The 29th edition of the EnergaCamerimage Film Festival, one of the world’s leading events dedicated to cinematography, returned to fully live status Saturday amid tributes to the power of the image and an homage to the life and work of cinematographer Philippe Rousselot.
The Dp for “A River Runs Through It” and “Dangerous Liaisons” commended his fellow cinematographers for work that transcends culture, border and languages.
Welcoming an audience made up of many of the most celebrated DPs working today, fest director Marek Zydowicz offered historical context at the Jordanki cultural center in the Gothic Polish city of Torun.
Pointing out that “after plagues come a renaissance in art,” he shared with the audience an image of the Beautiful Madonna of Torun, a revolutionary work of sculpture created amid the current of artistic expression that followed the plague of the 1300s.
And again, he told the audience, after the Spanish Flu of 1918 killed millions,...
The Dp for “A River Runs Through It” and “Dangerous Liaisons” commended his fellow cinematographers for work that transcends culture, border and languages.
Welcoming an audience made up of many of the most celebrated DPs working today, fest director Marek Zydowicz offered historical context at the Jordanki cultural center in the Gothic Polish city of Torun.
Pointing out that “after plagues come a renaissance in art,” he shared with the audience an image of the Beautiful Madonna of Torun, a revolutionary work of sculpture created amid the current of artistic expression that followed the plague of the 1300s.
And again, he told the audience, after the Spanish Flu of 1918 killed millions,...
- 11/14/2021
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Documentaries
Toronto Raptors vice-chair and president Masai Ujiri has joined the upcoming documentary series on the Basketball Africa League (Bal), a partnership between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the International Basketball Federation (Fiba), as an executive producer.
Fremantle and Passenger are producing the as yet untitled series, which tells the story of the creation, launch and inaugural season of the Bal, a new professional basketball league in Africa featuring 12 club teams from across the African continent. The series is being directed by emerging South African director Tebogo Malope.
Ujiri was the architect behind the Raptors’ historic 2019 NBA Championship win and he also serves as president of Giants of Africa, the non-profit he co-founded in 2003, which uses basketball as a tool to educate and enrich the lives of African youth.
The first edition of Bal took place in May in Kigali, Rwanda. Working alongside showrunner and executive producer Richard Brown...
Toronto Raptors vice-chair and president Masai Ujiri has joined the upcoming documentary series on the Basketball Africa League (Bal), a partnership between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the International Basketball Federation (Fiba), as an executive producer.
Fremantle and Passenger are producing the as yet untitled series, which tells the story of the creation, launch and inaugural season of the Bal, a new professional basketball league in Africa featuring 12 club teams from across the African continent. The series is being directed by emerging South African director Tebogo Malope.
Ujiri was the architect behind the Raptors’ historic 2019 NBA Championship win and he also serves as president of Giants of Africa, the non-profit he co-founded in 2003, which uses basketball as a tool to educate and enrich the lives of African youth.
The first edition of Bal took place in May in Kigali, Rwanda. Working alongside showrunner and executive producer Richard Brown...
- 10/28/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Mubi is showing the retrospective The Inner Demons of Ingmar Bergman from June 8 - August 28, 2017 in the United Kingdom.I've told this brief story of how I fell under the spell of cinema so many times I've become brazen to it. At eighteen years, in February 1993, I found Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers (dubbed) at the video store. As Woody Allen spoke of the Swede in hushed tones, I decided I should try a film. Ninety minutes later I sat stunned and spellbound, not sure what to do or think, but surely sure I must be onto something. Cinematic rapture still has a psychical aspect for me, the torque the sedentary body goes through while coping with the images before it. I can always tell how good a film is if my armpits smell after. The body doesn't lie. Ingmar Bergman is an easy crush—one writer I know...
- 6/20/2017
- MUBI
My guest for this month is Patrick Gibson, and he’s joined me to discuss the film I chose for him, the 1957 drama film Wild Strawberries. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.
Show notes:
My original review of Wild Strawberries This film was the last role by legendary Swedish actor Victor Sjöström, who directed The Phantom Carriage You can’t fly directly from Stockholm to Lund these days, you have to go to Malmö and drive. It takes about two hours total A flight from Stockholm to Sydney, Australia takes almost 24 hours, so a bit longer Ingmar Bergman was having an affair with his leading lady Bibi Andersson during the making of this film Norwegian Black Metal and Swedish Death Metal are two things that I associate with Scandinavia A Mitzvah is a good dead, and a Mensch is someone who does them Virtually every Bergman film was...
