Category: 1955

Il Bidone (1955)

Federico Fellini | 1hr 52min

So desperate is the working class of Il Bidone’s post-war Italy, it seems that they are ready to believe any stranger who comes bearing dubious promises of financial stability. Perhaps with some retrospect, they might realise how strange it is that government bureaucrats would promise public housing to anyone in a crowd who comes forward with a deposit. Even more ludicrous a scenario is Vatican clergymen visiting a farmer’s property, bearing papal orders to dig up their land and uncover a repentant criminal’s bones, treasure, and will that stipulates the landowner must pay the church before receiving any money. Those who carry an air of confident authority can easily gain the trust of the needy, and naturally as the oldest and most experienced of his crooked crew, that is exactly Augusto’s greatest strength.

True to Federico Fellini’s contemplations of morality and corruption in modern Italy, Il Bidone is deeply engaged with lives of parasitic cruelty and the weight they bear on one’s conscience. Religion is effectively reduced to empty icons in their hands, stripped of the virtue it preaches and irreverently wielded as a means to an end. There may not be any of Fellini’s usual carnivals or entertainers present here, but Il Bidone’s conmen are nevertheless performers who profit off their carefully constructed spectacles. Much like their show business counterparts, total commitment is required from any swindler who wishes to succeed in his craft, and Augusto leaves no room for confusion regarding what sacrifices must be made.

“People like us can’t have families. One must be free to move. You can’t have a wife. You must be alone. The most important thing when you’re young is freedom. It’s more important than the air you breathe.”

The priest scam is a classic in the books of Augusto and his crew of conmen, displaying an ingenuity and efficiency that holds no regard for the sacrilege being committed.
Broderick Crawford carries an imposing, authoritative presence as Augusto, winning the trust of strangers before running off with their money.

Not that the companionship that these men find with each other instead is terribly fulfilling. At night they excessively indulge in luxuries purchased with their stolen money, drinking and dancing their guilt away. If there is any hope of escaping this cesspool of debauchery, then it comes in the form of family members longing for their husbands and fathers to be truly present, though such clean redemption is no easy objective. Just as the friends in I Vitelloni are awed by their leader’s overconfidence, the naïve Picasso here sees his associate Roberto as a model of masculinity, and ultimately finds himself torn between his charismatic lure and his wife’s desperate pleas to leave this unethical life behind.

Even in her small role, Giulietta Masina makes an impact as the moral centre of Il Bidone, pleading with her husband to leave his life of crime.

Perhaps the most compelling relationship of Il Bidone though arrives through Augusto’s chance run-in with his estranged daughter Patrizia, just as he is on his way to another con. The humanity that had previously escaped his characterisation begins to manifest here with delicate caution as he attempts to rekindle this connection, offering to pay for her studies and bestowing gifts that she doesn’t realise have been stolen. It is a real tragedy that he is recognised as a conman during their outing together at a cinema – not so much for the judicial slap on the wrist, but rather for his humiliating exposure in front of the only person who still holds him in some esteem. The dramatic irony that stations Patrizia in the foreground watching the movie and Augusto’s confrontation in the background is made all the more discomforting by the crowd’s eyes slowly turning towards the commotion in a ripple effect, suspensefully edging closer to his oblivious daughter.

Salvation appears out of the blue one day when Augusto runs into his daughter Patrizia. Her discovery of his crooked line of work is heartbreaking, as Fellini foregrounds her obliviousness while her father is caught by authorities in the background. Very slowly, heads turn towards the commotion, rippling out across the crowd until Patrizia’s attention is similarly caught.

Even if Il Bidone is a step below his prior masterpieces I Vitelloni and La Strada, Fellini’s visual storytelling and blocking still land with bold dramatic impact in moments like these. His neorealist tendency towards shooting real locations with deep focus lenses constantly keeps the struggling communities being hurt by Augusto’s gang in view, and at the very least turns rough-hewn stonework and dusty rural farms into bleak backdrops. As long as the conman can keep an emotional distance from his targets, then he can continue exploiting them with little mind for their future wellbeing, and yet soon we begin to realise that his daughter’s broken belief in him has fundamentally altered his worldview.

