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Scenes From a Marriage (The Criterion Collection)

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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.

From its uncompromising script, through Sven Nykvist's deft camerawork to the flawless honesty of its acting, this film delivers one of the transcendent emotional experiences in world cinema. Its themes of personal and sexual liberation, as well as the emerging feminist perspective of its heroine, give it a definite period feel (early 1970s), but its concerns are timeless. In one great scene after another, Bergman lays bare our basic human conundrum: the need to be separate and autonomous wars with our need to be connected.

The opening scene is an interview with Johan (Erland Josephson) and his wife, Marianne (Liv Ullman) about their marriage. Self-satisfied Johan preens as he describes how perfect they are as a couple. Marianne, deferential, beams with quiet pride at his side. Despite their warm words, their bodies seem oddly out of rythym with each other, a clue to further cracks we soon see in the couple's smooth façade. She's not as devoted to their sex life as he is, and both of them resent the tyrannical sway of her parents. We watch Marianne try to tell her mother that they won't be coming as usual for Sunday dinner, and then quickly back off when her mother objects.

Johan is a closet poet. When he shares some poems with an old college friend, she tells him not to bother sending them to a publisher. In a quietly devastating aside, she tells him that back in their university days, their entire circle thought that Johann would advance much further than the rest of them. The implication is, of course, that he hasn't. Stalled in mid-career as a researcher, and chafed by the demands of domesticity, Johan undergoes a classic midlife crisis. He comes home from work one night and tells Marianne that he's fallen in love with a twenty-four year old colleague. He's leaving the marriage and moving to Paris with her. The rest of the movie traces the emotional contours of their separation, divorce, and post-divorce reconciliations.

The abandoned Marianne slowly frees herself from the hold Johan and a conventional marriage had on her. That freer person soon discovers her sensual side, and over time becomes the person Johann would actually rather be with. But it's too late; she's moved beyond him. In a scene as believable as it is wrenching, they meet in Johan's office to sign their divorce papers. They both need answers for why they failed at something to which they gave the best of themselves. And by now, Johan understands that freeing himself from Marianne didn't free him from his own limitations. His frustration and disappointment boil over into brandy-fueled violence.

The sad truth this movie reveals is that people can love each other without understanding each other, or they can understand each other without loving each other in the ways that they need to be loved. Bergman seems to be saying that nothing in the institution of marriage alters these facts. In the end, Johan and Marianne, both married to other people, still make room for the bond between them, a bond too deep to not acknowledge, but not deep enough to keep them from forsaking all others. They're not reconciled, exactly, but they've achieved the peace that comes from ceasing to struggle. As they hold each other through a long night, they look, and we feel, somehow hopeful. Bergman's great achievement is to make Johan and Marianne stand in for all of us, who are selfish and insecure, but heroic in our efforts to achieve any little clarity before the lights go dim.

This Criterion edition is an absolute must-have for any fan of Ingmar Bergman's work. I have seen the 3-hour film version several times before, and felt it was superb, as most of Bergman's films are, but it faded for me in comparison with my favorites, "Persona", "Cries and Whispers", "The Silence", "Shame" and "Through a Glass Darkly". The 5-hour TV version, however, presented here for the first time in the US, is a revelation to me. It is startlingly contemporary. It is like seeing the film fresh, for the first time. I am struck by the naturalness of the acting of Bjornstrand and Ullman, giving astonishing performances, both in terms of nuance and intensity. At times, one forgets that they are acting, they so inhabit their gruelling roles. Liv Ullman is particularly great here, and photographed with luminous intensity by Nykvist, the master cinematographer. This is a woman who has her world shattered, and who responds to her changed circumstances in realistic stages: denial, anger, grief, rage, and finally acceptance. Also, I am struck by the way this particular film is the unacknowledged "grandfather" of independent contemporary film technique. A recent article in the New York Times on Dogme astonished me by the failure to even acknowledge Bergman's influence. Liv Ullman is spot-on in the interview when she notes that "Scenes from a Marriage" was Dogme filmaking 30 years ahead of Dogme, and that the often hand-held camera here moves with precision, versus the shallow, self-indulgent scattershot mess that is so tedious in the films of the Dogme filmmakers. In the five-hour TV version, one sees the film as it truly is, a groundbreaking, thoroughly engrossing masterpiece. Finally, it reminds us of how little we ask from our own TV movies in the US. This is a riveting, compelling, lacerating work, made with compassion and with a strong humanist understanding. Bergman didn't come to this spareness and austerity out some philisophical point of view, like Dogme has with its "manifesto". Instead, "Scenes from a Marriage" arrives at its technique out of Bergman's desire to get as close as he can with his camera to the faces, emotions, and flawed humanity of his characters. It was a process he began with "Persona" and which opens further in "The Passion", and which here is expanded out and relentlessly focused, like a pure, blue, Scandanavian flame.

