Image My Life in Film Page 15

  Now I see this in the film: After the church services, the fisherman and his wife go to see Pastor Ericsson. Mrs. Fisherman speaks to the pastor about her husband’s anxiety. Pastor Ericsson, deeply absorbed in an attack of the flu, answers by speaking about the omnipotency of love. The fisherman says nothing. The wife announces that he must drive her home to assume her duties as wife and mother. She will come back in half an hour or so.

  I’ve decided that the woman with the bandaged hands is not his wife but his mistress. His wife has been dead for four years. His mistress, Märta, is a skinny, tormented, and lonely woman who has no faith. She represses great anger inside. She goes to communion out of love, in order to get close to her lover.

  I believe that I should not begin to write this drama before I truly love my characters, before I can seriously wish them well in their sorrow. I don’t want to force the drama into lightheartedness.

  We went to Torö in the beginning of July, and there I started writing Winter Light. By July 28 I had finished. That was fast for a story so tricky, not because of a complicated plot but because of its simplicity.

  My original thought was for the drama to take place in an abandoned church, which had been closed up and was waiting to be restored, with a ruined organ and rats running between the pews. It was a good idea! A man locks himself in an abandoned church and is finally alone with his hallucinations. This required only one set: a closed space depicting the small church with its high altar and its triptych. Only the lighting effects any changes in the room to signify dawn, the bright sun, sunset, the darkness of night. Then there are the strange sounds of the wind and the silence.

  But the film became a bigger and wilder idea, perhaps more theatrical than most films. The shifting from religious themes to utterly worldly events demanded another setting. And another kind of lighting. This is where the break from Through a Glass Darkly becomes so radical.

  Through a Glass Darkly affected an emotional tone both romantic and coquettish, something that one can hardly accuse Winter Light of doing. The two films belong together only when one sees Through a Glass Darkly as the starting point for Winter Light. Already I had divorced myself rather violently from my approach in Through a Glass Darkly. But I had not yet acknowledged this out loud.

  Outside resistance to Winter Light was strong; criticism had already begun at the production level. But Svensk Filmindustri’s head of production, Carl Anders Dymling, was seriously ill, and I found myself in the position of being able to do what I wanted. It was time to risk a death-defying leap. Or, to use the actor Spegel’s words in The Face: “A sharp knife-edge to scrape out all impurity.”

  “The role of Tomas Ericsson made harsh demands on him.” With Gunnar Björnstrand in Winter Light.

  I have always tried to make my films appealing in some way to my audience. But I was not so stupid as to believe that Winter Light would be a public favorite. Unfortunate, perhaps, but inevitable. Even Gunnar Björnstrand had great difficulties with his part. We had worked together on a long line of comedies, but the role of Tomas Ericsson made harsh demands on him. Gunnar found it painful to portray a person who was unsympathetic to such a degree. His inner turmoil became so acute that he had trouble remembering his lines, a problem that had never happened before. Furthermore, he had health problems, and for his sake we worked relatively short day shifts. We shot exteriors in Dalecarlia [Sweden] — in an area abutting Orsa Finnmark. The November days were short there, yet the light was extremely gratifying even with its peculiar slant.

  Not one shot was taken in direct sunlight. We filmed only when it was overcast or foggy.

  A Swedish man in the midst of a Swedish reality experiencing a dismal aspect of the Swedish climate. In general, the film lacks highly dramatic moments.

  But there is one such moment, and it comes when Tomas and Märta Lundberg are stopped at a railway crossing. He tells her that it was his father who wanted him to become a clergyman. Then a train arrives with freight cars that look like enormous coffins. It is the only moment with strong visual and acoustic effects. Otherwise the film is simple. Beneath the simplicity, however, there lies a complexity, which is hard to define.

  It seems like a religious conflict, but it goes farther than that. The pastor is dying emotionally. He exists beyond love, actually beyond all human relations.

  His hell, because he truly lives in hell, is that he recognizes his situation.

