Scenes from a Marriage: Difference between revisions
m clean up, typos fixed: seperates → separates using AWB |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 19: | Line 19: | ||
'''''Scenes from a Marriage''''' (Swedish: '''''Scener ur ett äktenskap''''') is a 1973 Swedish TV series written and directed by [[Ingmar Bergman]]. The story explores the disintegration of a marriage between Marianne, a lawyer, and Johan, a professor (played by [[Liv Ullmann]] and [[Erland Josephson]]) over a long period, using a restricted cast, a [[naturalist]], hyper-[[realistic]] cinematic style, claustrophobic [[close-ups]], and strings of rapid, articulate [[monologues]]. After major success in Sweden, the series became notorious worldwide when it was condemned for allegedly inspiring a spike in Scandinavian divorce rates, which almost doubled in the year of its release. |
'''''Scenes from a Marriage''''' (Swedish: '''''Scener ur ett äktenskap''''') is a 1973 Swedish TV series written and directed by [[Ingmar Bergman]]. The story explores the disintegration of a marriage between Marianne, a lawyer, and Johan, a professor (played by [[Liv Ullmann]] and [[Erland Josephson]]) over a long period, using a restricted cast, a [[naturalist]], hyper-[[realistic]] cinematic style, claustrophobic [[close-ups]], and strings of rapid, articulate [[monologues]]. After major success in Sweden, the series became notorious worldwide when it was condemned for allegedly inspiring a spike in Scandinavian divorce rates, which almost doubled in the year of its release. |
||
''Scenes from a Marriage'' |
The full cut of ''Scenes from a Marriage'' is five hours long. In the United States, a three-hour cut was released to cinemas. The film was made on a $150,000 budget and was shot mostly in [[Fårö]], [[Gotlands län]] in [[Sweden]]. The film won several accolades including [[BAFTA]] and Golden Globe nominations for Liv Ullmann (Best Actress - Drama), and a [[Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film]]. In 2008, a theatrical adaption by [[Joanna Murray-Smith]] was performed at the [[Belgrade Theatre]] in [[Coventry]], directed by [[Trevor Nunn]] and starring [[Imogen Stubbs]] and [[Iain Glen]]. |
||
==Episode summary== |
==Episode summary== |
||
Revision as of 07:55, 24 November 2010
| Scenes from a Marriage | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Written by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Produced by | Lars-Owe Carlberg |
| Starring | Liv Ullmann Erland Josephson |
| Cinematography | Sven Nykvist |
| Edited by | Siv Lundgren |
Release date | April 11, 1973 |
Running time | 295 minutes |
| Country | Sweden |
| Language | Swedish |
Scenes from a Marriage (Swedish: Scener ur ett äktenskap) is a 1973 Swedish TV series written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The story explores the disintegration of a marriage between Marianne, a lawyer, and Johan, a professor (played by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson) over a long period, using a restricted cast, a naturalist, hyper-realistic cinematic style, claustrophobic close-ups, and strings of rapid, articulate monologues. After major success in Sweden, the series became notorious worldwide when it was condemned for allegedly inspiring a spike in Scandinavian divorce rates, which almost doubled in the year of its release.
The full cut of Scenes from a Marriage is five hours long. In the United States, a three-hour cut was released to cinemas. The film was made on a $150,000 budget and was shot mostly in Fårö, Gotlands län in Sweden. The film won several accolades including BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Liv Ullmann (Best Actress - Drama), and a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2008, a theatrical adaption by Joanna Murray-Smith was performed at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Imogen Stubbs and Iain Glen.
Episode summary
This plot summary is for the 295-minute, TV miniseries version of the work (the feature film retains the episode names as chapter titles). Each episode concludes with long, quiet, comforting shots of Fårö landscapes, as a "relief" from the up-close, tense and claustrophobic episodes.
- Episode 1: Innocence and Panic. The story begins with a laughingly superficial interview of Johan and Marianne by a reporter for a women's magazine, which nevertheless already begins to reveal the tensions the two keep hidden inside. Marianne feels that without pressure to meet others' expectations, people would be kinder to each other; the interviewer notes Marianne's desire for 'a more romantic life', though Marianne says she means "just the opposite". The couple’s friends Peter and Katarina come over for dinner. Marianne has an abortion, but is regretful.
- Episode 2: The Art of Sweeping Things Under the Rug. (1 day later) Marianne tries to back out of a Sunday dinner with her parents but fails and realizes how difficult it is for her to defeat other people's expectations. Johan flirts, and Marianne offers counseling.
- Episode 3: Paula. (1 week later) The couple retreat to their countryside cabin. Johan separates from Marianne, and begins dating Paula.
- Episode 4: The Vale of Tears. (1 year later) Johan is disillusioned with his current lover and revisits Marianne. They discuss divorce, but can't bring themselves to sign the papers, then attempt to have sex, but Johan cannot maintain his erection.
- Episode 5: The Illiterates. (1 week later) Marianne and Johan meet at his office to sign divorce papers, but Johan refuses. The two fight savagely.
- Episode 6: In the Middle of the Night in a Dark House Somewhere in the World. (8 years later) Marianne and Johan have married other people, but are unhappy. They arrange to meet again at the cabin from Paula; on the way, Marianne visits her mother, consoling her after the death of her husband. Mother reveals that she always did her duty as a wife, though is vague and uncertain as to whether or not she loved her husband. At the cabin, Marianne sees Johan as small and vulnerable, and finds it touching. She admits to enjoying sex with her current husband in a way she never did with Johan, which upsets him. She claims she has always felt a kind of responsibility and attachment to Johan. The two fall asleep in conversation. When Marianne wakes up panicking from a nightmare, Johan comforts her, and the two lie together on top of the quilts. Johan declares that they are "the emotional illiterates" and will never succeed at separating, nor at staying together.
In popular culture
In the 1984 SCTV skit/commercial parody 'Scenes From An Idiot's Marriage', Martin Short plays Jerry Lewis playing a writer who goes through a comedic version of what goes on in Scenes from a Marriage, complete with Lewis's pratfalls and constant mistakes in pronunciation of Swedish names (he constantly mistakes the name Sven Gunderbloom as Sy Worthenson when his wife (Andrea Martin) announces that she is divorcing him and giving him Gunderbloom's name as her lawyer) and his later pratfalls serving drinks at a dinner party when he gets carried away with using a seltzer bottle, spraying the water everyplace.
Woody Allen's similarly realist film Husbands and Wives includes several nods to Scenes from a Marriage, including a wife who will not show her poetry to her husband. Allen also co-stars in Paul Mazursky's Scenes from a Mall, a dark comedy about a marriage falling apart.
Cast
- Liv Ullmann - Marianne
- Erland Josephson - Johan
- Bibi Andersson - Katarina
- Jan Malmsjö - Peter
- Gunnel Lindblom - Eva
- Anita Wall - Fru [Mrs] Palm
- Barbro Hiort af Ornäs - Fru Jacobi
- Lena Bergman - Karin, sister of Eva
- Wenche Foss - Modern
- Rossana Mariano - Eva, aged 12
- Bertil Norström - Arne