Bergman on this film his agent told him that Bergman had made him an offer for a part in the movie but the agent had turned it down because he thought the payment was too low. When Max von Sydow found out he fired the agent on the spot and instructed the new one: "The next time Bergman calls, you accept. Yes?"
Do you know what character he was offered to play? That's a neat story, I hadn't heard before.
@@taddy_mason4197 The Bishop, played by Jan Malmsjö.
Being a personal friend of the Bergmans, and having been in dozens of productions, von Sydow was actually seriously miffed over this and took it very personally. But they eventually sorted this out and von Sydow got parts in later productions.
I can't believe Bergman didn’t directly contract him!
@@cinemaspace2890 An obvious case of misunderstanding, or rather talking over each other. Bergman obviously thought von Sydow was in on it, and nobody could hold a grudge like Bergman did. But they did make up over it, and Bergman gave him a concolation prize of sorts and special wrote the role of patriarch Johan Åkerblom with Max von Sydow in mind for "Den goda viljan" (The miniseries "The Best Intentions) in the early 90's.
This has been my favorite movie for many years. I always say that I know there are “better” movies, but none of them moves me the way F&A does.
interesting, yes we all have our personal responses and relations to movies
A master's masterpiece. And the quote from Strindberg tells all.
Just saw the 3 version and loved it!! Coming to your vids after watching a new film is one of my favourite things to do. Keep up the good stuff 👍
thank you very much.
Very nice review and I agree. I was 13 years old when this Series was shown on national TV in my home country of neighbouring Denmark. This was at at time when I would watch TV together with my parents, and this was something they wanted to watch.I will always remember the physical abuse handed out by the bishop towards Alexander, but the scene I could never get out of my head, was the mourning-scene when their father dies and they are awaken in the middle of the night by these horrible heart-wrenching screams and sobs of unimaginable pain, their mother is making from losing her beloved husband. OUTSTANDING acting and Directing! And a little bit scary too..! HAIL HAIL BERGMAN! Great final film to his amazing repertoire..!
thank you.
Good stuff! I will now look for the mini-series to watch. Keep it up.
thank you.
I took a class on Scandinavian Cinema in college and this was one of the films I wrote a paper on. Honestly, as someone who comes from a country with a very different approach and culture towards cinema, I didn't really understand much. I saw the 3 hour cut and most of the religious themes did not make sense to me because I have zero background or knowledge about either Judaism or Christianity. But even then, I was enamoured by how detailed the mise en scene was in some of those theatre scenes and Christmas celebrations, as you mentioned. Just so much colour and attention to every object. I was waiting for you to bring up the Hamlet connections because it felt very Shakespearean to even an uncultured casual film viewer like me. Now that you've mentioned about there being more ghosts and explanation in the 5 hour version, I shall seek it and watch this movie again. Hopefully, now I have enough bandwidth to enjoy something like this! Maybe the limited exposition of the 3 hour version made it hard for me to fully comprehend what was going on at all times.
I always wonder whether to pause and explain the basics of something, such as Christianity, or to assume viewers know what's going on.
thank you, I do hope you get something out of subsequent viewings!
I liked the Christmas episode the most. Such a nice depiction of family celebration through children's eyes.
Just watched this last night for the first time and it was the best movie I've seen this year. I connect with movies that make me feel something, and this did that numerous times. Can't wait to explore more of his movies that I haven't seen yet. Wild Strawberries was my favorite movie I saw last year. Haven't seen Scenes From a Marriage yet, so that may be my next one. Thanks for the great video!
you're welcome. Just in case you are not aware, there's an Ingmar Bergman "great director" video on this channel that might help you. If you like this one and Wild Strawberries, you'll surely likely a dozen or more of his films.
His use of music like when the Schumann piano quintet appears is also masterly used...
oh, when was that? i think i recall, but i thought it may have been Mozart possibly ... I also found Chopin's Funeral March fascinating as it seems John Williams borrowed heavily from that for the Star Wars theme for the evil Empire... I had no idea!
My favorite Bergman film! I’m sure glad I watched the long version.
yes, after nearly finishing the long version now (watching Ep 5 tonight) I can't image seeing the short one... it flows so quickly anyways, excellent!