  Together with his wife he has maintained a kind of fiction. The fiction is “God is love and love is God.”

  The wife contracts cancer, and her suffering deepens their relationship. Through her pain he experiences feelings of tenderness and human reality, a reality he has hardly ever been in touch with. He becomes real through his sorrow over his powerlessness over his wife’s suffering.

  His wife and he have been two of a kind, two damaged children who have found each other. They give each other a bearable existence.

  Their idealism is fragile but real. Supported by her, he extols a romanticized ideal and begins a modest revival in the area. People listen to their pastor with renewed interest. He speaks eloquently, and his wife is very beautiful. A mild wind sweeps over the congregation. The couple visit different cottages, speaking with old people and singing psalms. One can imagine that their roles give them a deep satisfaction.

  Then his wife dies, and his life dies with her. He becomes a relentless taskmaster. His mildly deceitful wife is dead, and God the Father is fading.

  He bleeds to death emotionally, since there never was any real substance to his childish feelings. He lives alone for two years after his wife’s death. Then Märta takes hold of him. She has loved him all the time, even when he was married and unattainable. As a minister and a teacher in a small community, they have been in contact frequently. The winter, the silence, their loneliness, and a mutual hunger drive them into each other’s arms.

  In the church: Tomas (Gunnar Björnstrand). Märta (Ingrid Thulin).

  Märta has her psychosomatic illness — eczema. He begins to pull away since he finds her illness horrifying. She realizes with striking perception the lovelessness of their relationship. But she is stubborn. This man is her mission. There is a mixture of honesty and banter to her credo: I prayed for a mission and I got you! When she kneels to say her prayers, she is not turning to God for guidance. The kneeling is a gesture dictated by the church. She prays for faith and security.

  When Tomas stands by the rapids and guards Jonas’s corpse, he sees with a clarity that is etched in his mind the fiasco of his life. An hour later he takes revenge on the one who loves him. Then the cowardly being can no longer keep quiet; to his own surprise, he hears himself say: “The reason, the decisive reason, is that I don’t want you.”

  Märta (to herself): I understand that I have made mistakes. All the time.

  Tomas (pained): I have to go now. I’ll talk to Mrs. Persson.

  Märta: No, I have made mistakes. Every time I felt hatred toward you, I made an effort to transform that hatred into compassion. (Looks at him.) I have felt sorry for you. I am so used to feeling sorry for you that I am unable to hate you even now. (She smiles apologetically — her crooked, ironic smile. He looks quickly at her: her hunched shoulders, her head straining forward, her large immobile hands, the look in her eyes that is suddenly unprotected and burning, her earlobes poking out through unkempt hair.)

  Märta: What will you do without me?

  Tomas: Ah! (Disdainful. He bites his lip. A heavy distaste works upward from his innards to his mouth.)

  “Not one shot was taken in direct sunlight.” With Sven Nykvist.

  Märta (lost): Oh no, you won’t be able to get along. You won’t make it, dearest little Tomas. Nothing can save you now. You’ll hate yourself to death.

  He stands up and walks toward the door. During these moments he has time to imagine an even more horrible life — life without her. For him it is irrevocably over; death reigns in the schoolroom. He turns around as he reaches th
e door and hears himself say, “Do you want to come along to Frostnäs? I’ll try to be nice.”

  (She looks up. Her severe face has an expression of being turned off, being closed up.)

  Märta (stiffly): You really want me to? Or is it only some new fear that’s passing through you?

  Tomas: Do what you want, but I am asking you.

  Märta: Yes. Of course, I’ll come. I have no choice.

  What has happened is a draining. Not only for him but also for her. He throws out words, and she sits there defenseless. She realizes suddenly that she is guilty of wrong-doing, that there has been a brutal egoism in her emotional gale.