Neorealist tendencies in the poverty-centric narrative and location shooting, turning Italy’s towns and countryside into rugged backdrops.
Augusto’s encounter with the disabled girl of the family he is scamming is the last straw – his moral corruption can no longer bear the weight of his guilt.

By laying small reckonings of morality like these all throughout Il Bidone, Fellini earns the final step in Augusto’s redemption arc, formally returning to the religious scam which he conducted so effortlessly in the film’s first scene. When realising his victim’s daughter is a polio-afflicted teenage girl with a pure faith in God, his conscience can no longer bear the weight of his guilt. Torment and shame uneasily mount in Broderick Crawford’s flustered performance, though it is only when he makes away with his crew that they ultimately manifest as a bald-faced lie – he did not end up taking the money, he claims, but instead returned it.

Wondrous depth of field in Fellini’s blocking, as Augusto’s crew grow suspicious of their leader and turn on him.

It is at this point that we witness a religious icon be imbued with real meaning for the very first time in Il Bidone, rather than become a weapon of exploitation. As Augusto is robbed by his associates, beaten, and left on a hill to die, Fellini symbolically alludes to Christ’s sacrifice, bearing the sins of the world on the cross. Augusto’s honourable attempt to keep the stolen money from falling into criminal hands may be in vain, yet through physical and spiritual suffering, his soul is liberated. Rocky is the path to salvation in Fellini’s cinematic parable, but so too is it purifying, stripping back the lies and depravity of a modern world to uncover the grace that lies dormant in even the most dishonest man.

Fellini evokes Christ’s torture and sacrifice in Augusto’s death, cherishing the purification of his soul at the tragic expense of his life.

Il Bidone is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to purchase on DVD or Blu-ray on Amazon.

Ordet (1955)

Carl Theodor Dreyer | 2hr 6min

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s parable of dwindling spirituality is stark in its dogmatic minimalism, enveloping Christians and non-believers alike in rural landscapes of harrowing scarcity. The few who maintain a relationship with God are often still isolated from their own souls, left to speak and move in slow, mechanical patterns like empty husks. Seemingly the worst of them all is Johannes, the middle son of devout widower Morten. While his family is busy quarrelling with neighbours and aiding sister-in-law Inger through the late stages of her pregnancy, he unhelpfully wanders around in a daze, preaching the delusion that he is Jesus Christ and lamenting their lack of faith.

“People believe in the dead Christ, but not in the living. They believe in my miracles from 2000 years ago, but they don’t believe in me now. I have come again to bear witness to my Father who is in heaven – and to work miracles.”

Atop a hill of long, swaying grass, he gazes up at a dreary Danish sky, speaking to no one in particular. There is a novel curiosity expressed in Dreyer’s low angle, marvelling at this strange figure who apparently drew such fanciful convictions from his time spent studying the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, but it also contains a trace of contemplative awe. He speaks of wondrous miracles brought about through the simple act of belief, and yet which so many now deny, with even the local reverend claiming that they break the laws of nature – “and naturally God does not break His own laws.”

Johannes stands alone against the dreary, overcast sky, looking to the heavens yet speaking to no one. Dreyer’s exterior landscape is sparse, void of life and vitality.

Dreyer is calculated in the perspective shift that unfolds over the course of Ordet, gradually expanding the scope of what we are willing to believe. Religion is represented as little more than a petty feud in the first act, seeing Morten’s conservative neighbour Peter refuse the marriage of their children due to their opposing beliefs. Morten’s faith is joyful but weak, while Peter’s is rigorous but dour, cruelly hoping that his foe might be taught a hard lesson through the death of his ailing daughter-in-law. This is the state of religion in modern Europe, Dreyer illustrates, losing sight of the brotherly love which underlies its core tenets and dividing believers over trivial differences.

“You think Christianity is sullenness and self-torment. I think Christianity is the fullness of life. My faith is for all day long and joy in life. Yours is longing for death.”

It is easy to brush off the image of highly idealised Christianity that Johannes represents given how distant he seems from reality, and yet there is a frightening accuracy to his portentous predictions. Inger’s baby will not survive birth, he announces, unless someone should believe in him and pray for Christ’s salvation. Even when this tragedy strikes exactly the way he described, few people are swayed in his favour. He is not yet done with his prophecies though, as right after Inger’s condition appears to stabilise, he claims to see the man with the scythe walk through the wall to fetch her too.