Thank you for your analysis and review, and for urging people to delve into this later Bergman production.
I saw the movie version in the cinema when it was released while first at university, and enjoyed it very much, following having seen a selection of his other films. And this one won the Oscar for best foreign movie that year. Then I saw the TV mini-series on DVDs years later, and was knocked out by it. I completely agree with you that, if possible, people should please see the longer form version of Fanny and Alexander. This is now one of my favourite Bergman 'movies' (along with Wild Strawberries, Smiles of a Summer Night, Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, Persona, etc) - and one of my favourite cinematic productions, ever.
I have also since really enjoyed seeing the "making of" documentary that Bergman made while taking this project from script to finished release. Incredible to see him trying to get financing, then working with the actors and with Sven Nykvist, director of photography. Also, great to recognize returning regular Bergman actors in this production from many of his other movies across the decades. He had a kind of repertory company, including family members - ex-wives and his children, in the cast.
For me, Fanny and Alexander is worth seeing, and then it is worth thinking (and feeling) about the experience of seeing and hearing it: the realistic and fantastical characters and scenes played out in the story, the actors' stellar performances, thematic questions raised, how the exquisite camera and lighting choices illustrate the themes, choices and use of music and sound (and silence)...
For some it may take patience at the start to let this production unfold in front of them, and by the end I think they will understand and appreciate the reasons for that choice in pacing.
you're welcome. Great comment, thanks.
great comments ... fyi full episodes now available here - ruclips.net/video/pkSuvjz1KPs/видео.html
This movie is a staple during Christmas in Sweden. It's on TV and a lot of people have a tradition of watching it. I think all Swedes at least knows about this movie. As a kid the movie did 2 things for me. One was feeling sick about the forces food eating in the movie, and second having bad feelings towards the actor of the Bishup Jan Malmsjö. During the 80s he was a famous artist and I could never get that craeapy feeling out of my system when I saw him on stage.
Thank you for you appreciation of this work of wonders. I enjoyed experiencing your presentation. I thought the 5½ went like 5 minutes, yes, better longer for so many reasons. A film so pertinent to modern times. Where it's at ? Who are we, where are we ? Thanks, again.
well said ... or as Kevin Kline's wonderful character in The Extra Man repeats, "So, there we are! ... Where are we?"
My favorite movie! I watch the 5-hours version every year in December😊
I like that concept 👍
great commentary. I did not think of these things as I watched the film, but it makes sense.
thank you.
This sounds terrific and I look forward to watching it! It is a privilege to watch the films of a fully formed master artist. And Bergman’s not bad either.
have fun!
I kinda really dug the first episode I watched it twice the first time I saw this movie. Ep1 felt peak technique,so many characters, so many angles, exceptional camera work and direction. I also enjoyed the different genres of the film, the negotiation scene between the two brothers and the bishop is just gold had a good laugh also interesting dynamics where we see the super alpha successful brother thinking he's all that got played by the bishop and the meek young brother showing redeeming qualities and intelligence after behaving like a buffoon throughout the movie. I just absolutely loved the extended family of F&A (may just be the most likable family in movie history). Episode 5 dealt with some horror elements too kind of like Persona, mysterious devil like androgynous Ismael granting Alexander his wish and the clothes off scene is quite creepy and the end when the bishop says "you'll never escape me" goosebumps.
excellent, thank you.
It was one of the first movies I remember after moving to Denmark as 12 year old, I didn´t get a thing (too young), but I really appreciated this masterpiece as an adult later one. Fantastic movie, a real one as they make in Scandinavia
Love your videos- as I Christian, I struggle when I watch a Bergman film because it seems to me that he doesn’t just ask big questions worthy of exploring, like “Why is God not helping me in this bad situation” -but he always answers such questions as “Well, he doesn’t exist.” I just watched this and I felt completely dissatisfied
thank you.
I actually love that I don't know why I adore this movie but still do. I can't explain what's good about it to others.
