Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage opens with a couple--Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johann (Erland Josephson)--being interviewed for a magazine. Every moment seems to teeter on the brink of some rupture; just as they start to get comfortable, the interviewer has them freeze for a photograph. After making some bland, general statements, they both start admitting intimate details, confessing that they were brought together by mutual misery, then cheerfully claiming that theirs is a model marriage. The entirety of Scenes from a Marriage--which chronicles their emotional... relationship even after a divorce and marriages to other people--continues to have these contradictions, moments of honesty and self-deception, of cruelty and kindness, concern and self-obsession, all laid bare by the skilful actors and the subtle, constantly shifting screenplay. Every scene is a small movie unto itself; in fact, Scenes from a Marriage was originally a six-episode TV show, carefully edited down into a unified film. This is one of Bergman's most immediate and accessible works, concerned more with the facts of human behaviour than symbolism or abstract themes. Bergman understands how to balance what could be horrible pain and despair with the characters' earnest efforts to improve their lives. His imitators reduce everything to sheer suffering and alienation; Bergman sees the best in his characters, even when their actions are terrible. This 1973 film won numerous awards, including several acting honours for Ullmann. --Bret Fetzer [show more]
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Ingmar Bergman's examination of a relationship as it falls apart and the effects this has on the individuals involved. Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson play a successful couple who are interviewed by a television reporter and who appear to be happily married. However, things are not always as they seem and Bergman follows the couple at different intervals to show why the couple eventually divorce, find new partners and even attempt become lovers again. Originally made in six episodes for television, it was later edited into a feature film by the director for release in Europe and the US.
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE was originally conceived as a six-part TV mini-series. Since the film features only two principal actors, a limited number of indoor locales, and no musical score (nor any other atmosphere-enhancing devices), the success of this intense drama stems largely from the interaction between leads Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, who play Marianne and Josef, an upper-middle-class married couple. At first glance, their lives appear to be devoid of marital conflict, but soon after the opening sequence, it becomes clear that tension is mounting just below the surface. The movie consists almost entirely of dramatic exchanges between Marianne and Josef and eventually evolves into an agonising account of the deterioration of their marriage. But throughout it all, a deep, underlying love keeps the couple from breaking off all ties--in spite of the mutual aggression, cruelty, and even violence that forms part of their relationship.Ingmar Bergman anticipated that SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE would baffle, if not antagonise, viewers who had come to expect more stylistically groundbreaking and aesthetically polished work from him. In fact, however, as a result of his unflinching, straightforward approach, the film proves to be one of the director's most insightful and accessible works.
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