LACMA

WEEKEND SERIES
Cries and Whispers: The Psychological Cinema of Ingmar Bergman

September 10 - September 18

Ingmar Bergman is a towering figure in post-war European culture, best known internationally for the more than 60 dramas he wrote and directed for film and television between 1948 and 2003. In his native Sweden he is equally revered as a powerful stage director whose life-long position at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm provided him with a creative outlet between films, and access to such legendary actors as Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Erland Josephson, and Liv Ullmann, all of whom appeared in ten or more Bergman films. Though a self-proclaimed intellectual who craved solitude—from 1960 on, the remote island of Fårö served as his spiritual retreat, the setting for several films including Persona, and in 2007, his final resting place—Bergman was also Sweden's preeminent celebrity for decades. Never a recluse, he forged close friendships with great writers and cinematographers, had affairs with glamorous actresses, married six times and fathered nine children, wrote several successful autobiographies and articles on film theory, and gave frequent television and print interviews. Turning to television in the early 70s, he put the emotional lives of middle-class Swedes under the microscope in several mini-series (e.g. the six-hour Scenes from a Marriage) that brought him renewed acclaim and his largest audiences to date. Though he was at times an outspoken and controversial figure in the eyes of his fellow citizens—some resented his films for fueling clichés about Sweden, and many were disappointed by his public and acrimonious dispute over taxes and four year exile in Germany—Bergman never faltered as an artist. With the release of Fanny and Alexander in 1983, he painted a sweeping and lavish portrait of bourgeois Swedish life at the turn of the century, inspired by true events in his mother's family history as seen through the eyes of a young boy, and officially retired from filmmaking.

The son of a Lutheran minister, Bergman pursued his great subject-the plight of humanity in a modern world cut loose from the pillars of religion and morality—with evangelical zeal, mining his own traumas, obsessions and family history for original material. The result was a stream of psychodramas that emerged over the years like chapters in an epic tale or panels in a fresco. Although his screenplays are enriched by the influence of theatrical giants like Strindberg and Shakespeare, images not words drive Bergman's work, and his powerful visual style is a unique blend of expressionist lighting, the human face photographed in extreme close-ups, and shots of inanimate objects, like clocks, that are charged with a symbolic meaning. Bergman's films have always been admired and distinguished by their detailed rendering of the physical world, but as a painter of dreamscapes, Bergman shows his imaginative genius. No other filmmaker is as skilled at exploring the cries and whispers that lie behind the mask of civilized behavior.

This series, presented in conjunction with a major exhibition of Bergman's scripts, diaries and notebooks at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, examines the biographical and psychological underpinnings of Bergman's work and illustrates four major themes. The emotional and intuitive nature of women is a constant in Bergman's work, and is represented on the opening night of the series by two masterpieces: Persona, a masterpiece shot in stark black and white, concerning the ambiguous relationship of a nurse to her mute patient, and Cries and Whispers which unfolds in a blood-red villa where three sisters reunite to open old wounds. The artist struggling with his demons is the subject of Hour of the Wolf, Bergman's only horror film and The Magician, a black comedy about a 19th century charlatan. Bergman sought the presence of God in the lives of men in the allegorical The Seventh Seal, famous for its chess game between a medieval knight and Death, and found God's absence in The Silence, an austere masterpiece. Marriage and infidelity is an underlying theme in many Bergman films but it moves to the foreground in the 70s: his only English-language film The Touch will screen in a new print courtesy of the Swedish Film Institute, followed by a discussion with star Elliott Gould. Also screening are two films unique in the Bergman's filmography: The Magic Flute, an infectious celebration of Mozart's allegorical opera, and the epic period film Fanny and Alexander. Rounding out the series on the closing Saturday afternoon is the US premiere of a new documentary on Bergman presented by the director Stig Björkman.