Show notes:
My original review of Wild Strawberries This film was the last role by legendary Swedish actor Victor Sjöström, who directed The Phantom Carriage You can’t fly directly from Stockholm to Lund these days, you have to go to Malmö and drive. It takes about two hours total A flight from Stockholm to Sydney, Australia takes almost 24 hours, so a bit longer Ingmar Bergman was having an affair with his leading lady Bibi Andersson during the making of this film Norwegian Black Metal and Swedish Death Metal are two things that I associate with Scandinavia A Mitzvah is a good dead, and a Mensch is someone who does them Virtually every Bergman film was...
- 4/16/2016
- by Arik Devens
- CriterionCast
In today's roundup of news and views: Charlie Fox on Buster Keaton, Danny Leigh on Alan Clarke, Abel Ferrara on collaboration, Adrian Martin on the "New Cinephilia," Martin Amis on Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, Sérgio Dias Branco on Roberto Rossellini's The Flowers of St. Francis, Peter Cowie on Ingmar Bergman's cinematographers, Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist, Benjamin Bergholtz on Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on Michael Mann's Heat, David Kalat on Harry Langdon, Duncan Gray on Brad Bird's Tomorrowland—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 6/16/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views: Charlie Fox on Buster Keaton, Danny Leigh on Alan Clarke, Abel Ferrara on collaboration, Adrian Martin on the "New Cinephilia," Martin Amis on Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, Sérgio Dias Branco on Roberto Rossellini's The Flowers of St. Francis, Peter Cowie on Ingmar Bergman's cinematographers, Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist, Benjamin Bergholtz on Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on Michael Mann's Heat, David Kalat on Harry Langdon, Duncan Gray on Brad Bird's Tomorrowland—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 6/16/2015
- Keyframe
Produced fifty-six years ago, Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries remains a venerable warhorse in the hallowed halls of Arthouse. But unlike this reviewer, who shares a similar vintage, the film shows no loss of vitality or any sign of imminent creakiness. Despite its strengths, Wild Strawberries often gets a bit lost within the contrasty folds of Bergman’s legendary filmography. Sight and Sound’s vaunted list of The Greatest Films of All Time pegs Wild Strawberries at sixty-three; not exactly a diss but way far behind Persona. The film doesn’t even appear on Roger Ebert’s lengthy List of Great Movies, although the late critic partially compensated by including Bergman’s equally underrated Winter Light.
The inherent silliness of film ranking aside, Wild Strawberries is a stunning cinematic experience. Filled with mystical beauty and chewy philosophical constructs in a tidy, perfectly tailored ninety-two minute package, the film is a...
The inherent silliness of film ranking aside, Wild Strawberries is a stunning cinematic experience. Filled with mystical beauty and chewy philosophical constructs in a tidy, perfectly tailored ninety-two minute package, the film is a...
- 6/11/2013
- by David Anderson
- IONCINEMA.com
In a reprint of his 1958 review of Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika, Jean-Luc Godard wrote of the scene captured above (and previewed to the right) saying, "One must see Summer with Monika, if only for the extraordinary minutes when Harriet Andersson, about to sleep with a guy she has left once before, stares fixedly into the camera, her laughing eyes clouded with distress, and calls on the viewer to witness her self-loathing at involuntarily choosing hell over heaven. It is the saddest shot in the history of cinema." The full review is included in the 28-page booklet accompanying Criterion's new Blu-ray release of the film along with an essay by Laura Hubner (read it in full right here) whose interpretation of the shot reads as follows: The static shot of Monika's face is scandalously close up, and she looks steadfastly at us, breaking the cinematic illusion, as the screen darkens around her.
- 6/1/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
For many filmmakers, the art of crafting a feature film is a very singular act: Get in, get out, change up cast and crew for the next feature, repeat. But with each great filmmaker comes a great collaborator. Spielberg with John Williams, Lars von Trier with Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Kubrick with novels are just a few examples of how filmmaking is truly a team sport. However, there may be very few more successful and worthwhile collaborations than director Ingmar Bergman and his long time director of photography, Gunnar Fischer.
Read more on Blu-ray Review: Summer With Monika (The Criterion Collection)...