Ingmar Bergman to me is one of cinema's most powerful directors. And, "Scenes From A Marriage" is the most powerful, and haunting film I've ever seen about love and marriage.
There's just something about Bergman's vision as a director and the camera of Sven Nykvist that brings this film to life. Bergman just throws these characters right into our faces, and we are truly mesmerize by them and their actions.
For those who have never seen this film, it is basically just as it's title may suggest, a look into the life of one couple's marriage. Marianne (Liv Ullman) and Johan (Erland Josephson) are our couple in question. They have been married for a while now, and seem to have a good solid marriage. One wouldn't think anything was wrong, especially when compared to their friends like Katarina (Bibi Andersson) and Peter (Jan Malmsjo) a couple whom act like their about to kill each other at any given moment. The scene is involving them, is one of many sterling moments in this masterpiece.
If I were to go on and talk about more scenes in this film, I would clearly be ruining the entire experience for you. Just rent this movie or even better buy this movie and be prepared to see the power that cinema can convey.
"Scenes From A Marriage" is one of Bergman's best films. And, while yes, there is talk of a sequel, I can only hope, that it all remains a rumor. To make a sequel out of this masterpiece would surely be a mistake. Here's a film that is perfect as it is. Just leave it alone and don't add anything to it. Though, Bergman did make a sequel out of the Katarina and Peter characters and made "From the Life of the Marionettes", which does have it's powerful moments, but doesn't quite build up to what this film has become.
For those who have never seen a Bergman film, I'd suggest watching "Wild Strawberries" first, then "The Seventh Seal", "Cries & Whispers" and then build yourself up to this one.
Bottom-line: Truly one of Bergman's most powerful films. The single greatest film I've seen as of yet on the subject of marriage. This movie hits an intensity few have have ever achieved!

How I was allowed to watch this series on ?PBS? when it first came out...I'll never know. But at around 13 y/o its haunting images of a marriage "gone bad" has stayed with me for nearly 2 decades. I literally fell in love with Liv Ullman and her acting (which at the time I was not far from believing that I was watching a documentary of a real couple falling apart at the seams) It was an intense and captivating series that had me literally "willing" the week to go by faster so I could watch the next installment. Through the years I had always searched for a way to watch it again and now (BIG difference in the "disposable income" of a child vs. an adult :), I will be purchasing this as part of my collection of memories from my youth. Thanks to Criterion for taking the time in putting this together for us.

I used to think that I knew a thing or two about marriage having been married for as long as I have but nothing from my experience had prepared me for the merciless and deep dissection of Marriage: Bergman Style. When we meet Johan and Marianne for the first time, they have been happily (or so it seems) married for ten years. They have two daughters; they are still young, very attractive, healthy, educated, well off, and they seem to love each other very much. But Bergman is not interested in happy families - all happy families are happy in the similar ways. Like Tolstoy many years before him, Bergman explores the second part of the formula - All unhappy families are unhappy in their unique ways.

Bergman and his leading actors Liv Ullmann and Arland Josephson give one of the most truthful, honest, heartbreaking and credible portraits of a couple, one of the most intense character studies ever done on film. For five hours, we share twenty years from the lives of Johan and Marianne as well as their love, hate, misunderstandings, insecurities, anger, jealousy, denial, sadness, pain, despair, and loss. We witness the moments of incredible tenderness and unexpected and shocking violence, both physical and mental. There are no depth that they have not descended in the search of themselves and the meaning of their relationship.

There are actually four marriages Bergman studies in "Scenes from a Marriage" -none of them is happy, all are miserable. Bergman does not deny the possibility of finding a soul mate but his opinion on the modern marriage is quite pessimistic.

