For some reason, when I heard the term "early Bergman," I envisioned 'Music in Darkness (1948)' to be a rather primitive piece of film-making. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised, instead finding the film to be beautifully photographed by cinematographer Göran Strindberg, with all the refreshing themes and visuals we've come to expect from Sweden's master director. Bergman's fourth as director, the film is a fairly straightforward melodrama, dealing with a young man's attempts to accept a ne...
But it's not one of his best. The characterizations of the film's protagonists are inconsistent from scene to scene and some of them leave a viewer with many unanswered questions (like the mother's motivations.) Beyond that, the cinematography is pretty dowdy, particularly the exterior footage.
Still, it has elements that Bergman fans will recognize from his more famous films, and it contains sequences of despair and anguish that can haunt a viewer days later. Birger Malmsten, who plays the lea...
This is a romantic and exciting feel-good movie about a lovable naive couple with a questionable background, trying to start all over together and adapt themselves to the society. The young star director Ingmar Bergman here effectively portrays typically good and bad sides of the human behaviour. The main theme returns over and over again - how do people live with their past, and how do they handle the resulting conflicts and moral dilemmas? Despite the age of this movie (released in 1946) it do...
Kris/ / Ingmar Bergman
Bergman's adaptation of Leck Fischer's play behaves like a stage play that has been slightly adapted for the screen. It is essentially a chamber melodrama and it makes little use of the cinema's expanded scope. The film is watchable and the cast is competent. Almost everything about it is competent. It was Bergman's first go at directing a film. He was 27/28 years old at the time.
Bergman is clearly influenced by Ibsen - I say "is", because the old master (nearly 85 years old now) is still at i...
Rosselini shot 'Roma Città Aperta' in the open streets post-war. His film-making resources were limited, as is apparent in the film, since he uses natural lighting, non-professional actors and a delicate sound system) but it only gives the film a stark and more authentic look making the atmosphere more terrifying and a the experience more real. Most of the 'props' and 'sets' and even many of the Nazi soldiers were real. Unlike many historical films, this one does right by the historical facts (e...
Just when you thought that the cinema form had lost its capacity to carry an important social message without the use of artsy-fartsy rethoric, there comes "Paisà"; a masterpiece for the ages. Rosselini is a name that must be spoken of in all schools and universities of the world. His ability (combined to a perfect script) to convey emotional meaning in film with the use of non-professional actors, natural locations, and still be able to make it VIBRANT and EXCITING... it´s uncanny. The power of...
故事发生在13世纪，一个传教士来到了一个野蛮未开化的地方，他将基督的福音和训诫传递给当地的人们，从而改变了他们的思想和生活，最后弗朗西斯和修道士继续上路，传播福音。影片根据意大利阿西斯镇上一个圣芳济修道院的壁画改编，它以11个片断表现了弗朗西斯传道的故事，这部在当时商业上惨败的电影在半个世纪后却成为经典，他在银幕上第一次提出了非暴力的精神，那个去感化野蛮人的教士是令人感动的。《圣弗朗西斯的花束The Flowers of St. Francis》是值得一看的，当野蛮人都可以教化的时候，我们的时代有必要回到狼群吗？可是，我们的...
In approaching any film of Fellini's, it is important not to clump his style in the same field of other European 'arthouse' filmmakers such as Bergman, Godard, Antonioni or even Tarkovsky.
From what I understand after viewing a few of his films [namely 'La Strada', 'La Dolce Vita', 'Nights of Cabiria' and now 'Variety Lights'] Fellini draws deceptively simple metaphors and contexts from banal characters often at times, for instance Quinn as the strongman in "La Strada" who exploits the resource...
Having seen most of Federico Fellini's movies, any viewer who not only watches the films but experiences the cinema may draw the conclusion that the director changed his style over the years. In other words, he turned to be more "skeptical" more "knowledgeable" and more "dreamlike." To realize that, we have to consider his earliest films - his honeymoon period - for clearer understanding of the change. The movie that resembles Fellini's freshness most is LO SCEICCO BIANCO. Here, it is hardly the...
Enjoyed this Foreign film produced by Federico Fellini film depicting a group of men who really do not like to work and manage to live off their families and love to drink, party and love women. There is a nice young couple who love each other, however, this woman becomes pregnant and creates a difficulty between the couple and even though he loves his wife he is always hitting on other women for romance. This story goes into great detail about each of these vagabond men who never seem to advanc...
Italy. Zampano is the only member of a circus act traveling across the country and performing for street charity. One day he buys a new member for his act, Gelsomina, a young and slightly retarded innocent woman. Traveling around the country and performing acts - Zampano is breaking the chains from his chest while Gelsomina is entertaining the audience dressed as a clown - the two of them come closer...
"The Road", winner of an Oscar for best foreign language film, is a real full blood masterpi...
What a sad film. Broderick Crawford heads a small band of con men but is getting too old and pathetic for the game. He is brilliant in the role and we barely sympathise with him once as he gradually fades away. The men are wretched to their women. There is a woman in the front car seat who gets thrust into the windscreen to accommodate a hoodlum getting or out behind her and another forced to strip by a bunch of guys at a party. The only moments where any sort of humanity show through is when Cr...
Gorgeous early Fellini, often considered the mid-point in his career, between the more obviously reflective, supposedly realistic early work, and the bleak extravaganzas that followed. But Fellini was never a neo-realist in the dull way Rossellini was: his use of landscape was always heavily symbolic or subjective. Here Cabiria lives in the middle of a bleak wasteland, which perhaps serves to figure the emptiness of her life, the sterility of life for women in macho Italy, or a comment on post-f...
It left me in silence for at least half of an hour after watching it. It's simply incredible. No other movie has kept so glued on the screen (consider that this one is 3 hours long!). It seems like you're watching the matter of your dreams, especially in the world wide famous scene at the Fontana di Trevi and in the amazing final scene (again, the best final ever). I don't know what else to say, for there's no word to describe this astonishing vision. I don't understand the people who don't like...
Deeply personal and engaging, Fellini's story has an authenticity
to it that is very unique. As we marvel at the method actors and old
American films of the 50's & 60's, it is in the foreign films during
this era where the most impressive and innovative work was
being created (8 1/2 tops that list). I find films with stage-like acting, blatant morality, and little bits of
exciting action (like the American cinema of the 50's and 60's) to
be uncompelling. Personal stories are compelling. Pe...