Dreyer’s parable is rich in its biblical archetypes, with the mysterious Christ figure prophesying tragedy and demonstrating ambiguous miracles.

The profoundly sombre tone that up has previously only lingered on the periphery of Ordet manifests viscerally in this double tragedy. Dreyer’s deliberations on matters of faith, death, and divine miracles carry great weight, emerging through the biblical archetypes represented in his characters and their dialogue, though the subduing power of his austere camerawork is crucial to his spiritual examinations. It navigates rigorously curated sets in long, slow movements with heavy restraint, letting us feel each passing second in its refusal to cut. When Johannes sits with Inger’s daughter and speaks of her mother’s impending death, Dreyer’s camera spends three minutes rotating from one side of the conversation to the other, absorbing his prophecy in pensive reflection.

Dreyer’s camerawork is slow and measured, moving inch by inch from one side of this conversation in prayerful meditation.

The emotionless detachment that has sunken into the souls of Johannes and those around him continues to manifest in Dreyer’s sparse mise-en-scène, stripped of life and joy. When his set dressers laid out the décor for each scene, it is said he went about taking pieces out until he achieved his desired minimalism, and the results are strikingly austere. In the negative space, he engages us in a cinematic meditation, removing extraneous distractions so that the deepest flaws of his characters may rise to the surface of each scene. In this sense, there is a clean line running between Dreyer’s work and that of his Swedish contemporary, Ingmar Bergman, who would similarly absorb the solemnity of his characters’ spiritual doubts into his severe visual style. Where Bergman’s dominant close-ups sought to draw out some cinema’s most profound performances though, Ordet’s emphasis on wide and mid-shots keeps a reserved distance from outward displays of emotion, draining scenes of life while maintaining a rigorously composed beauty.

Dreyer strips his sets of decor to create a bare minimalism, and then goes another step further by draining his actors of emotion and connection. The result goes beyond banality, and into a hypnosis that seems to suspend time altogether.

It isn’t until Inger’s funeral that Dreyer lands the film’s most striking image of irrevocable despair, symmetrically splitting the frame down the middle with the open casket. Even the bouquet of flowers at its base is arranged in perfect balance, while Morten and Inger’s husband, Mikkel, flank either side with a pair of white menorahs and carved wooden chairs. The tremendous grief that encompasses the scene moves even Peter to see the error in his puritanical beliefs and make amends with his old foe, and yet this is not the only miracle to be found through restored faith in Ordet.

One of Dreyer’s single greatest compositions, imposing a rigorous symmetry on Inger’s funeral with the carved wooden chairs and white menorahs on either side of her open casket.

When Johannes enters the funeral, it appears that he has snapped out of his stupor, but still he mourns the lack of faith among those who could have saved Inger from an untimely death – “Why is there not one among these believers who believe?”. As Christ sermonised though, those who take the lowly position of a child are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and Dreyer proves his film to be in deep conversation with the Gospels as Inger’s daughter steps forward for a second time to reveal a sincere, uncorrupted wisdom.

“Thy faith is great, thy will shall be done,” Johannes proclaims, singling her out as the sole believer among the many whose devotion is strong enough to raise the dead. Suddenly, within the cold stillness of Dreyer’s mise-en-scène, Inger’s hand twitches, and her eyes open. “It is the God of old, the God of Elijah, eternal and the same,” Peter proclaims in astonishment, though Dreyer finds an even greater blessing through the transformation of those who once rejected God altogether. With the resurrection of life in Ordet comes an equally astounding resurrection of faith, and thus as Mikkel espouses their total indivisibility, hope for a prosperous future is finally restored in Dreyer’s severe landscapes of spiritual isolation.

 “Now life starts for us.”

Ordet is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel. You can also buy the full Carl Theodor Dreyer collection on Blu-ray from Amazon.

Lola Montes (1955)

Max Ophüls | 1hr 56min

It is tempting to glamourise the life of Lola Montès, the famed dancer and courtesan who ventured across multiple continents and conducted affairs with some of 19th century Europe’s most famous men. After all, there are few women who can honestly say that their paths have intersected with so many key historical events, and even fewer who have used each as a platform to propel themselves higher up a cultural hierarchy that once towered above them.