It felt like Bergman was saying - marriage is dead, long live love. For hours after the film was over, I could not shake off the sadness and pessimism of it. Only later I realized that even if four marriages in Bergman's film were disastrous, it does not necessarily mean that all couples in the world are or have to be that miserable. Bergman wrote and directed Scenes from a Marriage in 1973 when he was in his 5-th marriage, the one that would last for 24 years until his wife died. He brought in the screenplay (I think so but I may be wrong) the bitterness, resentment, anger and disappointments from his previous four marriages - maybe that's why the film is sometimes almost impossible to watch?

"Scenes from a Marriage" is a masterpiece but it may leave you devastated and emotionally exhausted. I watched the original 5-hours TV version and did not even bother with three hours version.

5/5

A departure from the complexity of Persona and The Passion of Anna, Bergman put together a highly accessible and clear portrait of the lives of a stereotypical "successful" suburban professional couple entering middle age and beyond.

Bergman is absolutely perfect in presenting the ebbs and flows of the relationship. The dialogue is amazing, and Ullman and Josephson couldn't have been better. Bibi Andersson's quasi-cameo sets the stage for the entire film, and the brutally acerbic dinner table scene is a classic of cinema.

A lot of people have been looking forward to the proposed sequel, but I'm not. Scenes from a Marriage couldn't have been better, and a sequel is likely to detract from one of Bergman's Top 3 movies in a long and illustrious career.

I watched this film in two sittings, in part because of the length (2:48) but also because of the sheer density and weight of the material onscreen. Like all Bergman films this one takes you deep into the psyche of its main characters with a mix of intensity and realism AND surrealism that is absolutely breathtaking, original and refreshingly unpredictable.

One of Bergman's trademarks is his slow camera that lingers over closeups of the actors' faces, as if thrusting their naked, twisted and unknowable emotions straight into our own faces. There is an element of ruthlessness but also of compassion in this type of camera work. So many times during the movie I found myself thinking, "Now this is where most directors would pull back for a full body or medium or long-distance shot rather than stay in uncomfortable and intrusive closeup range. The aesthetic here is both spare and unsparing...unlike most of today's movies it does not have any musical score at all to lean on, instead Bergman relies on the depth of his characters and the skill of his camera and cast to keep the viewer riveted.

A true masterwork from a true master! This is one film definitely worth owning, like a good novel it has many many layers and nuances and undefinable moments that you can go back to again and again and notice new things each time.

Deserves 10 stars, really. Next to Bergman, today's directors are children.

What a treat for the DVD world! This DVD include teh original 5-hour presentaion of Scenes from a Marriage and the original US version AND an interview with Ingmar Bergman! And it is worth every penny.

Some might say that the film is too long. However, you must possess patience when watching one of Ingamr Bergman's films for he uses what is commonly unknown in the world of cinema today: pace. He makes time for the develpoment of his characters, he ensures that we see the changes that they go through, but what makes him a master of his craft is his ability to make his films viable and interesting every step of the way. The same is true for Scenes from a Marriage. He shows the disintergration of a marriage and the consequences it has on these two people. His characters are fragile and courageous, reasonable and irrational, but most importantly, they are human. Scenes from a Marraige is a great example of Ingmar Bergman's skill at work.

'Scenes from a marriage' may seem like a bit of a chore: three hours relentlessly focused on two people falling apart. And yet, it is one of Bergman's easiest films to watch, perhaps because it was made for TV, where there is rather more of a duty to hold a casual audience. There are no deep metaphysical questions in the film, no long abstract conversations, little narrative trickery, just the everyday problems of recognisable people, perhaps slightly more articulate than the rest of us.

Bergman gives us a host of conventional reasons for the marriage's failure, but he has never been very interested in the naturalistic causes of anything. In long, compelling takes, he gies us the process of marital drama; the experience, the taste, the gestures, irritations; the words expressed to fill up space, or words not thought through enough, yet taken as Holy Writ by the partner; the games, strategies, sarcasms, insults; the veneer of middle-class civility teetering on the brink of savage violence.

There is nothing as irreperable or final as a Hollywood film here, people feel one thing one minute, do another the next: they bear the scars but move on, there is no 'fixed' character. People used to Hollywood practices of closure or plot inevitability may find this disturbing.

The characters played by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann are rarely sympathetic, but they are more: difficult, sometimes devious, always vulnerable people forced to make hasty decisions that can change lives, or who bear the scars of routine for years before flaring out. In other words, real, true - infinitely more important.