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Read more on Blu-ray Review: Summer With Monika (The Criterion Collection)...
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- 5/31/2012
- by Joshua Brunsting
- GordonandtheWhale
By Raymond Benson
The red carpet label Criterion Collection has continued its mining of classic foreign language films by releasing for the first time in the U.S. two pictures that first brought famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman some attention. Summer Interlude (1951) and Summer with Monika (1953) are both fairly commercial love stories but with a slightly dark flair which only Bergman can produce. Both films are highly erotic (especially Monika) for the time, and these titles contributed to the notion in America that Sweden made sexy movies.
In fact, Summer with Monika was first released in the U.S. as a sexploitation film in 1956 by the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest showman,” Kroger Babb, an exhibitor/producer who specialized in low budget sleaze thinly disguised as “educational material for adults.” Babb re-cut Summer with Monika, added a dubbed English language soundtrack that had little to do with Bergman’s original, laid on a jazzy,...
The red carpet label Criterion Collection has continued its mining of classic foreign language films by releasing for the first time in the U.S. two pictures that first brought famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman some attention. Summer Interlude (1951) and Summer with Monika (1953) are both fairly commercial love stories but with a slightly dark flair which only Bergman can produce. Both films are highly erotic (especially Monika) for the time, and these titles contributed to the notion in America that Sweden made sexy movies.
In fact, Summer with Monika was first released in the U.S. as a sexploitation film in 1956 by the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest showman,” Kroger Babb, an exhibitor/producer who specialized in low budget sleaze thinly disguised as “educational material for adults.” Babb re-cut Summer with Monika, added a dubbed English language soundtrack that had little to do with Bergman’s original, laid on a jazzy,...
- 5/30/2012
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Elizabeth Taylor, Farley Granger, Jane Russell, Peter Falk, Sidney Lumet: TCM Remembers 2011 Pt. 1
Also: child actor John Howard Davies (David Lean's Oliver Twist), Charles Chaplin discovery Marilyn Nash (Monsieur Verdoux), director and Oscar ceremony producer Gilbert Cates (Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, I Never Sang for My Father), veteran Japanese actress Hideko Takamine (House of Many Pleasures), Jeff Conaway of Grease and the television series Taxi, and Tura Satana of the cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
More: Neva Patterson, who loses Cary Grant to Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember; Ingmar Bergman cinematographer Gunnar Fischer (Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries); Marlon Brando's The Wild One leading lady Mary Murphy; and two actresses featured in controversial, epoch-making films: Lena Nyman, the star of the Swedish drama I Am Curious (Yellow), labeled as pornography by prudish American authorities back in the late '60s,...
Also: child actor John Howard Davies (David Lean's Oliver Twist), Charles Chaplin discovery Marilyn Nash (Monsieur Verdoux), director and Oscar ceremony producer Gilbert Cates (Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, I Never Sang for My Father), veteran Japanese actress Hideko Takamine (House of Many Pleasures), Jeff Conaway of Grease and the television series Taxi, and Tura Satana of the cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
More: Neva Patterson, who loses Cary Grant to Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember; Ingmar Bergman cinematographer Gunnar Fischer (Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries); Marlon Brando's The Wild One leading lady Mary Murphy; and two actresses featured in controversial, epoch-making films: Lena Nyman, the star of the Swedish drama I Am Curious (Yellow), labeled as pornography by prudish American authorities back in the late '60s,...
- 12/14/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Over the past week or so, I’ve had two significant preoccupations on my mind: first and foremost, the wedding this past Saturday of one of my sons, and second, Ingmar Bergman’s 1960 film The Virgin Spring, which I reviewed a few days ago on my Criterion Reflections blog. Kind of an odd juxtaposition, it turns out, with a very happy and celebratory event competing (and easily winning, in the big scheme of things) with a Bergman movie that’s as depressive as it is impressive on so many levels. So to continue with the Bergman theme, and perhaps to take a sobering look at the “for worse” commitments that accompany marriage vows, for this week’s installment of my Journey Through the Eclipse Series, I’ve chosen Thirst, another Bergman flick, shot ten years prior to The Virgin Spring. It’s from the set that started this whole Criterion subsidiary line,...
