Bergman and his world of literary vision
Professor Sunanda Mahendra
CINEMA: The great cinematographer Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) is no
more. But he is remembered for his great works of cine works such as The
Wild Strawberries and Fanny and Alexander.
He was also a remarkable theatre man and a fiction writer with a
humanistic literary vision especially drawn as a result of his influence
derived from the works of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg.
I had the opportunity of seeing two of his stage productions as far
back as 1969 when the Ibsen’s celebrated Hedda Gabler was produced for
the Aldwych Theatre in London directed by Bergman. Followed by this
success he directed Strindberg’s The Dance of Death which depicted the
essence of the original well-known to the English audience.
That was the time when he was a prolific writer to the television
medium directing shorter unconventional type of plays. In certain ways
they captured the theatre of the absurd type which was well known to the
theatre goer in England.
One of the best to be presented was The Lie with three characters
reminiscent of Polanski’s the knife in water the theme of which was of
interest to the English audience as it was not only a theme bearing the
pulse of the behaviour patterns of the urban town dwellers who not only
lead a hectic and dynamic life, but also end up with interactions of
miseries and fantasies of wish fulfilment.
Being a spectator of his short creations I could see Bergman’s that
sensitive skill to capture some of the inner nuances in a psychological
manner pleasing the English audience in an indirect manner.
Though he wrote these plays in his native language Swedish, the
translations with voice dubbings enabled the spectator to gather the
textual meanings which transcended the mere visual impact.
Being an Ibsenite from his early days of maturing into literary
creations, Bergman had the clear sense of presenting a play text more
creatively, where the words and dialogue mattered in his text.
Even when he created the cine works via his own screen plays, he
emphasized the significance of the literary text. This is clearly
explained in his autobiography Magic Lantern.
I take his film Shame for example where the words in his screenplay
mattered as a literary text much more than the visual presentation,
though the latter cannot be undermined.
In Wild Strawberries (1957) his most Ibsenesque film an ageing
professor delves back through his memories to confront the emotional
failure of his life. Another medieval drama The Virgin Spring (1960) the
printed text, which reads like an introspective novel, retells the
legend of murder and expiation.
Underlying these films is the value of the literary text which refers
more to the search for meaning in the face of suffering and despair as
is observable in the two plays of Ibsen: A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler.
For a student of Ibsen’s plays and Bergman’s creative forms, there
seems some similarities springing out of the themes and communicative
structures where the conflict is more of a sensitive innerness than a
physical entity.
Like Ibsen, Bergman too happened to be an atheist in his portrayal of
characters; the characters of the three films Through a Glass Darkly
(1961), Winter Light (1963) and The Silence (1963) seem to torment
themselves and each other, seeking guidance and comfort in a world
depicted as either Godless or the absence of any invisible helper of a
high calibre, supposed to be the God as commonly accepted.
This does not mean to say that Bergman was a nihilist or a promoter
of nihilism through his works at any rate, though he wanted to pinpoint
that many tragedies depicted in his screenplays are the very same
tragedies which are caused by the humans themselves due to their
failures and frailties.
I can draw one example where Ibsen and Bergman had the same human
experience to express. This comes from Bergman’s film Persona (1966)
where two women, an actress and her nurse, psychologically devour
themselves and are shown as more insane than humans could afford to be.
Then we need to compare this with Ibsen’s playscript John Gabriel
Borkman where two men are shown in a similar state of agony devouring
themselves not as humans but perhaps as devils alike.
For Bergman the reality had several layers of expression. In reality
they are mostly sick and need the care of a touching human hand. Bergman
too wanted to depict the agonizing human relationships in traumatic
conditions.
Like in many plays of Ibsen, Bergman did not want to give any
ultimate solution for his human tragedies, instead he leaves the
situations to be watched and judged by the spectator.
Ibsen as well as Bergman wanted to create the pseudo environment
created by the humans for their torments disasters and pitfalls. The
need for personal liberation as found in most literary visions both in
the east and the west are visible traits in both Ibsen and Bergman.
In his autobiography The Magic Lantern - a symbolic title for his
professionalism - he says that it is the inner tragedy of the humans
that cast more spell over the spectator and /or the reader than the
outer happenings created by the man himself as he possessed a deeper
sense of the social upliftment and anti war and anti terror elements in
his own feelings.
In this direction he selects more characters of singers, (as in The
Naked Night, (1953) writers (as in The Wild Strawberries), actors (as in
Persona,1966) and musicians (as in Shame). Bergman in his autobiography
further shows us how much of time he had spent on reading the great
books of playwrights and novelists which enabled him to grasp and mould
his own literary vision and craftsmanship.
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Bookshelf:
Heidi
LAUNCH: Chandra Anagiratne’s Heidi will be launched at Dayawansa
Jayakody Book Exhibition Hall, Ven. S. Mahinda Mawatha, Colombo 10 on
August 21 at 10 a.m. This is the authentic Sinhala translation of
Johanna Spyri’s popular novel titled Heidi.
Chandra Anagiratne was the author of many other books such as
Dracula, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Hapankam, Malory Towers Balika Viduhala
Kochchiye Lamayi and Kele Hedunu Lamai.
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Atawaka Putthu
LAUNCH: Liyanage Amarakeerthi’s new Sinhala novel, Atawaka Putthu
(half-moon sons) will come out at Wijesooriya Book Centre, Punchi
Borella on August 18 at 10.30 a.m.. In this coming-of-age novel, taking
a family joke literally, a boy believes that his twin brother was not
born, and hidden inside of himself, and looks for his unborn twin among
his friends, lovers and the like.
The central character, a budding poet, uses this ‘joke of the unborn
twin’ as a metaphor to understand contemporary Sri Lankan life. During
the violent 1980s, the boy comes of age, and the inner incompleteness of
himself translates into a certain incompleteness of his politics. A
combination of a love story, a political novel and a crime fiction,
Atawaka Putthu challenges its reader to define its genre.
The US-based author, on a visit to Sri Lanka, will read selections
from the novel. The book is published by Wijesooriya Publishers. |