This is the real deal in Movie History,but the Cinematographer her and almost all the Bergman's movies from the 1960 and up, the guru : Sven Nykvist and he was the Boss behind the camera ;)
I´ve seen the digitally restored version (two differmet types) And its striking how much they differ from the original quality wise . The original printed on film (ofcourse) with all the beauty of grain and color scale is almost all gone in the digital version. They look as if someone put a thick layer of makeup on top of it all together with enhanced digital sharpening with pixels dancing around the close-up on faces and objects.
not sure, but I think the episodes posted here look great, fyi - ruclips.net/video/pkSuvjz1KPs/видео.html
It's one of the best movies I've seen. Your review is wonderful - thank you! It's not too broad to say it's about life - life vs death. Warmth vs cold. He portrays the Judaism as authentic, warm and honest - potent when magically coming to Fannie and Alexander's rescue. But there's a scene when the children are given hot chocolate in the kitchen and the windows make a cross that imo shows what Christianity is meant to be - but only in the servant's quarters - not up on high with the cruel, repressed, pretentious Bishop. Like the beating heart of the church vs the appearance and strictures of the church. Despite your assertion that it's not for children, and you're right, my sons saw it when they were little - in the background when I was watching it several times one winter. Years later my youngest told me about his earliest memory - A statue moving, a clock chiming....we wondered what it could have been until I finally realized - it was this! (Maybe the warmth of the hot cocoa in the kitchen was the Catholic and the cold upstairs Bishop the Lutheran? I'm curious too about his use of Judaism as the natural, the elemental. How did he come to be familiar with Judaism?)
I'm surprised a bit how much I'm enjoying the movie, the 5.5 hr episodic version, and frankly it has aged well and the cinematic qualities are sharp and crisp. Several good passages of meditative dialogue as well, including the grandmother reflecting on the brevity of life and rolling with the chaos.
I watched the 3 hr version on HBO last night. The direction and acting was masterful but I feel like I am missing something by watching the condensed version. I'll try to get a hold of the 5 hr version. Thank you for your insightful thoughts.
Here it is,,, episodes 1 to 5 ... I've been enjoying for the first time, doing Ep 5 tonight ! ruclips.net/video/pkSuvjz1KPs/видео.html
@@clumsydad7158 thanks
you may start out bored to tears at parts bc there are a lot of monologues but when you adapt to the film's pacing you'll be engrossed. When it's over you'll wish for 10 hours more
Loved the movie.
excellent!
Thanks for a great video!
i just saw this movie for the first time 2 months ago, and now im gonne see it again for the 5th time.. Favourite part overall is Oscars funeral parade, when they go thrue the town and the orcestra plays some kinda of Star Wars theme tune witch is really awsome !
You're welcome
Great movie.
yes indeed. people in my circle have not heard of it, sadly.
Watching this movie for film and gender class and wanted to hear someone else’s perspective on it. I thought I’d find the movie quite boring but it’s so well done and so interesting! You seem very friendly by the way :) Great video!
thank you.
This is not only the best film I saw last year, nor just my favorite Bergman film--it's one of my favorite films of all time, one of only four I consider completely perfect. It reminds me of a great novel in the sense that from the very beginning, it draws you into the world of its characters, focusing on their relationships with each other and establishing their personalities. Specifically, I would compare it to War and Peace, which also starts with a grand celebration--a ball--introducing a bunch of people all at once and slowly letting you figure out their importance and place in the story. I definitely do not think that part of the film is anything you have to "get through." I saw Scenes from a Marriage a few weeks ago and thought it dragged a bit in places, which is a problem I didn't have with this film, which I found fascinating, even during the 25-minute scenes.
