Winter Light (Nattvardsgästerna) - Breaking Down Bergman - Episode #24
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- Co-hosts David Friend and Sonia Strimban dig into Winter Light, the story of a pastor who tries to lead his congregation as he struggles with his own questions about his faith.
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Friend and Strimban are watching the career of the Swedish director from his first film to his last, in order, and discussing their observations. Visit the main channel for more details
#breakingdownbergman #ingmarbergman #maxvonsydow #sweden
Winter Light is one of cinema's truly perfect films. One of Andrei Tarkovsky's favorite films and really an example of spiritually austere cinema at is greatest. One of my favorite films, for sure.
That scene where Ingrid Thulin is reading the "love" letter directly to the camera is PERFECTION! The point was that we, as the audience, would squirm and become unsettled...and I did!!!!!
The "bleakness" plays the most important part of all,portraying the poverty of human life and not least; the hopelessness of wintertime in countryside Sweden. To me this speaks immediately about my chilkdhood. Pure poetry.
Exactly what I wanted to say, bleakness of the world is one more factor which is challenging Tomas to hold on to his faith.
I found the slow pace and the general pessimism of this movie quite cathartic.
this is one of his best films! i can see it is difficult to understand the tone of the film, especially if you have little insight in the scandinavian countryside, where protestant christians with their very minimalist and ascetic lifestyle is just as bleak as the envirionment. in winter, the absence of light is very present. the movie is lit and paced in a way that fits this beautifully. in many ways the film resemples a play, and therefore it has in some instances problems in pacing
My favorite Bergman movie!
Thank you for your great reviews!
As a Swede I’m happy that you chose Bergman!
The tediousness shows Tomas existential crisis and emptiness, a man’s voyage between two impressions of God. Märta can be a Christ (stigmata) teaching the priest how to love, and Algot an angel, supporting him in the right direction.
I see Tomas lack of emotions (isolation) as part of the theme and the harsh landscape as his pain in an eerie world without God, before he comes to know God through love in the end.
That ending though, that got me. I think his disabled/ hunchback assistant's faith pulled him through. He was not alone, he doubts his "drivel" which he preaches but even Jesus did when he was about to be executed. Even Jesus experienced God's silence. But he persevered and the pastor must persevere too.
I wonder if these two could make it through Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev or Mirror? This insipid critique is even more spiritually empty than the film itself. Definitely one of the greatest films of all time. Bergman worked hard to create a dark and icy filmscape to mirror the isolation and coldness of the characters. And then he created a claustrophobic mysterious hot house in the hotel in The Silence. Yes this is essential.
I feel like I'm in a hothouse every time I read reactions to our Winter Light video. - David
This is my best.
They don't understand.
Interesting commentary as always. I just bought the trilogy and am looking forward to the challenges of these films. I think these will require multiple viewings but the cinematography is so rich that it alone makes it worth watching over and over
I love TSS and WS as much as I'm supposed to, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that I think this is where the main course starts.
Winter Light is my favorite movie by my favorite director. I like this couple, but they, particularly Sonia, missed the inner struggle. She said it's definitely not entertainment. No shit.
I watched this recently. I am a Bergman fan but I wasn't blown away by this one. however I do get the feeling that it may grow on me after repeated watches
I find this movie to be riveting, though the general public in '62 agreed more with you than those of us who love it. I thought the acting was as precise as a laser cut. I saw this film at George Eastman House with 250 Bergman fans and when Bjornstrand tears into Thulin in the school classroom, you could have heard a pin drop. When he explains why he never mentions all his issues with her before by saying "it was because I was so well brought up" or whatever there was a huge collective gasp.
The ethos of the film is it's constant rejection of emotion. Aside from Marta, there is nothing exciting, entertaining or lovable about the characters.
Marta, who doesn't believe in religion, is the person with the most faith and epitomizes God's love. Her love is always present but is rejected because of her imperfections. Her physical ailment, specifically her bleeding hands and forehead is a metaphor for Christ's crucifixion. The religious pastor rejects a possibly redemptive loving relationship with Marta because he demands her love to be perfect, like God, which he ironically doubts exists. The irony is that the most "religious" man rejects the most Christ like person in his church.
The pastor is also mirroring behaviors of Marta by viewing their intimacy as sinful, which is why he asks her why she would take communion from him at the altar, the irony is why would a religious leader have intimate relations with some one in their congregation in the first place? Also, they are playing out an "avoidant/anxious" dynamic and so the more anxious she becomes about their relationship, the more avoidant the pastor becomes. In the end, the pastor rejects God/Love and the sinner, Marta IS the epitome of God/Love.
