Ingmar Bergman's The Silence: Pictures in the Typewriter, Writings on the Screen

220 Pages·2011·2.829 MB·English

by  Maaret Koskinen

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mette hjort and peter schepelern, Series Editors
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The Nordic Film Classics series offers in-depth studies of key films by
Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish directors. Written
by emerging as well as established film scholars, and where possible in
conversation with relevant film practitioners, these books help to shed
light on the ways in which the Nordic nations and region have contrib-
uted to the art of film.
Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence: Pictures in the Typewriter,
Writings on the Screen by Maaret Koskinen
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museum tusculanum press
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This publication is supported by a grant
from the Swedish Research Council.
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Published in Europe by
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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Koskinen, Maaret.
Ingmar Bergman’s The silence : pictures in the typewriter, writings on the screen /
Maaret Koskinen.
p. cm. — (Nordic film classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
includes filmography.
isbn 978-0-295-98943-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Tystnaden (Motion picture) 2. Bergman, Ingmar, 1918–2007
—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
pn1997.t94k67 2009
791.43’72—dc22 2009022009
The outrage that greeted The Silence—howls of bishops, scissorings of
censors, even feces-smeared toilet paper sent to the director—denoted
public horror at a morally serious moviemaker surrendering (it seemed) to
a libertine, Dadaist nihilism. But The Silence is a massively serious movie.
Its deconstruction of the unconscious in a world drifting toward secularity
opened the way to modern directors like Kieslowski and Lars von Trier, for
whom cinema is a glorious trapdoor art.
—harlan kennedy, in “Whatever Happened
to Ingmar Bergman?” 1998
I think I have an extra ear sunk into my body, a nose entangled in my
intestines, an eye staring into my brain hopelessly bloodshot from the lack
of light. This film is gradually turning into a first-rate [specimen of] suffer-
ing. I congratulate myself. At the same time, I believe, I do think that it’s
shaping itself somewhere inside my head, or wherever the hell it may be.
—ingmar bergman, in a notebook while
writing The Silence, 19 March 1962
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Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: “Whatever Happened to Ingmar Bergman?” 3
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1 National Cinema, Art Film, and the Auteur 21
The Auteur Contextualized 23
Antonioni: “That Perpetual Foil to Bergman” 25
Art Versus Business 31
The Auteur as Star 35
The Art of Reinventing Authorship 39
2 Censorship Issues: Sex, Women, and Hollywood 43
The Silence at Home: Debate and Controversy 44
The Silence Abroad: “The Bergman Ballyhoo Era” 48
Gender Issues: Now What About All These Women? 54
Director and Actress: Nudity and Power Relations 61
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3 In the Beginning Was (the Fear of) the Word: Notebooks 67
From Word to Sound… 68
…to Music and Painting 74
4 In Between Words and Images: Manuscripts and Screenplays 84
Edits: Too Many Words 85
Sex and the City: The Eroticism of Language 91
The Published Screenplay: Senses and Synesthetics 100
Excursion: Flash Forward to a Writer Let Loose 103
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5 Framing the Senses 109
Sounds and Linguistic Voids 112
Beginnings: Windows and Sights 114
Paintings and Tableaux Vivants 120
The Phenomenology of Vision: Hotel Excursions 124
The Eroticism of Vision: Mirrors and Doorways 127
The Close-Up: The Bergman Icon 132
Conclusion 137
Production Notes 145
Filmography 147
Transcript of the U.S. Trailer for The Silence 151
Notes 153
Bibliography 181
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(cid:45)w(cid:3)ish to extend my cordial thanks to the Ingmar Bergman Foun-
dation for granting citation rights as well as for the use of illus-
trations from its archive. For swift and professional assistance,
many thanks also to Lotta Edoff, deputy head at the Legal & Rights
Department of Svensk Filmindustri (SF); Ola Törjas at the library of
the Swedish Film Institute; and technical director Bart van der Gaag
at the Department of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University.
For salient critique and valuable advice on a work in progress,
warm thanks go to my colleague Professor Astrid Söderbergh Wid-
ding, as well as to Jakob Nilsson and other students in the PhD semi-
nar at the Department of Cinema Studies of Stockholm University.
Special thanks to Mette Hjort and Peter Schepelern for invalu-
able advice and encouragement. A very special thanks also to editor
Kerrie Maynes for her keen attention to detail and for pruning my
“Swenglish.”
Finally, thanks also to the Swedish Research Council for generous
financial support in the preparation of this volume.
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