This DVD set includes both versions of Ingmar Bergman's minimalist epic SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE; the 3 hours cut for theatrical release, and the original 6 episodes (Mr.Bergman calls them "scenes") over 5 hours-TV series, in a beautifully restored High-Def master.
The film was shot in 16mm which is grainier than a 35mm film, and this High-Def transfer even represents the peculiar material textuality of the grain structure of a photographic film stock. Some DVD aficionados might object to this un-digital look, but that actually makes the film more soft, warm, and human. It actually looks better than 35mm release prints of the 3 hours version.
I first started to watch the TV series around midnight, thinking maybe I will watch just the first episode and go to bed, and would continue to watch one episode every night. What happened? I kept watching until 5 in the morning, and was so excited I didn't feel like going to bed so also watched the supplements. The next evening I watched the 3 hours theatrical cut, finishing it with a burning desire of going back to the TV series.
With the consistent strength of his works, as well as his high reputation lasting for the last fifty years, it is hard to realize that Ingmar Bergman is actually a very flexible filmmaker, whose career is marked with constant transformations of style and subject matter. But comparing his greatest films such as SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, MONIKA, THE SEVENTH SEAL, THE SILENCE, PERSONA, CRIES AND WHISPERS, AUTUMN SONATA and FANNY AND ALEXANDER, one should be surprised with the wide variety of his dramatic body of works which is constantly renewing itself.
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE is a radical film.
With Drier's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and Roberto Rossellini's VOYAGE IN ITALY, it is probably the most radically purest adventure in film history: What is the essence of cinema after all? These films seems to be saying, "it's the actors and their faces".
There are several key films among Bergman's works that mark drastic transformations of the filmmaker, and SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE probably represents the most important one. It is also, while being the most popular work in his career (legends say that during its original TV broadcast, the streets were deserted in Scandinavian cities), it is also the most radical example of Bergman's creative challenges as well as the purest example of his fundamental attitude towards filmmaking: his abstinent concentration in observing how human emotions express themselves. The most important element in a Berman film is always the actors; their body and especially their faces.
In most parts you only see the two actors: Erland Josephson and Liv Ulman. Because it was a very low budget project originally made for television, there's nothing spectacular or photogenic in the modest production design which is kept in a minimalist simplicity. It was modestly shot in 16mm 1:1.33 aspect ratio, with a deliberately muted color palette. These are ordinary people living surrounded with un-extraordinary interiors and wearing every-day clothes, like most of us.
The story that spans over ten years has no apparent plot point except maybe Johan the husband (Josephson) confessing to Marianne (Ulman) that he was having an affair: still a banal one comparing to most ex-marital affairs in movies that usually develops into fits of jalousie, murder, and so on. Marianne simply becomes devastated, as most wives probably would do. The most "dramatic" thing she does is...screaming on the phone.
But that minimalistic modesty doesn't prevent SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE from being extremely intriguing, exciting, sometimes funny, and keeping the audience's emotion and interest always closely hooked. The simple visual design opens the door to appreciate the subtle yet profound emotional human expressions that we probably won't realize if it were in a superficially dramatic settings. You just cannot stop watching it, being constantly amazed with the wide variety of faces Ulman and Josephson transforms themselves into, and gripped with the depth of feelings that they express through that.
This film has an almost hypnotic effect. From the first episode you start living with Johan and Marianne.
Perhaps if you are a man you'd start identifying with Johan and his suffocating feelings after 10 years of seemingly happy marriage with his seemingly perfect wife--as I did myself. Then you will be surprised at, after the divorce, the transformation of Marianne becoming more and more alive and attractive. At certain point you'll feel miserable with him. If you were a woman you'll start seeing their story from Marianne's point of view.
But the film itself never takes side. If the audience will see it from Johan's point of view, they will eventually have to recognize his failures and defaults and limitations. If the audience will see it identifying themselves to Marianne, they will have to see how stuck she is, trapped in her own ideas.
Nevertheless, it is not a depressing pessimistic film like Berman's pre 1970's films. Once you truly accept that nobody is perfect, the last episode will reveal that this minimalistic epic of a married life is actually Bergman's celebration on relationship, and that mysterious feeling we call love.
Just a warning: I have to confess that when I first saw SCENES OF A MARRIAGE as a teenager, with only very few experience in life and especially in relationships compared to now... well, I was totally bored, didn't get the film at all. There are nudities in the film but none of them were about sex. Johan and Marianne were not attractive at all and seemed to me just stupid. So some films requires the maturity of the audience's part to be really appreciated. Don't judge Bergman if you are still under 28! Buy this DVD but save it until you'd feel you are getting matured.
In 2004, Mr. Bergman went back to the couple Johan and Marianne, after 30 years of their separation: SARABAND. Now they have grand children. I hope this long-waited return of Bergman to filmmaking will also be soon availabe on DVD.
