taking light into that good night
Thursday, 21. September 2006, 19:39:18
It seems odd that I should follow one film related post with another but yesterday, Sven Nykvist died at age 83. Despite a long and varied career, he will remain forever known as Ingmar Bergman's cinematographer. Despite coming from a stage tradition, Bergman and Nykvist sought to use as natural a light as possible, to avoid the double shadows and artificiality of clearly staged lighting.
My Bergman exposure was round about. All through high school my father tried to get me to see 7th Seal but it played only rarely and always at midnight when it was difficult for me to stay awake. This was before the Beta/VHS battle was settled and before there were as many cable options as there are today. I saw it in a dreamy half-sleep several times before finally renting it one Autumn in college, '87 maybe. Dad and I mostly knew Bergman by way of Woody Allen and were filling in our references.
My wife, however, came to Bergman directly and obsessively. Not only has she seen nearly every film but she's read every interview, biography, and autobiography of all his major regulars. We even saw a play in Stockholm (in Russian and Swedish, neither of which we understand) because it was written and directed by one of Ingmar's oldest colaborators. Early in our marriage we often passed a rainy afternoon with Persona or Wild Strawberries or Fanny and Alexander. S refers to Gunnar and Liv and Erland by first name and like an old friend, always pleasantly surprised to see them turn up in something unexpected.
But back to Sven. He won an Oscar for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a film that opened up my little circle of friends to a world of interesting literature as we discovered not just Kundera but Havel and others. It also had the odd effect of changing the bowler hat from a clear and immediate sign for Clockwork Orange to a sign, in that hands of a woman, that she wanted to be thought of as sexy and strong and free spirited. It also coincided, for me, with early college, when we were all at our most politically idealistic and sexually aware/vulnerable/naive.
And Nykvist shot Woody Allen's Another Woman and Crimes and Misdemeanors, two of his very very best. I think Another Woman is the perfect Allen movie, serious, surreal, only a bit of humor, and with many plot threads interwoven -- even the title could refer to any of about 6 characters depending on whom you identify with.
Quite a career.
My Bergman exposure was round about. All through high school my father tried to get me to see 7th Seal but it played only rarely and always at midnight when it was difficult for me to stay awake. This was before the Beta/VHS battle was settled and before there were as many cable options as there are today. I saw it in a dreamy half-sleep several times before finally renting it one Autumn in college, '87 maybe. Dad and I mostly knew Bergman by way of Woody Allen and were filling in our references.
My wife, however, came to Bergman directly and obsessively. Not only has she seen nearly every film but she's read every interview, biography, and autobiography of all his major regulars. We even saw a play in Stockholm (in Russian and Swedish, neither of which we understand) because it was written and directed by one of Ingmar's oldest colaborators. Early in our marriage we often passed a rainy afternoon with Persona or Wild Strawberries or Fanny and Alexander. S refers to Gunnar and Liv and Erland by first name and like an old friend, always pleasantly surprised to see them turn up in something unexpected.
But back to Sven. He won an Oscar for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a film that opened up my little circle of friends to a world of interesting literature as we discovered not just Kundera but Havel and others. It also had the odd effect of changing the bowler hat from a clear and immediate sign for Clockwork Orange to a sign, in that hands of a woman, that she wanted to be thought of as sexy and strong and free spirited. It also coincided, for me, with early college, when we were all at our most politically idealistic and sexually aware/vulnerable/naive. And Nykvist shot Woody Allen's Another Woman and Crimes and Misdemeanors, two of his very very best. I think Another Woman is the perfect Allen movie, serious, surreal, only a bit of humor, and with many plot threads interwoven -- even the title could refer to any of about 6 characters depending on whom you identify with.
Quite a career.
