Fade Out

Thank you, Jonathan Rosenbaum, for succinctly summing up my own feelings about Ingmar Bergman's Saraband, as well as the Ing-meister's late work: "I wouldn't dream of contesting Bergman's status as a film master. But I find a neurotic spitefulness and puritanical narrowness in the films he made after the 60s, and I think one would have to be as misanthropic as Woody Allen or critic John Simon to consider him the greatest of all filmmakers."

Comments

[STV]

"(A) neurotic spitefulness and puritanical narrowness in the films he made after the 60s..."

I don't know how this categorization applies to Fanny & Alexander, which is Bergman at his most benevolent (and possibly his best). But the only post '60s film besides F&A that gets any consistent play is Autumn Sonata, which is indeed one of his most misguided gimmicks. That said, I hope we don't throw the blanket of his later work over the true magic of his earlier accomplishments. It seems a tragic disservice to a filmmaker whose life's work deserves better.

[STV]

I cannot believe I left out Cries and Whispers and Scenes From a Marriage. I got so preoccupied with the films that get slammed that I totally spaced on what he did right. How embarrassing!