The metaphor is not easily lost on the ringmaster of the circus that has essentially turned Lola into a novelty attraction many years later. “Just as every single action in her life has been, every single movement of her act is fraught with danger. She risks her pretty neck!” he cries, narrating her ascension up a grand trapeze, and labelling each acrobat who catches her in their arms as a new lover.

“Paris! Destiny sends her from the famous journalist Dunarrier to the journalist Beauvallon whose newspaper had a larger circulation. The great and celebrated Richard Wagner. The even greater and very famous Frédéric Chopin falls on his knees for her. Higher, Lola, higher! With dance and music, Lola rises from the world of art to that of politics!”

Lola Montes’ life has become little more than a humiliating circus act for the cheap entertainment of spectators, and Ophüls wields his metaphor with visual and formal brilliance as we slip between her past and present.

At the summit of this towering web of ropes and ladders, King Ludwig I of Bavaria awaits, ready to commence what will be “the most fantastic episode of her story.” Still, there is more than a hint of phoniness in the ringmaster’s theatrical rendition. His claim that her marriage to one Lieutenant James was a happy one is immediately undercut by her recollection of his drunken, abusive behaviour, exposing the scam of this fanciful historicising. As Lola Montes progresses, this tension proves to be key to Max Ophüls’ elaborately symbolic framing device, glamourising her rise to fame while forcing her to relive decades of objectification in her neatly interwoven flashbacks.

A heavy use of long dissolves in the flashbacks, offering a wealth of wall-art imagery as Lola’s face lingers over stunning establishing shots.

Indeed, Lola’s eventual fate as a target of the male gaze is written into her destiny from the start, not just as a courtesan flitting between lovers, but simply as a woman born into a patriarchal culture with limited options. Whisked off to Paris at a young age to marry a banker, she quickly recognises the power of her charm and natural beauty to carve out a future of her own choosing. The attention that Lola receives wherever she goes cannot be avoided, and so the best she can do is use it to her advantage, embracing her feminine image whether she is posing for royal portraits or standing atop garish pedestals.

Lola has always been the centre of attention, even posing for royal portraits in Bavarian palaces, though Ophüls’ visual comparison of the two types of pedestals she has been placed on marks a huge difference between luxurious wealth and gaudy entertainment.

As Lola marches even deeper into the annals of history, the undercurrents of time and providence swirl around her, and Ophüls’ sentimental, untethered camera is there swaying with them. More than just linking one stunning composition to the next, it manifests an ethereal elegance as it cranes up and down through theatres in long takes, and tracks the movement of characters across ravishing sets. The effect is intoxicating, yet in the hands of cinematographer Christian Matras it is also totally controlled – not at all a surprise given the mark he left on the poetic realism of the 1930s, further solidifying the line of influence between Jean Renoir’s roving camerawork and Ophüls’ own distinctive visual style.

Along with Carol Reed and Masaki Kobayashi, Ophüls is one of the few filmmakers of this era experimenting with canted angles, tipping his camera off balance to create some glorious frames.
Ophüls’ moving camera is his greatest and most recognisable trademark, resting on remarkable compositions as we glide through gloriously designed sets.

Tied up in the work of both these directors is a tension between freedom and fatalism, and it is largely through the careful navigation of the camera in Lola Montes that both are so gracefully connected. For a long time, Lola would like to think of herself as a woman with boundless autonomy, even ripping open her bodice in her first private meeting with Ludwig I just to prove a point. Nevertheless, she still recognises on some level that she is trapped within the gendered rules of high society, and Ophüls frames her as such in opulent displays of Technicolor decadence, making this both his first and last film shot in colour before his untimely death a mere two years later.

Lola makes a huge first impression with the King of Bavaria, ripping open her bodice and immediately winning him over. The people of his kingdom are unfortunately not so easily swayed.