As I mentioned on your Seventh Seal video, I disagree with most people on the character of the Bishop. They all seem to see him as this horrifically evil man, a figurative demon in disguise, who for some reason hates Alexander and enjoys torturing him. As you mention, however, the Bishop doesn't seem to take pleasure in what he does. I think the reason for this is that his beliefs and actions are genuine. You can argue about whether what he does is appropriate, but he reminds me of a sort of conservative brand of Christianity and its influence on parenting that sees the world as a place of corruption eager to swallow up impressionable young children and turn them away from God. I think the Bishop sees the world of art and theater as having that kind of influence--teaching Alexander how to lie, or "make up stories"--and his severe attempts at correcting Alexander's behavior are an earnest desire to see Alexander and the rest of the family live lives that are not muddied by the ways of the world, but made clear by the Bishop's guidance. Depending on how you view the supernatural aspects of the story, the scene with the Bishop's dead daughters makes clear that they loved their father and saw no fault in him, and I think it's more likely that their love is genuine, rather than some sort of justification from abused children. Ultimately, what I think Bergman was getting at with this film, and specifically the relationship between Alexander and the Bishop, undeniably the primary focus, is a contrast between the two worlds of art and religion, or the worldly and the spiritual. As you mention, the set decoration is vastly different between scenes, with the grandmother's house full of beautiful furnishings and deep colors, especially a warm red (Bergman referred to it as resembling a womb), while the Bishop's house is sparse, bare, and colorless, representing a sort of Puritan austerity. This is of course a visual representation of the people who live in those respective places, and perhaps the reason for so much conflict between Alexander and the Bishop is their mutual inability to understand or appreciate the world of the other, with Alexander thinking the Bishop a man with no heart or compassion and the Bishop thinking Alexander and his family a lost band of sinners that must be violently pulled back to the right path. The Christian understanding of love is not necessarily the kind of love you see portrayed in media. Rather, love is willing the good of another person, doing for them and speaking and acting toward them, in a way that seeks to have them embrace the ultimate good, even if your method of doing so isn't necessarily kind or pleasant. Alexander bridles at what he sees as his stepfather’s arbitrary and domineering rules, but from the perspective of the Bishop, all he’s doing is addressing what he sees as wrong behavior--lying, gossip, disrespect--and attempting to correct it so that Alexander may grow up to live a rightly ordered life, avoiding sin and seeking virtue. The problem here isn’t one of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong--rather, it is each person’s inability to understand the life of the other, to see how their own view of existence is not necessarily shared by others, and how our experiences and environments shape us differently. Alexander and the Bishop attribute ill intent and hatred to each other because they can’t understand how someone could live outside of their own view of the world. This is a remarkably complex theme from Bergman, who handles it well without being obvious about it. He was a staunch atheist, but in many of his films dealing with religion--specifically Christianity--he treats his Christian characters compassionately, not denigrating their beliefs as superstition, but showing them to be intelligent, well-meaning people genuinely struggling to reconcile their faith with a broken, sinful world. It is in this understanding of Bergman as an artist and storyteller that we can see the Bishop, not as a cartoonish villain, but as a complex, conflicted man who believes he is doing right, even if no one else--his wife, Alexander, or the audience--can see it.
I consider the five-hour version a film, but I don't know why I think that. I watched it over four nights, which gave me the experience of reflecting on each episode after it was over and looking forward to the next one that you get from watching a television show. It is similar in concept to Dekalog, which also ran on television, but which Krzysztof Kieslowski was adamant in saying was not a television show, but a "film cycle." Does the medium of art inherently change the message or content of a work of art, or is it negligible in this case? Certainly a sculpture is different from a painting, but what are the distinct differences between film and television that make those differences essential to demarcating how visual stories are told in either one? I'm not sure.
excellent comment, thank you very much.
well it's true the Bishop's actions seem strange for most, myself included, because he doesn't benefit as superficially as most greed and deceitful people do. and you are right, at the end of Ep 4 he has that comment that he is basically just himself a pawn, a man who has the title of Bishop and must do the bidding of the position (of God supposedly)
also as you say, movie feels like a novel, i had a Dickensian feeling getting into Ep 3 & 4 with the warped family life at the Bishop's home bringing in that kind of evil or nasty undercurrent that pops up in the works of Dickens. ... I'll have to get thru your full comments later as I've yet to finish Ep 5. great work!
I don't agree that Bergman is a realistic director. Quite contrary, I think his movies are very surreal. He deals very much with existential and real problems but his style is almost dreamlike. The acting is theatrical, the cinematography/lighting very controlled and the compositions look like paintings. He also have a lot of seemingly supernatural things in his films (Through a glass darkly, Face to face, Hour of the wolf). And several nightmare sequences (Wild Strawberries). Many scenes are experimental like the soundless scene at the beach in Sawdust and tinsel or the classic opening to Persona. They are sometimes set in a fictional timeline (Shame) or in a fictional setting (The Silence).
Fanny & Alexander(The 5 hour version) is my favourite movie of all time.