- 8/24/2011
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
From stage-door duties for the RSC, to the village famous for Straw Dogs, Observer writers reveal their idea of a perfect summer, past and present
● What are your tips for summer culture? Join the discussion
Kitty Empire
Pop critic
Let's be honest – the notion of summer as an extended golden period of rest and re-stimulation really now only applies to the young, the retired, or those in the teaching professions. The rest of us slog on, hoping to catch the odd festival (or maybe just gig in a park), marking time until camping in Cornwall or fly-drive to France, where finally luxuriating in the latest Alan Hollinghurst will come a distant second to stopping the youngest weeing in the hotel pool.
Once, though, I was artfully feckless too, making the rent by working as an usher for the Royal Shakespeare Company. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the...
● What are your tips for summer culture? Join the discussion
Kitty Empire
Pop critic
Let's be honest – the notion of summer as an extended golden period of rest and re-stimulation really now only applies to the young, the retired, or those in the teaching professions. The rest of us slog on, hoping to catch the odd festival (or maybe just gig in a park), marking time until camping in Cornwall or fly-drive to France, where finally luxuriating in the latest Alan Hollinghurst will come a distant second to stopping the youngest weeing in the hotel pool.
Once, though, I was artfully feckless too, making the rent by working as an usher for the Royal Shakespeare Company. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the...
- 8/1/2011
- by Kitty Empire, Mark Kermode, Rowan Moore, Philip French, Susannah Clapp, Laura Cumming, Luke Jennings, Fiona Maddocks, Rachel Cooke, Robert McCrum
- The Guardian - Film News
Lillian Gish in Victor Sjöström's The Scarlet Letter Considering that religious puritans (and their politically correct cohorts) continue to plague the world at the beginning of the third millennium, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter remains as relevant today as when it was first published in 1850. This evening, Turner Classic Movies is presenting MGM's 1926 film version of Hawthorne's story about sex, love, and the evils of religious fanaticism and social intolerance. It's a must. One of the best silent films I've ever seen, The Scarlet Letter has Prestige written all over it. However, unlike so many prestige motion pictures that turn out to be monumental bores, this Scarlet Letter offers on screen everything most prestige movies only offer in their marketing campaigns: sensitive direction by Swedish import Victor Sjöström (aka Victor Seastrom); flawless characterizations by Lillian Gish (as Hester Prynne) and another Swedish import, Lars Hanson; a concise adaptation...
- 6/27/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
This is the podcast dedicated to the Criterion Collection. Ryan Gallagher, James McCormick, and Travis George are joined by West Anthony to discuss Criterion News & Rumors and Criterion New Releases, they also analyze, discuss & highlight Criterion # 319 Akira Kurosawa’s 1960 film, The Bad Sleep Well.
What do you think of the show? Send your feedback to CriterionCast@gmail.com or call their voicemail line @ 209-877-7335 or follow them on twitter @CriterionCast or comment on their blog, http://CriterionCast.com.
Thank you for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and please leave your reviews in their iTunes feed.
Our next episode they will highlight and discuss Criterion # 404 Byron Haskin’s 1964 film, Robinson Crusoe On Mars.
Add It To Your Netflix Queue.
Show Notes:
News Discussed
Gunnar Fischer Passes Away
Krzysztof Kieślowski Three Colors Trilogy
Hulu / Criterion additions
Expiring Criterion titles on Netflix
Barnes And Noble / Criterion sale
Steven...
What do you think of the show? Send your feedback to CriterionCast@gmail.com or call their voicemail line @ 209-877-7335 or follow them on twitter @CriterionCast or comment on their blog, http://CriterionCast.com.
Thank you for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and please leave your reviews in their iTunes feed.
Our next episode they will highlight and discuss Criterion # 404 Byron Haskin’s 1964 film, Robinson Crusoe On Mars.
Add It To Your Netflix Queue.
Show Notes:
News Discussed
Gunnar Fischer Passes Away
Krzysztof Kieślowski Three Colors Trilogy
Hulu / Criterion additions
Expiring Criterion titles on Netflix
Barnes And Noble / Criterion sale
Steven...
- 6/22/2011
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Cinematographer who brought a sensuous style to 12 of Ingmar Bergman's films
The Swedish cinematographer Gunnar Fischer, who has died aged 100, could be said to have created the "look" of Ingmar Bergman's films, crystallised in three of the director's masterpieces: Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries (both 1957). From Port of Call (1948) to The Devil's Eye (1960), 12 films in all, Fischer was able to make visible Bergman's visions.