Whether actress Martine Carol is wandering through a rundown children’s dormitory of grey hammocks or draped in the finest royal garb, there is an air of delicate eminence to her, even as lush period décor and fluctuating aspect ratios press inwards like stage curtains. She is the luminous centre of each setting, asserting a screen presence that demonstrates why so many considered her France’s response to Marilyn Monroe, despite Lola’s dark wigs covering up Carol’s usual blonde hair. Cloaked in sparkling jewels and surrounded with extravagant historical décor, it isn’t hard either to see where the budget went for what was the most expensive European film of its time. Mirrors catch her reflection as she contemplates an uncertain future, transparent gauze drapes conceal her final goodbye to Ludwig, and the golden embellishments of Bavarian palaces frame her as another treasure added to the royal collection, lifting her to even greater heights as an inhuman object of imperial perfection.

Humble beginnings for Lola in this children’s dormitory of grey hammocks, and although it is missing the grand opulence of the rest of the film, Ophüls does not let the scene visually go to waste with its crowded mise-en-scène.
Ophüls often closes in his aspect ratio like curtains, recognising when the widescreen format simply isn’t the right fit for his busy compositions.
Josef von Sternberg did not have the precision of Ophüls’ moving camera, but he is a great influence on the German director’s elaborately ornate mise-en-scène, who obstructs frames all over the place with furniture and drapes.
Ophüls showing off his magnificent production design in the majestic palaces of 19th century Bavaria, decorating almost every inch with gold. It is easy to see how this became the most expensive European film of its time.

The majesty of Ophüls’ production design does not cease when we cut back to the present-day circus scenes, but for as long as Lola stands onstage under the vibrant wash of red and blue lights, she is much more exposed than she ever has been before. She has certainly suffered in the public eye before, even becoming a widely hated Marie Antoinette-like figure spurned for her perceived “insult to dignity, morality, religion,” yet while courting Ludwig I she at least had the safety and privacy of the palace to protect her. As a carnival attraction, she is thoroughly humiliated, and her autonomy is destroyed. Everyone’s eyes are still on her, but there is nowhere to retreat in the middle of this stage.

Red and blue lighting in the present day scenes washing Lola Montes in shades of resentment and melancholy.

After a lifetime of never finding the security she craved, this is the life she wearily resigns to. She is filled with miserable self-loathing as she escapes the March Revolution of 1848, rejecting a friend’s romantic proposition not because of his lowly status, but because she no longer believes she is worthy or capable of love.

“I’ve lived too much, had too many adventures. Bavaria was my last chance. My last hope of a haven. It’s all over… all over. You see, if this warmth you offer me, if this face which I find not too unpleasing leaves me without hope, then something is broken. Yes, it’s over.”

Crushed spirits, rejecting a handsome suitor not because of his low class, but because of her lost faith in an authentic love.

The Lola who is forced to recount her life through ostentatious circus acts bears a pale resemblance to the one who is said to have bathed nude in Turkey for the sultan and served champagne from her slipper. Backstage, we learn of her medical concerns that are carelessly brushed off by the ringmaster, maintaining that she performs her climactic acrobatic leap without a safety net. Just as she once lived at the top of European society with the King of Bavaria, so too does her fall risk destroying everything she once had, landing her in a menagerie of exotic beasts similarly trapped behind bars. The camera floats back over the heads of audiences lining up to stroke her hair or kiss her hand, revealing an enormous line that could singlehandedly keep this circus running for years, though it isn’t until a pair of clowns close the red curtains on us that Ophüls lands Lola Montes’ final, scathing critique. Everything from Lola’s childhood dreams to her multiple romantic affairs has been little more than a cheap show for this culture of perverse celebrity worship, seeking to degrade the lives of great women into objects of commodified, gaudy spectacle.

The camera pulls back from Lola behind bars for the final bit of audience interaction, and then just keeps on moving to reveal the enormous queue lining up to completely degrade and dehumanise her.

Lola Montes is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 48min

Over the centuries of stories based around Europe’s Midsummer festivities, there has often been a dreamy magic hanging in the air between lovers on its strange, shortened night, reconsidering old passions and finding new beginnings within its otherworldly aura. Most famously, it is the setting upon which Shakespeare’s ensemble of characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream fall under the love spells of the forest fey. Its influence on Ingmar Bergman’s lusty romp Smiles of a Summer Night is evident right there in the name, though this is no direct adaptation of the Bard’s fantastical comedy. Class satire runs sharply through Bergman’s targeting of wealthy aristocrats, bringing them down to the level of the carefree servants who roll around in fields and blithely indulge in their carnal passions. Although there are no whimsical forces guiding these self-conceited characters into each other’s arms, it very much feels that way to those wrapped up in its intoxicating atmosphere.

