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Nykvist. David s final assertion to his son that God is love, love
in all its forms, seems a lame excuse for the betrayal he has
committed, and one cannot help feeling that Bergman will take his
revenge in his next film.
The editing of Through a Glass Darkly occupied more than
two months. The film was cut by Ulla Ryghe, who had learned the
rudiments of film editing at Europa Film but who was still, by her
own admission, inexperienced. She worked late almost every
night to correct her mistakes. Bergman arrived at the editing room
around 9 A.M. We started by looking at the reels that I had
worked on the previous day, Ulla told me, and then screened
some new reels all this in one of the cinemas. Then we
examined the new reels at the editing table, and Bergman told me
how he wanted them to be cut. Then he left and I had the rest of
the day to do the work. [& ] One of the very important things
Bergman taught me was first of all to edit a movie as it had been
planned and shot. If you do that, then you have a structure, you
have discovered the backbone of the film.
In early 1961, a crisis developed at Svensk Filmindustri.
Carl Anders Dymling, for twenty years the head of the company,
fell mortally ill with cancer. There was confusion, and no heir
apparent. Bergman joined some senior members of the company
in a kind of interregnum. Soon, Bergman recommended the actor,
producer, and director Kenne Fant as Dymling s successor, and
established a cordial relationship with him. Bergman remained a
portal figure at SF and an artistic advisor in effect, just as Victor
Sjöström had been during the forties.
Bergman s room at the studios in Råsunda stood on the
ground floor of the main building, its window facing the famous
entrance gate. A visitor described it as furnished with impeccable
Swedish good taste. A soft grey rug on the floor, a small divan
covered with a moss green and grey blanket, a comfortable cane
chair and, alas, three telephones [& ] But on the walls, photos of
only two people: Chaplin, in stills from several of his silent films.
And a solitary, large photo of his guru, Victor Sjöström. (3)
Käbi Laretei recalls that, before their marriage, Bergman had
never taken a vacation in the orthodox sense of the term. They
rented a house at the seaside, at a small place called Torö.
Bergman loved the barren, stunted shoreline and the denuded
landscape, an early harbinger of his devotion to Fårö. During the
Easter break, Bergman had listened to Stravinsky s Symphony of
Psalms on the radio and conceived a film concerned somehow
with a solitary church on the plains of Uppland. (4).
Various impulses combined to animate the screenplay of
Winter Light (Nattvardsgästerna). A few weeks after Ingmar and
Käbi had been married in Dalarna, they returned to the church in
Boda to see the parson. There they learned that a small girl s
father had committed suicide, in spite of the parson s efforts to
cheer him. The death of Jonas Persson in Winter Light derives
from this incident. The primary source of the film, however,
stemmed from Bergman s notion of a parson who shuts himself up
in his church, and says to God: I m going to wait here until you
reveal yourself. Take all the time you want. I still won t leave
here until you have revealed yourself. So the parson waits, day
after day, week after week. (5)
The obsession with eczema, described in the film by Märta
(Ingrid Thulin), sprang from Bergman s second marriage. Ellen
Lundström suffered from allergic eczema. (6)
By early October 1961, P.A. Lundgren had reconstructed the
interior of Torsång Church in the studios at Råsunda. But much of
the shooting was done on location in Dalarna. Bergman found it
extremely demanding, and [it] dragged on for fifty-six days. It
was one of the longest schedules I ve had, and one of the shortest
films I ve ever made. (7)
Winter Light takes place between noon and 3 P.M. on a
Sunday in winter. Everything about the film is reduced, distilled.
Only five worshippers kneel at the altar rail as Pastor Tomas
Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand) dispenses the communion.
Bergman makes no concessions to those viewers who might be
unfamiliar with Christian ritual. The camera fastens in close-up on
the iconography of the church: the chalice, the wafers, the head of
Christ on the wooden crucifix, the hand pierced the wooden nail.
Only the organist, checking his watch to see how much longer the
service will drag on, brings a note of levity to the proceedings.
Tomas is confronted by two unexpected developments: his
responsibility for the life of one of his parishioners, Jonas Persson
(Max von Sydow); and the arrival of a letter from his former
mistress, Märta Lundberg (Ingrid Thulin). The confluence of
these pressures compels Tomas to reconsider his life and his faith.
As Jörn Donner has written apropos of Bergman, It is not in the
search for meaning that life is decided, but in the choice of action.
(8)
Persson believes that the Chinese, having developed a
nuclear bomb, will destroy the world. The fisherman is taciturn
and refuses to let the pastor talk him out of his depression. Soon
afterwards he commits suicide.
The boldest experiment in the film is the reading of a letter
from Märta to Tomas, which sweeps away the pastor s illusions
about himself. Ingrid Thulin recites the letter, facing the camera in
close-up, for over six minutes, with only one inter-cut shot of her
tearing off her bandages in church, revealing her eczema. The
letter scene epitomises the austerity of Winter Light. I made this
film because I really wanted to, and I made it with no concessions
to the public, said Bergman. I know it s a difficult film, but I
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