  At three o’clock the same afternoon, Tomas and Märta arrive in Frostnäs. Church bells are ringing, and peace reigns between them as they walk quietly side by side in the twilight. Algot Frövik’s reflections on forlornness offer welcome relief. Tomas believes for a brief moment that Christ and he have suffered the same pain: “God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

  Darkness falls over both Frostnäs and Golgotha.

  Frövik has already seen this change in Tomas, and for a few seconds even Tomas grasps the bizarre camaraderie felt through suffering.

  Everything is burned clear, and personal growth now becomes a possibility. For the first time in his life, Pastor Ericsson makes his own decision. He goes through with his service for no other reason than that Märta Lundberg is present.

  If one has religious faith, one would say that God has spoken to him. If one does not believe in God, one might prefer to say that Märta Lundberg and Algot Frövik are two people who help raise a fellow human being who has fallen and is digging his own grave.

  At that point it doesn’t matter if God is silent or if he is speaking.

  I wrote in The Magic Lantern:

  While I was preparing Winter Light, I went around looking at churches in Uppland in the early spring. In most cases, I borrowed the key from the organist and sat for a few hours in the church, watching the light travel across the space inside and thinking of how I would end my film. Everything had been written down and planned, except the ending.

  One Sunday, I phoned Father early in the morning and asked him if he would like to come with me on an outing. Mother was in the hospital after her first heart attack, and Father had isolated himself. His hands and feet had grown worse, and now he wore orthopedic boots and walked with a stick. Out of self-discipline and sheer willpower, he continued his duties in the parish of the royal palace. He was seventy-five.

  It was an early spring day with mist and bright light reflecting off the surrounding snow. We arrived in plenty of time at the little church north of Uppsala to find four churchgoers ahead of us waiting in the narrow pews. The churchwarden and the sexton were whispering on the porch while a female organist was rummaging in the organ loft. Even after the sum?moning bell had faded away over the plain, the pastor still had not appeared. A long silence ensued in heaven and on earth. Father shifted uneasily in his seat and muttered to himself and me. A few minutes later we heard the sound of a car speeding across the slippery ground outside; a door slammed, and after a minute the pastor came puffing down the aisle.

  When he got to the altar rail, he turned around and looked at his congregation with red-rimmed eyes. He was a thin, long-haired man, his trimmed beard scarcely covering his receding chin. He swung his arms like a skier and coughed, the hair on the crown of his head curly, and his forehead turning red. “I am sick,” said the pastor. “I have a high fever and a chill.” He sought sympathy in our eyes. “I have permission to give you a short service; there will be no communion. I’ll preach as best I can, then we’ll sing a hymn and that will have to do. I’ll just go into the sacristy and put on my cassock.” He bowed and for a few moments stood irresolutely as if waiting for applause or at least some sign of approval, but when no one reacted, he disappeared through a heavy door.

  Father rose from his seat in the pew. He was upset. “I must speak to that man. Let me pass.” He got out of the pew and limped into the sacristy, leaning heavily on his stick. A short and agitated conversation followed.

  “I prayed for a mission and I got you!” Gunnar Björnstrand and Ingrid Thulin.

  A few minutes later, the churchwarden appeared. He smiled with embarrassment and explained that there would be a communion service after all, and an older colleague would assist the pastor.

  The introductory hymn was sung by the organist and us few churchgoers. At the end of the second verse, Father came in, in white vestments, with his stick. When the hymn was over, he turned to us and spoke in his calm free voice, “Holy, holy, holy Lord of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee, O Lord most High.”

  Thus it was that I discovered the ending to Winter Light and a rule I was to follow from then on: irrespective of anything that happens to you in life, you hold your communion.

  Other Films

  BIRGER MALMSTEN PLANNED to visit a childhood friend of his, a painter living in Cagnes-sur-Mer. We traveled together and found a small hotel in the mountains high above the carnation fields with a commanding view of the Mediterranean.