Before we even arrive at this fateful Midsummer party, Bergman lays out the formal groundwork of each character, examining their place in this intricate web. Several of his regular collaborators are here – Gunnar Björnstrand as successful lawyer Fredrik, Eva Dahlbeck as his ex-lover Desiree, and Harriet Andersson as his housemaid Petra. Jarl Kulle and Margit Carlqvist are also present, both having taken more minor roles in previous Bergman films, and now being given more screen time as Desiree’s consort, Count Carl-Magnus, and his wife, Countess Charlotte. It is near impossible to pick the greatest performance among them. Björnstrand may claim the largest role, but with Andersson’s swaying hips, Dahlbeck’s shrewd scheming, and Kulle’s comical turns of phrase, each actor stands out during their time in the spotlight.

Bergman features one of his signature shots here – the parallel faces lying down, one obscuring the other.
Bergman is an actor’s director, and not just in guiding their performances. He blocks and lights their faces to perfection, emphasising their expressive eyes and shrouding them in darkness when the scene calls for it.

Like so many others, Kulle’s Count lacks total integrity, in one moment threatening that “One can rally with my wife, but touch my mistress and I’m a tiger!” and later inverting it when it is the Countess who he is at risk of losing. The extreme moods of these characters shift with the whims of their desire, filling them with jealousy, anger, and passion, but very little substance. Desiree even shows some self-awareness of this while arguing with Fredrik, digging herself deeper into a rage that she can’t remember the reason for.

“I’m speaking! I will speak, even if I have nothing to say! You’ve made so furious, that I forgot what I was thinking!”

Bergman relishes working with a large ensemble, as the relationships he draws between each individual emerges in his blocking.

Petra on the other hand is the most easy-going character of the bunch, right next to Desiree’s servant, Frid. There is something of a bohemian nature to both as they laugh and merrily recite poetry, which any of their masters might brush off as silly behaviour. “The summer night has three smiles,” Frid starts. “This is the first, between midnight and dawn, when young lovers open their hearts and loins.” The second comes “for the jesters, the fools, and the incorrigible” – perhaps Petra and Frid themselves, who bask in the glory of life while the others engage in petty games and affairs.

“And the summer night smiled for the third time!” he finally announces as the sun rises, “for the sad and dejected, for the sleepless and lost souls, for the frightened and the lonely.” Bergman proves his hand as a skilled comedic writer in Smiles of a Summer Night, and yet in littering his screenplay with such thoughtful reflections he also deepens its joyful wonder, stepping back to observe these tiny figures within the context of something far grander than they realise.

Petra and Frid are light, easygoing counterparts to the complicated romances of the upper classes. Bergman mostly plays out their storyline in the bright open air, in contrast to the dark interiors where affairs and betrayals unfold.

This isn’t to say that Bergman himself is not willing to engage with their trivial drama though. His usual flair for blocking actors using a remarkable depth of field serves a practical purpose here in teasing out the complex web of betrayals, seductions, and alliances at play. Eavesdroppers lurk behind doors in the foreground, listening to private conversations in the next room over, while elsewhere delicate romances flourish in the reflections of ornately framed mirrors and quiet ponds. Unlike many of his previous films which frequently focus on one or two characters per shot, the ensemble dynamic here often forces his camera out into wides rather than close-ups, making for ripe stylistic and narrative comparisons to Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game.

An eavesdropper lurks in the foreground, as a conversation plays out through this dark doorframe.
A playful romance caught in the exquisite reflection of the courtyard’s pond.

Bergman capitalises particularly well on this staging at the Midsummer’s Eve dinner party, where Desiree herself plots to manipulate specific relationships based on her seating arrangements. It is an elaborately Gothic set piece in its design, framing characters between melted candelabras, and shrinking them behind a cluttered banquet table of flowers, fruit, bowls, and decorative ornaments. It is also the perfect setting for couples to start breaking apart at the seams – a discussion over whether men or woman are better seducers sets in motion the Countess’ plot to ensnare Fredrik, while he observes his own marriage to 19-year-old Anne crumble as she falls for his son, Henrik. His head laying on the table and her comforting hand on his shoulder are the first things we will notice in this shot, and yet Bergman is sure to block Fredrik’s resentful expression lurking right behind them, signalling a subtle shift in his affection for her.