This series is made possible with support from the Consulate General of Sweden, and with the collaboration and cooperation of the Swedish Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

WEEKEND SERIES
Spotlight on Marco Bellocchio

October 1 - October 2

Marco Bellocchio, the highly regarded director of the recent Vincere, was born in 1939 in the ancient town of Bobbio, a medieval center of learning located in Northern Italy and flanked by the Alps and the Po River Valley. After studying philosophy in Milan, he entered film school: his first film, Fists in the Pocket made in 1965, was followed two years later by China is Near. Writing about Vincere, whose Cannes premiere marked Bellocchio's return to international prominence, critic Andrew Sarris noted that "at one point in the Sixties, Marco Bellocchio was hailed in American art-film circles as a post-neorealist, hence a worthy successor to Rossellini, Visconti, and De Sica." Writing about Fists, Bellocchio himself acknowledged that "my name may remain linked to this film above all. The great advantage of first films is that you're nobody and you have no history, so you have the freedom to risk everything, you have nothing to lose. The anger that turns into the murder of a mother and a brother was very much in sync with the times and with the things that were exploding and about to explode. The film is actually about the nihilistic fervor of a youth… and the non-violent challenging of fathers and professors."

The Bellocchio vogue in America was short-lived, due in part to the vagaries of Italian international film distribution, but in Europe his films are widely seen. He is admired as a prolific filmmaker-around 30 theatrical features, plus several television series in a 45 year career-and known for his strong left-wing convictions. A member of the Italian Communist Party, Bellocchio's films often examine the role of politics, religion, and patriarchy in contemporary Italian society. Among the titles in his filmography most worthy of re-discovery are: In the Name of the Father; Leap Into the Void; Henry IV, based on a Pirandello play; My Mother's Smile which deals with religious canonization; and the harrowing Good Morning, Night, a fictionalized portrait of the Red Brigade.

This Spotlight Weekend opens with a double bill of Fists in the Pocket, an audacious portrait of dysfunctional upper class family whose crazed, epileptic teenage son plots to kill his mother and brother, and China is Near, a stinging political satire that predicts the student revolutions of '68. Saturday showcases two rare films virtually unseen by American audiences: The Devil in the Flesh, a sexually explicit adaptation of the Stendhal novel updated to 1980s Italy that became Bellocchio's most controversial film; and La Balia/The Nanny, a Pirandello adaptation set in pre-World War I Rome that explores the fraught relationship that develops when a stern psychiatrist and his estranged wife hire a devoted wet nurse to care for their new-born child.

Presented with the assistance and support of the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles and Cinecittà Luce. Our thanks to the following individuals and organizations for their collaboration: May Haduong, Academy Film Archive; Sarah Finklea, Janus Films; Sony Repertory; Marian Luntz, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Victor Laruccia, San Diego Italian Film Festival; and Massimo Sarti, Deputy Director, IIC.

Program Notes

Friday and Saturday screenings begin at 7:30 pm unless otherwise noted. There is a ten-minute intermission between features on a double bill. All programs are subject to change. Films are in 35mm unless otherwise indicated. Foreign-language films are subtitled in English. Many films are unrated and may not be appropriate for younger viewers. If a film is listed as "sold out," a standby line will form one hour before the screening. Any cancellations or seats that become available will go to people waiting in this line. Please note that there is no guarantee that everyone in the standby line will be accommodated.

The Leo S. Bing Theater is equipped with a DTS digital sound system courtesy of Universal Pictures, an SDDS digital sound system courtesy of Sony Cinema Products, and Dolby digital sound.

$5 second film only of a double-feature; no advance purchase.

$2 Tuesday matinees.
$1 Tuesday matinees, seniors (62+).

Where to Buy
Buy tickets at the museum box office (tel. 323 857-6010) or online. Many programs sell out so try to purchase in advance.

Included
Your film ticket covers both films in a double bill, except where noted, and includes entrance to the museum galleries as well.

Film Department
Tel. 323 857-6177
Ian Birnie, Director
Bernardo Rondeau, Program Coordinator
Pauline Posner, Volunteer

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