  My second marriage had hit rock bottom. So my wife and I tried to revitalize our love by writing letters to each other. At the same time I began to think back to our time in Helsingborg. I sketched a few scenes from a marriage. Much inside me insisted on being expressed, both my personal concept of my place in the world of art and my marital problems of infidelity (and fidelity). More specifically, I wanted to make a film with music streaming through it and out of it.

  The symphony orchestra in Helsingborg, though severely lacking in sophistication, exuberantly played the canon of major symphonies. As often as time and circumstances allowed, I sat in on orchestra rehearsals. For their season finale they planned to perform Beethoven’s Ninth. I was allowed to borrow the score from the conductor, Sten Frykberg, and could actively follow, note by note, the musicians and the members of the unpaid but passionate amateur choir. It was a powerful and touching event. I thought it was a magnificent idea for a film.

  It seemed so natural that I tripped over the idea. I changed the theatrical people in my autobiographical film to musicians and gave it the title

  To Joy after Beethoven’s symphony.

  I thought my idea utterly brilliant. In relation to my profession, I obviously was not suffering from any neuroses at all. I worked because it was fun and because I needed money.

  How many carats the work contained was something I rarely considered. When in this intoxicated state, I could become totally enveloped in my own sense of brilliance.

  There is in To Joy a discussion of the importance of being in place punctually when the rehearsal begins and being diligent. As I wrote in The Magic Lantern about the years in Helsingborg: “Our rehearsal periods were short, our preparations were almost nonexistent. What we presented was hastily assembled consumer goods. I think that was a good learning experience, for us very useful. Young people should constantly be faced with new tasks. Their instruments must be tried and hardened because technique can be developed only through steady contact with an audience.”

  That the film’s young violinist plays Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with about the same lackluster skill as I exhibited in Crisis is just part of the whole story.*

  To Joy is a hopelessly uneven film, but it has a few shining moments. A good scene is the confrontation at night between Stig Olin and Maj-Britt Nilsson. It is good because Maj-Britt Nilsson’s adept acting enriches the scene. The clear and honest depiction of a complicated relationship echoes the conflicts in my own marriage.

  But To Joy is also an impossible melodrama. A kerosene stove explodes portentously in the beginning of the film, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is shamelessly exploited. I do understand the techniques used in both melodrama and soap opera quite well. One who uses melodrama as it should be used can implement the unrestrained emotional possibilities available in the genre. Melodrama enables one, as it did me i
n Fanny and Alexander, to revel in total emotional freedom, but it is crucial to know where to draw the line between what is acceptable and what is downright ridiculous.

  To Joy: Maj-Britt Nilsson, Stig Olin, and Victor Sjöström.

  Summer Interlude: “We filmed it in Stockholm’s outer archipelago. … A touch of genuine tenderness is achieved through Maj-Britt Nilsson’s performance.”

  I did not know that when I made To Joy. The connection I made by juxtaposing the wife’s death with Beethoven’s “An die Freude” was careless and unbelievably frivolous. My original story worked better. It simply ended with the couple splitting up. They remain with the orchestra, but she receives an offer in Stockholm, which hastens their breakup.

  Sadly, I couldn’t handle such a simple, harsh finale to the story.

  A general weakness reigns in my films from this period. I had trouble trying to depict the happiness of youth. I believe the problem is that I myself never felt young, only immature. As a child, I never associated with other young people. I isolated myself from my peers and became a loner. At the same time I became dangerously enchanted with the Swedish novelist and playwright Hjalmar Bergman and his elaborately constructed tales of youth. His influence can be seen in Illicit Interlude (Summer Interlude) and created, I believe, the most serious flaw in Wild Strawberries.

  The world of youth was alien to me. I stood on the outside, looking in. When I had to formulate dialogue for my young characters, I reached for literary clichés and adopted a coquettish silliness.

  In To Joy I presented a series of events that should have been detached and realistic — the scenes demanded distance and perspective — but verged instead on the highly personal. I couldn’t provide a solid foundation for this material, and therefore the house of cards collapsed.