He was born in Ljungby, in southern Sweden. After spending three years in the Swedish navy as a chef, he attended the Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm, where he studied with the celebrated decorative artist Otte Sköld. He had an apprenticeship in cinematography at Svensk Filmindustri (Sf), the country's leading production company. His mentor there was the cinematographer Julius Jaenzon, who worked with the two great masters of Swedish silent cinema, Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller. This...
The Swedish cinematographer Gunnar Fischer, who has died aged 100, could be said to have created the "look" of Ingmar Bergman's films, crystallised in three of the director's masterpieces: Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries (both 1957). From Port of Call (1948) to The Devil's Eye (1960), 12 films in all, Fischer was able to make visible Bergman's visions.
He was born in Ljungby, in southern Sweden. After spending three years in the Swedish navy as a chef, he attended the Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm, where he studied with the celebrated decorative artist Otte Sköld. He had an apprenticeship in cinematography at Svensk Filmindustri (Sf), the country's leading production company. His mentor there was the cinematographer Julius Jaenzon, who worked with the two great masters of Swedish silent cinema, Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller. This...
- 6/14/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Updated.
"Gunnar Fischer, a cinematographer whose use of stark lighting and sharp focus lent mood and psychological depth to a dozen of Ingmar Bergman's early films, including The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, died on Saturday in Stockholm," reports William Grimes for the New York Times. "He was 100."
"He is widely recognized as the first cinematographer to capture with unparalleled beauty the cruelty, sensuality and selfishness that often collided in the same scene among Bergman's anguished characters." Adam Bernstein: "Fischer's great skill was in monochrome,' or black and white, film historian and Bergman scholar Peter Cowie told The Washington Post in 2008. 'He gave Bergman's films that unique expressionistic look, with their brilliant contrasts in every gradation of black and white.' He translated Bergman's themes of emotional isolation, sexual anguish and fear of death into unforgettable images: cold Scandinavian sunlight sparkling off water in Summer Interlude (1951) and...
"Gunnar Fischer, a cinematographer whose use of stark lighting and sharp focus lent mood and psychological depth to a dozen of Ingmar Bergman's early films, including The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, died on Saturday in Stockholm," reports William Grimes for the New York Times. "He was 100."
"He is widely recognized as the first cinematographer to capture with unparalleled beauty the cruelty, sensuality and selfishness that often collided in the same scene among Bergman's anguished characters." Adam Bernstein: "Fischer's great skill was in monochrome,' or black and white, film historian and Bergman scholar Peter Cowie told The Washington Post in 2008. 'He gave Bergman's films that unique expressionistic look, with their brilliant contrasts in every gradation of black and white.' He translated Bergman's themes of emotional isolation, sexual anguish and fear of death into unforgettable images: cold Scandinavian sunlight sparkling off water in Summer Interlude (1951) and...
- 6/14/2011
- MUBI
Sad news tonight folks. Longtime Ingmar Bergman collaborator, Gunnar Fischer, has passed away earlier today at the ripe old age of 100. I just saw the Masters Of Cinema twitter feed posting a link to this Swedish web site (HD.se), announcing that he had died earlier today in Sweden.
From the translated story:
Gunnar Fischer out of time
The photographer and film director Gunnar Fischer died on Saturday, 100 years old.
Stockholm. He worked closely with Ingmar Bergman in the 50′s in classic films such as Summer with Monika, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and The Magician.
- He passed away in the afternoon. This fall, he would have turned 101 years, says his son and cinematographer Jens Fischer said.
Gunnar Fischer was employed by the Swedish Film Industry 1935-1970 and the 1970-75 Svt.
Fischer‘s cinematography is well represented in the Criterion Collection. You can find him working with Bergman early...
From the translated story:
Gunnar Fischer out of time
The photographer and film director Gunnar Fischer died on Saturday, 100 years old.
Stockholm. He worked closely with Ingmar Bergman in the 50′s in classic films such as Summer with Monika, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and The Magician.
- He passed away in the afternoon. This fall, he would have turned 101 years, says his son and cinematographer Jens Fischer said.
Gunnar Fischer was employed by the Swedish Film Industry 1935-1970 and the 1970-75 Svt.
Fischer‘s cinematography is well represented in the Criterion Collection. You can find him working with Bergman early...