The cluttered dining scene makes for an absolutely ravishing set piece. Melted candelabras, goblets, and platters of food obstruct frames, within which Bergman arranges his actors into spectacular compositions.

The eventual consummation of this young, scandalous love comes as a whimsically fated development, shedding that mysterious Midsummer magic of Shakespeare’s play over their unexpected encounter. An earlier reveal of a secret lever which wheels in a bed from a neighbouring room returns by pure chance, as when Henrik attempts suicide over his attraction to his stepmother, he accidentally activates it. Perhaps in this loose take on Shakespeare’s play, Bergman himself is playing the role of the mischievous sprite Puck through his behind-the-scenes manipulations, as who else should be laying in that bed at that exact time but the one Henrik has been longing for? To him, it could very well be a dying vision, while to the slowly waking Anne, it is a sensual dream. Still, that tiny nudge from the universe is all it takes for them to elope, creating a knock-on effect which neatly ties up the remaining strings Bergman has been slyly pulling this whole time.

Long dissolves are well-suited to this reinterpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, whimsically and dreamily bridging one scene to the next.

“Love is a loathsome business,” Anne piercingly proclaims to the Countess at one point, and the suffering it entails for those who corrupt its purity certainly frame it as such. Much like the game of croquet the upper-class men play on the lawn, it turns “an innocent game into an offensive battle of prestige,” wherein each player keeps one-upping the others until egos and relationships are destroyed. On a night such as Midsummer’s Eve though, the universe seems to be resetting itself by way of playful chaos to make way for fresh new starts, and such grievances need not last long. Even beyond its class satire and complex characters, Bergman buries a profound wisdom deep in Smiles of a Summer Night, blessing his noble fools and foolish nobles alike with second chances that let them simultaneously embrace new possibilities, and learn to appreciate those they had forgotten.

Smiles of a Summer Night is currently streaming The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Dreams (1955)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 27min

The romantic dreams that young model Doris and her agent Susanne each chase down in the city of Gothenburg are blindly hinged on the belief that men are not inherently disappointing creatures. Both women are separated in age by about a decade or so, and the gap in maturity shows. While Doris thoughtlessly breaks up with her boyfriend and passionately launches herself into a new affair with the first man to shower her with affection, Susanne slowly unravels as she rides into the city where an old flame resides. Lights from outside the carriage pass rhythmically across her sweaty face, we follow her rapidly shifting gaze between ‘open’ and ‘shut’ signs, and as she mutters an apprehensive resolution to “see him,” Ingmar Bergman maps out the psychological terrain of her anxious, compulsive desire.

Susanne slowly unravels on the train to Gothenburg, and Bergman puts his penchant for lighting and close-ups to excellent use as we enter her anxious mind.

Dreams arrived in 1955 a mere two years before Bergman’s major breakthroughs The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, and though critical praise was lukewarm at the time, within it are sure signs of a maturing artistic voice moving towards a higher level of filmmaking. The first five minutes of this film are spent in the wordless silence of Susanne’s modelling studio – fresh prints are brought to the agency owner, an assistant lights her cigarette, and finally Doris arrives on set, where the photographer arranges her in elegant poses. It is especially one fat man’s lustful, impatient finger tapping which breaks through Bergman’s subdued sound design of luxurious lounge music and ruffling clothes, creating an atmosphere which begs for escape from its own stifled repression. It is only when Susanne and Doris arrive in Gothenburg on their work trip though that any sort of catharsis starts to feel tangible.

An suspenseful five minutes to open the film, examining the tensions between characters on this model photo shoot without a word of dialogue.

This is not a film about the bond between two women though. Bergman keeps them separate throughout most of Dreams, alternating between their parallel stories. His visual compositions are precise and considerate, especially in the constant presence of reflections around Doris as she gazes through shop windows and lets herself be swept away by Gunnar Björnstrand’s wealthy middle-aged consul, Otto. Mirrors follow her into the dressmaker’s shop where he buys her a new gown too, inviting her into his superficial, material world, and she returns the affection as she takes him out to an amusement park. There, Bergman fixes his camera to rollercoasters and spinning rides, letting it fly in manic movements and cutting its footage up into violent montages within a ghost train. While she screams with delight, he is visibly queasy, and though he regains his composure upon taking her home to his giant manor, that uneasy dynamic soon returns.