The edits in the 3 hour version are kinda abrubt and Bergman himself even said that he knew that every cut from the 5 hour version actively made the movie less good.
There are brilliant scenes like the Jarl Kulle, Börje Ahlstedt and Jan Malmsjö negotiation-scene with the cat that is a fricking masterpiece of cinema and is totally absent from the 3 hour version.
I am so blessed as a swede to have a 5 hour movie in swedish with the best swedish actors around(Minus maybe Von Sydow who was supposed to play the priest) directed by one of the best directors of all time with probably the greatest script ever written in the swedish language.
If you enjoy this i highly recommend that you check out the tv series "The best intentions"(Not the film version) about Bergmans parents directed by Billie August and written by Bergman as i think it is the closest in style to F&A. Also a fricking masterpiece.
excellent, thank you for this and the recommendation.
I've seen Scenes From A Marriage (TV version).
Where can I watch te TV version? I can’t find it anywhere 😬
I covered this question in my August 2022 livestream, where I show people how to figure this out.
ruclips.net/video/pkSuvjz1KPs/видео.html
The bishop, Jan Malmsjo is brilliant.
Booring The danish Oscar winner from 1987 Pelle the Conqueror was realy a good movie.
Nah, Fanny and Alexander is much better. I can tell by your name that your danish and Pelle the Conqueror was all about how horrible Swedish immigrants in Denmark where treathed. Is that why you like it? Pelle is a very good movie though.
@@tob7759 No I do not like it not because Swedes were treated badly, but because it is a good story, and Swedish Max von Sydow was an excellent actor. I am not Danish, but Norwegian.
@@bjarnenilsen2692 I'm sorry for my previous childish comment, i was a bit drunk. Pelle the Conqueror is a great movie but i think Fanny and Alexander has more depth to it.
Malmsjö is brilliant as Edvard Vergerus .
He's so good that I can't overcome an irrational dislike for the ACTOR when watching interviews and documentaries. It's not Malmsjö 's fault, it's just that he nailed the characterization of one of the most despicable villains in film history
@@MM-qv6fi it's one of those villains so warped you almost don't understand his motivations, just very warped and controlling
Did Fanny only exist to give the story a better title since she didn't do anything in the story?
Apart that Darth Vader is in this film...it has two versions. The longest original is easier to follow and understand some plot points.
Sorry, Doc, I'm not afraid I have to disagree. Though 'F & A' is a palatable, evocative, intelligent, mature narrative highlighted by excellent performances in scenes of the most raw and tender intimacy, some of the most beautifully detailed set decoration and costumery ever committed to film and a jubilant and vivacious Swedish Christmas dominating the first hour and a half (you''ll never see better), it is not Bergman's greatest film (but that's like dismissing Welles' 'Touch of Evil' or Tarkovsky's 'The Sacrifice' as 'not his greatest) - that honour does go to 'Persona' for a complex of reasons I won't detail here. I can't deny the atmosphere and rich sense of feeling B creates in 'F & A' is extraordinary, but where 'Persona' marks his initial attempt to put his fingers wholly in the plasticity of film as a singular expressive medium and to deal in acute ambiguity for probably the first time in his career there's a set based stagey formal grandeur to 'F and A' and an occasional lapse into the literal (the bishop's ghost at the end explaining his inevitability) competing dissonantly with the figurative (Ishmael, the mummy, the rescue of the children by Isak) that makes the film true to Bergman's words that it marked 'a culmination of all his themes' - including what Susan Sontag once intimated could be construed as 'intellectual bad taste'. 'Fanny and Alexander' is a great experience; I'm not sure its a great film (relative, that is, to Bergman's other works)."
thank you.
everything
“Hard to be a god” 2013 review
what do you mean?
@@LearningaboutMovies It's a really good non Bergman film but I think a lot of themes are similar to Seventh Seal
@@LearningaboutMovies Could you do a review on "Hard to be a god" by Aleksei German
Oh, thanks. Man oh man, there's another Strugatsky Brothers novel turned into a movie that I . . . had a hard time with. At some point I will have to rewatch it, knowing how grubby it is. That's one where I wish I had some expectations and preparation for it going into it.
Sublime.