"Winter Light" is a cold film, the fact that the people reviewing this film could not derive an emotional response to the film is a testament of the film makers great execution, not the lack of it. The movie is religious at heart and deals with the duality of human nature. "Winter" symbolizes the overwhelming cold, emotionless and apathetic experience of people like the pastor and the person who committed suicide. "Light" symbolizes the warmth of love that is represented by Marta and the disabled church Deacon.
I liked how grim it was. This trilogy is the perfect thing to watch when you're going through a tough time.
I just got the Bergman box set last year and I’m very slowly going through it. I absolutely loved this one. Some of the very early ones made me zzzz. Dostoevsky levels of dealing with faith and death etc.
Dostoevsky shouldn't make you go zzz, though. You need to check that.
@@vodkatonyq that’s not what I said. Totally separate thought. Love the Dostoevsky themes of dealing with death and faith in “Winter Light”. Hate the boring super early Bergman films.
@@sweetlilhifi which early films?
@@sweetlilhifi which early films?
@@vodkatonyq crisis, ship to India, smiles of a summer night
This video together with its comments attest to the strong and varied feelings typical to "Winter Light". When I first saw it I felt a bit the way Sonia feels. Now I happen to think it an excellent film and could even be persuaded its the strongest of the trilogy. There is a simplicity which the other two lack. It's terrible flatness and dullness is definitely the point. Everything you say about it is true, Sonia, but these are the films strengths to my mind.
Well... you guys made the video about three years and a half ago, so a hope you have changed your mind about the acting. I completelly disagree about the acting in this film. This was the first Bergman film I saw an actress actually cry on scene. Ingrid Thulin is just spectacular as always and in the scene of the letter she cries real tears. Wich was not common until then in Bergman's filmography. Whenever a character has to cry Bergman already starts the scene with the actress wearing make up and a fake tear has already rolled down her face. You never really see the tear coming. hue If I'm not mistaken, even in Brink of Life, wich has a lot of crying scenes,this happens. But in that case the acting was not harmed by this detail. As I said it is a detail, but makes clear that the performances in this film are excellent.
Like several of Bergman's films, we've found our enjoyment of them is like a tug of war with our mind and soul. No matter how we feel about each one, they're never light on significance. - David
I'll also say, regarding suicide (especially since a prof. I knew committed suicide this month), that it's important to realize suicide's often an issue of sometimes hidden clinical depression, not external events, and I think the film character arguably shows clinical depression. His suicide then is something related to Bjornstrand's struggle (how could God let a father of 3 do this?), rather than anything else. As you said about MVS, we thought, re this professor, "this just makes no sense."
The best of Ingmars films. Naked, stripped down and honest in every way. Think of the names of the caracters and compare them to the disciples of Jesus. Who is who? Brilliantly played by Gunnar Björnstrand and Ingrid Thulin and Allan Edwall. 6 out of 5 stars!
This is my favorite film of the Bergman I've seen, just because it's the only movie I've seen with a description of the psychology of von Sydow's character, which I can strongly relate to.
While I stand by my opinions on the film, the one aspect that has evolved for me is my ability to relate to von Sydow's character's psychological state and motivation for suicide, as since this video I've become increasingly anxious about the current climate crisis. Not that I need to call a helpline or anything like that, but I can definitely appreciate this character's position in the film. - Sonia
@@breakingdownfilms I think the von Sydow character is dealing with more than climate change. I remember the scene where the pastor goes to tell his wife that he has died, and she has a number of children with a baby on the way. That, itself, could have been weighing heavy on von Sydow's character.
He can't return to a film like WL because WL liberated him from God. It's a stand alone. Bergman called it his most perfect, the one in which he said everything he wanted to say the way he wanted to say it. His wife told him, yes Ingmar, it's a masterpiece but it's a dreary masterpiece. He didn't disagree or apologize. You could look at it as Minus from TAGD grown up to become Thomas. Unlike you guys I think WL is one of his most essential films, though not one you want to see every weekend.
I recently rewatched WL, and today revisited the BDB take on it here. WL originally was difficult for me due to its tendentiousness, but that does not seem to be what bothered Sonia so much about it. For myself I find if I put aside my objections to its tendentiousness, the film is mesmerizing. Maybe it requires multiple viewings to get into Tomas's experience, but I have, and think this film as a film is nearly perfect.
