Cries and Whispers
I haven’t seen nearly enough Ingmar Bergman movies to make this argument, but I’m going to go ahead anyway. (Re-familiarize yourself with the name of this website if necessary.) I think by the time he made “Cries and Whispers” (1973), Bergman had stopped being Bergman the vital, daring, inventive filmmaker and had become BERGMAN(TM) the brand. He was already well-established, with “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries” and “The Silence” and “Persona,” among others, having already played to great international acclaim. “Cries and Whispers” was actually released in New York, presumably with great fanfare, before it was released in Bergman’s native Sweden; it went on to be nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the masterful Sven Nykvist deservedly won for his cinematography.
Was Bergman trying to give his adoring, elitist audiences what he thought they wanted? Hard to say. But “Cries and Whispers” is a hypnotic, relentless study of despair, color-coded for your convenience. It traffics almost exclusively in anguish, and as such it shortchanges the breadth of human emotion. It’s one-note and tidy. That’s not to say it isn’t brilliant, or that Bergman isn’t a first-rate film artist or that the acting isn’t astonishing. Everything about it is beautifully done. But does it really say anything about the human condition? I’m not sure, in part because Bergman is so intent on reducing his main characters, all women, to types: frigid (Ingrid Thulin’s Karin); sensual (Liv Ullmann’s Maria); naive (Harriet Andersson’s Agnes); and virtuous (Kari Swylan’s Anna). The movie doesn’t allow them to breathe, save for a few fleeting, exquisitely painted flashbacks and the couple of scenes set outside — Nykvist’s treatment of natural light in these scenes alone is award-worthy. Otherwise, it’s pretty brutal. Agnes is dying, presumably from cancer. Nothing can be done to save her or alleviate her suffering. And Anna, the maidservant, is the only one who can comfort her, because she’s the only one who honestly cares. Karin and Maria are wrapped up in their own psychodramas, as the flashbacks reveal. As Pauline Kael argued in her brilliant, antagonistic review, Bergman never provides a plausible context for all this outré misery; he may not even intend to. His language is the language of dreams. “Cries and Whispers” is a daring piece of work, certain to jar its audience; there are scenes you’ll never forget (although Michael Haneke, in “The Piano Teacher,” outdid Bergman in the depiction of a particularly appalling act of self-mutilation). It has a studied but seductive formalism; one image eases into the next with great fluidity, and occasionally Bergman fades to red, suggesting a hot-bloodedness that’s rarely evident in the characters’ behavior. You won’t question Bergman’s artistry if you see “Cries and Whispers,” but I’d recommend “The Seventh Seal” or “Wild Strawberries” if you want to see him as a great moviemaker.