First, let me state the relativity of aesthetics. For example, Citizen Kane, once considered the greatest film ever made, was called "boring" by none other hand Ingmar Bergman.
As the saying goes, you can't argue taste. I may be one of the few people not impressed by Bergman's films. There seems to be almost a formula that one can predict in many of this films, especially the "soul-searching" scenes.
A characteristic example is the scene in Wild Strawberries when the old man picks up a married couple and they predictably claw at each other until the wife breaks the husband's glasses when she slaps him.
I could almost predict the violent vicissitudes in Scenes from a Marriage. The trick is, a scene begins in a very calm manner and gradually the emotions are reversed and the couple becomes violent.
The second scene in the film, with the great Bibi Anderssen, is an example of this. The scene where the husband of Liv Ullmann turns violent and beats her is another example.
Back and forth, calm and violence. These scenes are supposed to be "searing" exposes of the mind but they seem so contrived to this viewer and almost mechanically plotted.
It reminds me of a comment that then music critic, George Bernard Shaw made about Brahms' Requiem. If I recall this words, a pedal point is supposed to make us think that something musically profound is being expressed. Shaw meant that in a dismissive way.
I've always felt the same way about many of B's films and one sees the same style in many of Woody Allen's movies. Since the couple go at each other we assume this a profound revelation of the human condition, but (to me at least) it seems predictably plotted.
At times it becomes comical to time it, as if by a stopwatch, for when the emotional explosion will come, and when we least expect it.
Perhaps I am in the minority but I find more psychological depth in a Hollywood noir of the 1940s than in a Bergman movie.
The scene in a film noir movie, where the protagonist impulsively shoots a man in the back from a profit/romance motive seems more emotionally powerful and impactful than the scenes in this Bergman film. (I don't mention the film's name or actor since that may be a "spoiler" for those who plan to see the film.)
But clearly I must be in the minority. But the minority lovers of Rio Bravo when the film first came out are no win the majority. Movies that Americans considered "prestige movies" based on famous or classic novels, are later dismissed as routine journeyman film by the French and American auteur critics, while films relegated to mere entertainment status, such as Vertigo are then canonized as masterpieces of the cinema. If critics are not willing to stick their necks out, aesthetics would be doomed to stand still.
I should also question the general principle whether marriage can ever be the subject of great art, since it's such a pedestrian institution. I mean the love itself, not issues related to a marriage, such as in the great plays of Ibsen.
Having said, this, the film does offer great tour de force performances, especially by Liv Ullmann and my Bergman favorite, Bibi Andersson.
As the saying goes, you can't argue taste. I may be one of the few people not impressed by Bergman's films. There seems to be almost a formula that one can predict in many of this films, especially the "soul-searching" scenes.
A characteristic example is the scene in Wild Strawberries when the old man picks up a married couple and they predictably claw at each other until the wife breaks the husband's glasses when she slaps him.
I could almost predict the violent vicissitudes in Scenes from a Marriage. The trick is, a scene begins in a very calm manner and gradually the emotions are reversed and the couple becomes violent.
The second scene in the film, with the great Bibi Anderssen, is an example of this. The scene where the husband of Liv Ullmann turns violent and beats her is another example.
Back and forth, calm and violence. These scenes are supposed to be "searing" exposes of the mind but they seem so contrived to this viewer and almost mechanically plotted.
It reminds me of a comment that then music critic, George Bernard Shaw made about Brahms' Requiem. If I recall this words, a pedal point is supposed to make us think that something musically profound is being expressed. Shaw meant that in a dismissive way.
I've always felt the same way about many of B's films and one sees the same style in many of Woody Allen's movies. Since the couple go at each other we assume this a profound revelation of the human condition, but (to me at least) it seems predictably plotted.
At times it becomes comical to time it, as if by a stopwatch, for when the emotional explosion will come, and when we least expect it.
Perhaps I am in the minority but I find more psychological depth in a Hollywood noir of the 1940s than in a Bergman movie.
The scene in a film noir movie, where the protagonist impulsively shoots a man in the back from a profit/romance motive seems more emotionally powerful and impactful than the scenes in this Bergman film. (I don't mention the film's name or actor since that may be a "spoiler" for those who plan to see the film.)
But clearly I must be in the minority. But the minority lovers of Rio Bravo when the film first came out are no win the majority. Movies that Americans considered "prestige movies" based on famous or classic novels, are later dismissed as routine journeyman film by the French and American auteur critics, while films relegated to mere entertainment status, such as Vertigo are then canonized as masterpieces of the cinema. If critics are not willing to stick their necks out, aesthetics would be doomed to stand still.
I should also question the general principle whether marriage can ever be the subject of great art, since it's such a pedestrian institution. I mean the love itself, not issues related to a marriage, such as in the great plays of Ibsen.
Having said, this, the film does offer great tour de force performances, especially by Liv Ullmann and my Bergman favorite, Bibi Andersson.