There's a documentary about the making of this film: ruclips.net/video/8GJXFWlneYA/видео.html
Love your videos! This is actually one of my favorite Bergman films, I have seen a lot of them. The one that didn't stick for me was the silence, I couldn't get into it. This was apparently bergmans favorite film he made, if not the only one he really liked. I found it very dense and powerful and challenging. I prefer fanny and Alexander and wild strawberries, but this ranks up there.
Just don't look at the comments on our video for The Silence ;)
Really? You didn't like it? Watch it again. Then keep watching it until you start to love it. Which you will.
i love the almost empty sermons, for what is the point of holding one if there are so few people in attendance?
This movie that gets better after a while.
It was some years since I saw it last time but I still think about it from time to time.
Like when von Sydow is coming to Bjornstrand, but Bjornstrand just talk about himself.
Or when Edwall explains the true meaning of Jesus' last suffering.
I could believe everything in this movie.
But I cannot believe what she in Through a Glass Darkly sees.
After Through a Glass Darkly you feel excited,
but Winters Light stays in your memory.
I saw this film first in '65 and quickly tired of it. I walked out before it was over. All I could remember of it were depressing icy scenes punctuated by people driving their Volvos around in the frost. Seeing it 50 years later it becomes increasingly compulsive. The immaculate care with which it is put together commands my attention and brings the screenplay into focus. The light is singular.
You clearly have no idea of what you're talking about. "Winter Light" is a masterpiece.
You could make the case that these three movies are like Dante's trilogy, and this is simply purgatory. That is how I read the movie. The priest's character, especially if GB was ill for this production, it was an ironic piece of luck to make that person more pathetic. Nice breakdown, folks! This movie is a tough one.
Hey all:
If Bergman intended these there movies (TAGD, WL, and The Silence) as a trilogy, where he was in his career would not have made a lot of difference. I think the point of this move is meant to be very flat, barren, and reflect his take on existence at its core.
Have you given it a second or third chance? You might be surprised..
Marvelous film but not about faith, about death of god. I think Sonia and David want something that´s useless if god is dead. Dark space is the theme of this movie.
The film, after having opened with a bleak sermon, ends with an even bleaker one, where the only one in attendance is the tragic woman, doomed to pursue the object of her desire in his pilgrimage through a godless and so faithless universe. Or is this all a call to a higher faith? We don't know. All is silence.
I agree with a lot of what's being said but I also think the bleak atmosphere, long still shots, lack of music, and emotional disconnect with the pastor are maybe there to convey humanity as seen in a world where there is no higher power or being, like looking at humanity objectively?? The shots are mechanical and so is the pastor. The suicide scene to me is heartbreaking because there's a dead crumpled body on the ground but no emotion or higher cause to make sense of it. That being said the movie does suffer because of it and Bergman definitely could've added more pizzazz to this one
Remember its all about 'faith', but, as with the other films, no god is in sight, only a man who searches in vain. He spurns the woman who loves him, rejecting the promise and direct experience of an earthly love in favour of a lonely existential inquiry. His friend suicides, unable to reconciel the atrocities of war with a loving, pacifistic deity.
You clearly did not see this film. Winter Light is one of Bergman's 3 or 4 best. The script, the acting, the cinematography, the complexity of the ideas all come together perfectly to pack huge emotional & intellectual wallop. What was going on with you?
You're right. We didn't watch the film. This is all some elaborate trick. April Fools!
Happy April Fools! I guess I meant that as hyperbole. Or that you didn't engage with the film. I didn't mean to be dismissive. I enjoy your discussions. Now that I've watched most all of them, I do think you tend to have a huge blind spot when it comes to the framing of issues theologically. Religion is absolutely central to Bergman,whether positively or negatively. And historically religion is integral to philosophical thought, artistic expression, and scientific questioning. You misunderstand it if you treat it as something artificial, as some sort of fake thought. I say this as a lifelong agnostic. Anyway, thanks for the discussions.
Interesting. I was enthralled from the first sounds of the church bells to the words beginning the evening church service. The pastor has become like his god--Karin's same spider-god from Through a Glass Darkly. This puts the people who seek him out in a hopeless position; he has nothing to offer. There is no torment, only emptiness. After all, this has been going on for at least four years since his wife died. The organist said that the pastor's wife was his undoing.
The austere setting is as cold and austere as the pastor. Any cinematic panache would be completely out of place.