Bergman weaves in reflections of Doris through her early wanderings around Gothenburg, centring the world around her.
Vigorous excitement as Bergman plants his camera on a rollercoaster and spinning rides, joining Doris and Otto on their date.

This time though, Otto’s reservations seem to stem from quiet guilt rather than nausea. A painting of his wife on the wall bears significant resemblance to Doris, but she has been dead for some time now, according to him. When a third party enters the scene, it comes as a surprise – Otto’s daughter’s entrance is framed in a doorway that Doris is peering through, and she immediately launches into a disdainful chastisement of her father’s arrogance.

“You disgust me. I find you ridiculous and repulsive.”

An elegant frame as Otto’s daughter unexpectedly enters the picture, bringing Doris’ dreams to an end.

Otto’s wife is not dead, as it turns out, but in a psychiatric hospital he refuses to visit. He is stingy with spending money on his own family, but apparently not on Doris. “Lust overcame tightness this time. It’s a laughable sight,” his daughter derisively proclaims, before quickly realising that he has even gifted her valuable family jewellery. For the first time, there is cold detachment in Bergman’s blocking, poignantly facing Otto and Doris out a window before she awkwardly departs with the realisation she has walked in on a sad, wounded family, and pulled them even further apart.

Parallel faces in Bergman’s blocking, expressing sober disappointment.

At least Doris has the excuse of naïve youth behind her though. With Susanne’s extra years of experience, she should know exactly what she is walking back into with her old lover, Henrik. For a time, she dances around the decision, silently passing through forests where she spies on his home, and eventually making the call to meet up. Once again, Bergman chooses to carry this stretch of storytelling without dialogue, absorbing us in elegantly composed shots which themselves become expressions of her silent emotional journey.

A picturesque frame in the forest as Susanne watches her old lover from afar.

The contrast between the Susanne we see in these lonely moments and the woman in control of a modelling agency is quite striking. When Doris misses a shoot, Susanne proves herself to be a harsh, assertive woman, though evidently one simply using this severe demeanour as a cover for her own insecurities. Deep down she is “sick with hatred” for Henrik’s wife, even wishing her dead, and yet this intense loathing frightens her. The further we get into Dreams, the more this seemingly confident woman is layered with internal conflicts.

Quite essential to our reading of Susanne’s vulnerability is also the ways Bergman lights close-ups to perfection, especially his dimming of the backlight to emphasise the contours of each expression passing across her face during her rendezvous with Henrik. For a brief time, she is swept away by his romance and invitation to join him in Oslo for a work trip, though such fantasies are short-lived with the arrival of his shrewd, perceptive wife. Her words are cutting – there is no substance to this man whatsoever. He is lazy and tired, and any illusions one might have about carrying on affair with him would be quickly destroyed by his own inability to commit to anyone. Henrik meekly lingers in the background of this scene, framed right between the two women, and with this succinct visual blocking, Bergman definitively proves his inadequacy.

Bergman’s arrangement of faces is just as important as the performances themselves, here pushing a shameful Henrik into the background and turning him away from the camera as his wife and old paramour trap him on either side – while between them, there is a whole other story unfolding.

Dreams is bookended with a return to the modelling studio it started in, signalling a withdrawal to the ordinary lives Doris and Susanne have always known, and effectively putting an end to those far-flung fantasies suggested in its title. Even here though, Bergman continues to draw a brilliant formal contrast between these two heartbreaks, letting the wildly emotional Doris emerge with renewed optimism and love for her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Susanne is driven further into her cynicism, tearing up Henrik’s apology letter and re-invitation to meet him in Oslo. She has evidently been in Doris’ situation before and forgotten how deeply this misery could cut her. Perhaps this is just part of life’s cycles though, Bergman posits, leading both young adults and their older, wiser counterparts down the same paths of inevitable disappointment.

A bookended return to the photo studio, bringing Susanne and Doris’ parallel journeys full circle.

Dreams is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes.