European Cinema

Class Minutes for March 31, 2004

Patrick McFall

A) The main focus of this class period revolved around our discussion of the film Through a Glass Darkly by Ingmar Bergman.  To begin the discussion of the film, it was important to decide what qualities were Bergman-esque.  When seeing his movies you know you are going to see these certain characteristics:

·        Themes about God, positive or negative

·        Psychological References/Character searching

·        Bleak and Stark, often cold

·        Shakespearean themes,  play within a movie that will exist to help characters or help set up particular stories

·        Profound, deep, and probing questions

B) There are distinct differences between the films that came out of Northern and Southern Europe.  Southern Europe Literature revolves around fun loving, impressionistic stories like Don Juan.  Northern Europe on the other hand produced themes of philosophical questioning, and bringing these about through bleak and stark imagery.  (i.e. Faust: the seeker/the questioner)

C) The Style of Through a Glass Darkly: There are long pauses and the camera takes its time through the movie with not much dialogue or movement.  This is what made the Mise-en-scene so important.  There were drastic contrasts between the long shots and close shots to probe within the main characters.  Bergman films are never totally clear, but one can draw their own conclusions.  The religious questions in this film can be praised or denounced.  The Bible verse at the beginning of the film is from Corinthians, and proclaims that the most important thing is love. 

Themes:

ü      Religion

ü      Loneliness

ü      Family’s ability to cope with illness and relationships

ü      Search for Happiness

ü      Hope

ü      Selfishness (could be based on Bergman’s relationship with his father)

ü      Acceptance

ü      Theater, play within a play which is one of the only times that we witness true happiness among our main characters

D) Mise-en-scene:

Ø      Window pane divides son and father

Ø      Plainness of room heightens Kari’s emptiness and insanity

Ø      Isolationism al throughout the film, isolated on island,  on the boat,  father’s room

Ø      Final breakdown takes place on wrecked ship

E) Characters: Questions of incest?  The children becomes closer through father’s neglect, both children are also frustrated and confused. The father is depressive because he has no one.  He wants to be a great writer but he is just a hack.  The relationship between Martin and Karin is interesting because there is a 15 year gap in there ages and Karin sees him as a father figure.  Minus is a very confused character, and criticizes his father in his play.

F) Tone of the Films Ending:

-Some believed that hope and love existed and that God is present and will help. 

-The realistic portrayal keeps the audience into it

Then we read the screenplay for the film that presented a different ending from what was filmed.  We determined that Bergman changed the openness described in the screenplay because the original ending would have taken away from the isolationism that he film truly was trying to display. 

            G) Other Bergman Films:

The Seventh Seal (1957) 

            Takes place in Mid evil times.  A knight is met by Death as he was returning from the Crusades.  The main question of the film is Where is God?  The scene we watched from the film showed very similar characteristics of Glass Darkly, such as aspects of the theater as the players put on a show for the village,  and then the theme of religion comes through in a major fashion as a huge procession comes through the village to warn and protect them from the plague. 

The Virgin Spring (1959-1960)

            The scene we watched was about the recognition of our main character that the three men he has been harboring at his home are actually the same ones that raped and murdered his daughter.  He kills each of them and then asks for forgiveness from God for his wrath.  He is later forgiven.