As for Jonas Perssons's suicide, there is no feeling because neither he nor the pastor has any feeling. There was no crisis because there was no crisis. This is characteristic of depression. It's not sadness; it's not fear; it's not anxiety. At least it is not necessarily those things. It is a lack of enjoyment in what one might have once found enjoyable--a lack of feeling. There was no breaking point. There doesn't have to be.
I respect your opinions, and you are not responsible for your response. But. If you haven't revisited Winter Light, I think you owe it to yourselves to look at it again just to make sure you didn't miss anything.
Yeah I thought they were going to break the film down rather than just critique it. However I would go the opposite way on why these two didn't understand the suicide, as there is very much a feeling that Persson experiences, and that is classic, existential dread. The silence of God drives Persson to the Pastor, who instead of assuming the voice of God or acting as a conduit for it (as per usual) relates that he too is in crisis in the face of the silence. This drives Persson, vulnerable as he is, to panic but also answers his question on the point of existence; there is none, so he chooses to commit suicide.
I actually find the female critic's opinion on the suicide quite ironically amusing because it reflects the outlook of Karen Persson, the wife, who struggles to take the concept of nuclear threat seriously. When combined with the attitude of Lundberg, the spurned lover of the Pastor, we see that these characters have found an ability to transfer any spiritual/existential concerns they might have onto the more tangible and mundane material world. The former (Karen Persson) simply lacks the imagination, and is too busy with her daily duties and serving the needs of her children, while the latter (Lundberg) has the intelligence but has deliberately invested her feelings of pious devotion into pursuit and constant service of the Pastor, who observes such superficiality and rejects it. She even bears the stigmata, symbolised by the rash, which disgusts the Pastor because it at once degrades his faith and directly challenges it; for all the shallowness of her transference, she is ironically more devout in her cause than he could ever be in his.
You could even intuit that the last time he might have had such faith was when his wife was alive, and the character clearly says as much.
Yeah so these critics just didn't get the film, but that's not surprising. It is at once the kind of film very few people will get into these days due to the themes, but its message is perhaps one the modern world needs more than ever. I still think people struggle with the silence of faith, but this is now masked by the fact that many people assume there is nothing to believe in deeply now anyway. This masks the struggle modern society has with the vapidity and superficiality of a uniquely synthetic material existence.
I agree with you. And we are viewing these characters from the outside. Most of them hide their feelings, or try to. Märte is the great exception. Her recitation of the letter tells us very much about what she is feeling and even more about what has happened. Her challenging Tomas leads to his telling the truth about his feelings for her.
But to return to Jonas, there is really no indication of panic. He clearly is talking to the Jonas at the insistence of his wife. He gives no indication of sorrow or turmoil or impatience, just a sense of dread and dissatisfaction. Tomas's response does nothing to put Jonas's presenting problem into perspective. Really it is nothing but a long confession of his having no consolation to offer along with some indication of how he thinks that came to be.
Both Jonas and the Tomas are stuck in their situations with no hope, no faith, and an avoidance of love. And remember David's reflections in Through a Glass Darkly, that God is every kind of love, even the most debased, and Minus's reply that Karin was close to God "because we all love her so much." Then Minus has the last line of the film. "Papa talked to me." Breaking the silence. Such a little thing.
I wrote in a comment on the video on The Silence that these films are for the heart rather than the head, though there's plenty for the head, too. It bears emphasizing that about Winter Light. This is a movie that I felt my way into.
P.S. We haven't even mentioned Algot, who brings a poignant biblical perspective to his suffering.
Our series is less about the heart...I say with a little sarcasm. But thanks for watching. Your feedback is truly appreciated. - David
Thank you for this exciting discussion! Nevertheless, I would like to give you a tip, if you allow me a piece of advice. You didn't like Bergman. Fine! You find him boring. Try Marvell movies, or Disney, for instance. You know, maybe you just like a different sort of films.
Chanced to see WL right after mentioning my little vid about doubtful priest and drowned innocent so kinda spooky for me. Intriguing movie if you accept frigid tone from outset and I enjoyed it but it doesnt seem quite resolved and I'm starting to wonder if IB misses some of the ordinary empathy facet of the human in his characters so they and the drama never quite real despite essaying intricate detail of the self.
It’s 2021, and I still love this review of a misguided film critic relentlessly dissing one of the greatest films ever made with the other dude too shy to contradict her.
Misguided? It's called TASTE, buddy, it is totally subjective, and while I love Winter Light, I totally understand people who don't. It wasn't as if everyone loved it when it came.