- 6/12/2011
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
As most readers of this site have probably heard by now, the late and great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman unexpectedly stirred up chatter on the web when doubts were cast on the circumstances of his birth. Recently released DNA tests apparently show that he was given birth by Hedvig Sjöberg, a different woman than the mother who raised him, Karin Bergman, about whom her son Ingmar has written extensively and who served as a major source of inspiration for the films he made over the course of a lifetime. This article is the most extensive (and presumably fact-based) summary of the controversy, and my purpose here is not to engage in any extended speculation or gossip about what the allegations mean or how it changes our assessment of Bergman’s work.
But given the significance of Bergman’s childhood and family life as it directly informed some of his most important films,...
But given the significance of Bergman’s childhood and family life as it directly informed some of his most important films,...
- 5/30/2011
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
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By Raymond Benson
Once again The Criterion Collection digs into master director Ingmar Bergman’s vault and brings us his exquisite, enigmatic film from 1958, The Magician (originally titled The Face in the UK; in fact, the Swedish title, Ansiktet, means “Face”).
Set sometime in the 1800s, the story concerns a traveling magic and medicine show called “Vogler’s Magnetic Health Theater.” The troupe consists of Vogler (Max von Sydow), the mute magician of the picture’s title, his “ward,” Mr. Aman (Ingrid Thulin in disguise, although it’s no surprise that the character is a woman), Tubal (Ake Fridell), who acts as manager/spokesman, and the inscrutable Granny (Naima Wifstrand), an old witch who dabbles in love potions. Picked up along the road is an alcoholic actor, Spegel (Bengt Ekerot, who was memorable as Death in The Seventh Seal).
Before the company...
By Raymond Benson
Once again The Criterion Collection digs into master director Ingmar Bergman’s vault and brings us his exquisite, enigmatic film from 1958, The Magician (originally titled The Face in the UK; in fact, the Swedish title, Ansiktet, means “Face”).
Set sometime in the 1800s, the story concerns a traveling magic and medicine show called “Vogler’s Magnetic Health Theater.” The troupe consists of Vogler (Max von Sydow), the mute magician of the picture’s title, his “ward,” Mr. Aman (Ingrid Thulin in disguise, although it’s no surprise that the character is a woman), Tubal (Ake Fridell), who acts as manager/spokesman, and the inscrutable Granny (Naima Wifstrand), an old witch who dabbles in love potions. Picked up along the road is an alcoholic actor, Spegel (Bengt Ekerot, who was memorable as Death in The Seventh Seal).
Before the company...
- 10/19/2010
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Writer/Director: Ingmar Bergman
Cinematographer: Gunnar Fischer
Starring: Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Bengt Ekerot, Gunnar Björnstrand
Studio/Run Time: Svensk Filmindustri, 96 mins.
Knight plays chess with Death; Woody Allen, Conan, Bill & Ted take notes
It’s fitting that for Criterion’s sterling new edition of The Seventh Seal—a pillar of world cinema ever since its release in 1957—the troubled brow of Antonious Block (a role that made Max von Sydow into a star) graces the cover, rather than the portentous silhouette of Death (Ekerot). Long-standing comedic shorthand for art-house existential seriousness (see Monty Python, Conan anniversary shows or Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, etc.), the emphasis shifts back to the haggard solitary figure of Block and his mortal question: what is the meaning of life? Amid black plagues, witch hunts, passion plays and bawdy songs, the knight (and Bergman himself) digs deep into such dark ages and finds a kernel of affirmation.
Cinematographer: Gunnar Fischer
Starring: Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Bengt Ekerot, Gunnar Björnstrand
Studio/Run Time: Svensk Filmindustri, 96 mins.
Knight plays chess with Death; Woody Allen, Conan, Bill & Ted take notes
It’s fitting that for Criterion’s sterling new edition of The Seventh Seal—a pillar of world cinema ever since its release in 1957—the troubled brow of Antonious Block (a role that made Max von Sydow into a star) graces the cover, rather than the portentous silhouette of Death (Ekerot). Long-standing comedic shorthand for art-house existential seriousness (see Monty Python, Conan anniversary shows or Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, etc.), the emphasis shifts back to the haggard solitary figure of Block and his mortal question: what is the meaning of life? Amid black plagues, witch hunts, passion plays and bawdy songs, the knight (and Bergman himself) digs deep into such dark ages and finds a kernel of affirmation.
- 6/16/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
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