Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman, A (Through a Glass Darkly / Winter Light / The Silence) (BLU-RAY)
In 1960, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman began work on three of his most powerful and representative films, eventually presented as a trilogy. Already a figure of international acclaim for such masterpieces as The Seventh Seal and The Magician, Bergman turned his back on the expressionism of his fifties work to focus on a series of chamber dramas exploring belief and alienation in the modern age. Collaborating with the distinguished cinematographer Sven Nykvist, and eliciting searing performances from his refined cast of regulars—Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Gunnel Lindblom, Ingrid Thulin, and Max Von Sydow among them—Bergman unleashed Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence in rapid succession, exposing moviegoers worldwide to a new level of intellectual and emotional intensity. Drawing on Bergman’s own upbringing and ongoing spiritual crises, the films of the trilogy examine the necessity of religion and question the promise of faith.
Through a Glass Darkly
While vacationing on a remote island retreat, a family finds its fragile ties tested when daughter Karin (an astonishing Harriet Andersson) discovers her father (Gunnar Björnstrand) has been using her schizophrenia for his own literary ends. As she drifts in and out of lucidity, Karin’s father, her husband (Max von Sydow), and her younger brother (Lars Passgård) are unable to prevent her descent into the abyss of mental illness. Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Through a Glass Darkly, the first work in Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy on faith and the loss of it, presents an unflinching vision of a family’s near disintegration and a tortured psyche further taunted by the intangibility of God’s presence.
Winter Light
“God, why hast thou forsaken me?” With Winter Light, Ingmar Bergman explores the search for redemption in a meaningless existence. Small-town pastor Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand) performs his duties mechanically before a dwindling congregation, including his stubbornly devoted lover, Märta (Ingrid Thulin). When he is asked to assuage a troubled parishioner’s (Max von Sydow) debilitating fear of nuclear annihilation, Tomas is terrified to find that he can provide nothing but his own doubt. The beautifully photographed Winter Light is an unsettling look at the human craving for personal validation in a world seemingly abandoned by God.
The Silence
Two sisters—the sickly, intellectual Ester (Ingrid Thulin) and the sensual, pragmatic Anna (Gunnel Lindblom)—travel by train with Anna’s young son, Johan (Jörgen Lindström), to a foreign country that appears to be on the brink of war. Attempting to cope with their alien surroundings, each sister is left to her own vices while they vie for Johan’s affection, and in so doing sabotage what little remains of their relationship. Regarded as one of the most sexually provocative films of its day, Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence offers a disturbing vision of emotional isolation in a suffocating spiritual void.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- On the DVD: High-definition digital transfers of all three films
- On the Blu-ray: New 2K digital restorations of all three films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- Introductions to the films by director Ingmar Bergman, recorded in 2003 (Blu-ray only)
- Interview from 2012 with actor Harriet Andersson (Blu-ray only)
- Audio interview from 1962 with actor Gunnar Björnstrand (Blu-ray only)
- Illustrated audio interview with cinematographer Sven Nykvist, recorded in 1981 (Blu-ray only)
- Observations from 2003 on each film by film scholar Peter Cowie
- Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie, a five-part documentary by Vilgot Sjöman made for Swedish television during the production of Winter Light
- Poster gallery
- Original U.S. theatrical trailers
- Alternate English-dubbed soundtracks
- With the DVD: Essays by film scholars Peter Matthews, Peter Cowie, and Leo Braudy, plus a statement from director Vilgot Sjöman
- With the Blu-ray: An essay by film scholar Catherine Wheatley and an excerpt from Bergman’s 1987 autobiography, The Magic Lantern
Covers by Eric Skillman