Spoilers herein.
As a general matter, I appreciate Bergman's skill but do not welcome his art into my life. However intense, the issues are too small, excepting `Seventh Seal.'
But his is a cinematic mind, and every once in a while, he'll create an image so powerful it burns its way into the depths of your memory, slightly below that threshold of awareness. You then carry it always.
This film has one such scene. It involves a Chopin Prelude.
Chopin's work is unlike any other composer's: it is designed to be played in a way that deviates from the expected with the passion coming not from the notes per se, but the space between them, and between them and us that when filled affects the placement of the notes in time ever so slightly.
This particular prelude can range from one that haunts to one that accuses. I've heard all sorts of different passions, depending on who plays and how rich they are as humans. There is nothing in all the world like the many ways this can be filled and the impact it can have when taken seriously.
The scene in question is superficially simple: the daughter plays the piece rather poorly, followed by the mother much more expertly. But the pianist who actually plays (Laretei) really knows his way around this world, and was expertly directed by Bergman. Watch the scene, and you'll hear the piece played by Eva in a way that expertly expresses the damage, perverted love, and sly literateness of her character. Then we have a speech from her Mom about wrestling with it, about being emotional but not mawkish, feeling not being sentimentality, pain and not reverie, to be calm clear and harsh, to not show the hurt, to be restrained.
And then she plays, and does everything she says not to. Everything. Rather than hinting at yogic control of immense suffering, she creates the reverse notion. Rather than phrasing in the small, she does it in the large with hesitations not anticipations. In other words, she acts through the music in precisely the same way her character does in the film. But the music is far richer than can be accomplished with talk.
And Liv! She watches her mother go through this, feeling the metapain of her mother: the pain of not knowing why her pain isn't genuine, and tapping the metapain for the performance. It's an exploitation of cluelessness. Eva recognizes this and it scrambles her soul without her really knowing why. It is a few minutes of the most concentrated emotion you may ever experience in film. Everything that follows is annotation, including Eva's awareness and Charlotte's noting of Leonardo's remark to her: `a sense of reality is a matter of talent.'
I've watched a few thousand films, many about music. Almost never does the filmmaker understand the music. This does. She does. He does.
Ted's evaluation: 3 of 4 -- Worth watching.
As a general matter, I appreciate Bergman's skill but do not welcome his art into my life. However intense, the issues are too small, excepting `Seventh Seal.'
But his is a cinematic mind, and every once in a while, he'll create an image so powerful it burns its way into the depths of your memory, slightly below that threshold of awareness. You then carry it always.
This film has one such scene. It involves a Chopin Prelude.
Chopin's work is unlike any other composer's: it is designed to be played in a way that deviates from the expected with the passion coming not from the notes per se, but the space between them, and between them and us that when filled affects the placement of the notes in time ever so slightly.
This particular prelude can range from one that haunts to one that accuses. I've heard all sorts of different passions, depending on who plays and how rich they are as humans. There is nothing in all the world like the many ways this can be filled and the impact it can have when taken seriously.
The scene in question is superficially simple: the daughter plays the piece rather poorly, followed by the mother much more expertly. But the pianist who actually plays (Laretei) really knows his way around this world, and was expertly directed by Bergman. Watch the scene, and you'll hear the piece played by Eva in a way that expertly expresses the damage, perverted love, and sly literateness of her character. Then we have a speech from her Mom about wrestling with it, about being emotional but not mawkish, feeling not being sentimentality, pain and not reverie, to be calm clear and harsh, to not show the hurt, to be restrained.
And then she plays, and does everything she says not to. Everything. Rather than hinting at yogic control of immense suffering, she creates the reverse notion. Rather than phrasing in the small, she does it in the large with hesitations not anticipations. In other words, she acts through the music in precisely the same way her character does in the film. But the music is far richer than can be accomplished with talk.
And Liv! She watches her mother go through this, feeling the metapain of her mother: the pain of not knowing why her pain isn't genuine, and tapping the metapain for the performance. It's an exploitation of cluelessness. Eva recognizes this and it scrambles her soul without her really knowing why. It is a few minutes of the most concentrated emotion you may ever experience in film. Everything that follows is annotation, including Eva's awareness and Charlotte's noting of Leonardo's remark to her: `a sense of reality is a matter of talent.'
I've watched a few thousand films, many about music. Almost never does the filmmaker understand the music. This does. She does. He does.
Ted's evaluation: 3 of 4 -- Worth watching.