Ingmar Bergman died this week. It seems cliche to comment on the bleak, depressing side of his films. Hey, I moved to Sweden in January one year, so I understand something of Swedish winters and all the dark metaphors they entail. I discovered Bergman in a powerful way in 1978, repeatedly viewing The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), Persona (1966) and Cries & Whispers (1973). The impact of these films was profound substantively and emotionally, but I have hardly viewed them again. I often wonder why.
Bergman's personal life aside, what's not to respect about a man who forced us to confront the most difficult issues of our time - life and death, normality and insanity, right and wrong? What's not to love about a man who nurtured true cinema stars such as Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman in whose shadows the likes of Lindsay Lohan could not even comprehend let alone stand? One can also see Bergman's profound influence in filmmakers as diverse as Krzysztof Kieślowski, one of my favorites, or even Woody Allen.
It is remarkable that the great Michelangelo Antonioni passed away this week, too. Like Bergman's, Antonioni's work established a mid-century film aesthetic that lingers to this day in great films. His L'avventura (1960) is best known, of course, but his follow-on film La Notte (1961) is wonderful, too. Most folks might also recall Blow-Up (1966) with its photography theme.
Great filmmakers know how to tell a story, even a physically torturous one, without the need to depict every agonizing moment of the actual torture. The problem with some filmmakers today is that they feel the need to convey all the horror of, say, a political torture to make the most accurate point and convey the most powerful message. In my thinking, a little torture goes a long way. We get it, OK? I was excited by the prospect of Milos Foreman's new film, Goya's Ghost, only to find that so much of it focuses on dreadful torture scenes that were endemic to the Spanish Inquisition. Goya is an artistic favorite of mine for his realism that bordered on photojournalism long before the invention of photography. I generally don't let reviews color my willingness to see a film, but the feedback on this film is simply tortuous.
Werner Herzog's new film Rescue Dawn provides plenty of opportunity for on- camera barbarism. It is the story of the escape of Dieter Dengler from a Laotian POW camp during the Vietnam War. Herzog told Terry Gross recently that he filmed all the requisite, flesh-crawling torture scenes and then dumped most of them in post-production. He said that a little went a long way and that he finally realized he didn't need to be so obviously brutal to make a brutal point. After all, many of us try to avoid torture fests, so if the idea is to make a political point it would be useful to get our fannies in the seats, right?
Bergman's personal life aside, what's not to respect about a man who forced us to confront the most difficult issues of our time - life and death, normality and insanity, right and wrong? What's not to love about a man who nurtured true cinema stars such as Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman in whose shadows the likes of Lindsay Lohan could not even comprehend let alone stand? One can also see Bergman's profound influence in filmmakers as diverse as Krzysztof Kieślowski, one of my favorites, or even Woody Allen.
It is remarkable that the great Michelangelo Antonioni passed away this week, too. Like Bergman's, Antonioni's work established a mid-century film aesthetic that lingers to this day in great films. His L'avventura (1960) is best known, of course, but his follow-on film La Notte (1961) is wonderful, too. Most folks might also recall Blow-Up (1966) with its photography theme.
Great filmmakers know how to tell a story, even a physically torturous one, without the need to depict every agonizing moment of the actual torture. The problem with some filmmakers today is that they feel the need to convey all the horror of, say, a political torture to make the most accurate point and convey the most powerful message. In my thinking, a little torture goes a long way. We get it, OK? I was excited by the prospect of Milos Foreman's new film, Goya's Ghost, only to find that so much of it focuses on dreadful torture scenes that were endemic to the Spanish Inquisition. Goya is an artistic favorite of mine for his realism that bordered on photojournalism long before the invention of photography. I generally don't let reviews color my willingness to see a film, but the feedback on this film is simply tortuous.
Werner Herzog's new film Rescue Dawn provides plenty of opportunity for on- camera barbarism. It is the story of the escape of Dieter Dengler from a Laotian POW camp during the Vietnam War. Herzog told Terry Gross recently that he filmed all the requisite, flesh-crawling torture scenes and then dumped most of them in post-production. He said that a little went a long way and that he finally realized he didn't need to be so obviously brutal to make a brutal point. After all, many of us try to avoid torture fests, so if the idea is to make a political point it would be useful to get our fannies in the seats, right?