i saw this movie just now and this is only my third bergman after wild strawberries and seventh seal.
I found the movie to be brilliant (with a hard to swallow ending) but the board seems too empty.
this movie has to be one of bergman's best considering it is in tarkovsky's top 10 movies:
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Tarkovsk y-TopTen.html
any idea why it is being neglected by users?
I have the same feelings. This is perhaps one of Bergman's most demanding yet subtle/understated/minimalist films? I just viewed it for the first time. It was "clearer" to me (confirmed by most threads here) than most Bergman films upon first viewing, but, in agreement with his wife at the time, it is a dreary masterpiece! :) Perhaps this is one of the hardest of his films to love, even if we think it is brilliant? Fascinating. I'll watch it agian, soon!
Darren Skuja
It seems to me that the message and its somberness overshadow the viewer so that it tends to shut down that inclination in human nature that becomes intellectually chatty. In other words the film has a gut level impact that tends to invoke an inwardness that doesn't lend itself to jibber-jabber, which is what makes up a considerable amount of what appears on these boards.
(PRN) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id-bFpYQzXE
Certainly a better film than The Seventh Seal, and although I really love Wild Strawberries, I honestly don't think that it can stand up to Winter Light (which in my mind is Bergman's best film).
Last film seen: Night and Fog 9/10
Seventh Seal struggles to make Bergman's top 10 films as far as I'm concerned. I have never been able to decide on his "all time best" film, but Winter Light is certainly in contention, alongside Autumn Sonata, Cries and Whispers and a few others.
shareA relative newcomer to Bergman I have only seen (in order) Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Virgin Spring, and now Winter Light. Seventh Seal certainly had excellent moments but the theater stuff lessened my overall enjoyment and I'd rate it my least favorite of the four. Winter Light truly was a revelation, watched as it were in the early morning hours in darkness. I can't recommend it enough; what a thoughtful script!
shareSmiles of a Summer NIght has no messages and is one of my favorites
shareI saw Winter Light in 1968, just saw it for the second time a few minutes ago - forty years later. I am literally shaking from the impact. I remembered it was powerful, but I cannot remember any film as powerful as this.
When Ingrid Thulin's letter/soliloquy began, I sat up abruptly in my seat, because it triggered the response that I felt so many years ago. It was so unexpected. (By the way, this time, the almost 14 minutes - of an 81 minute film - of the service at the beginning gripped me.) Strangely, the more melodramatic suicide had not lingered in my memory. I really believe that this film is too good (maybe, too mature?) for an internet chat/forum.
Well, I couldn't say why it is one of the most neglected boards. Perhaps because this film feels a bit less publicized than the likes of Cries and Whispers, Fanny and Alexander, Persona, or The Seventh Seal. I mean, sure, it's part of Bergman's Silence Trilogy, and all that, but it is one of the most bleak films I've ever seen (NOT that that's a bad thing in any way), and maybe some people don't know what to say about it.
It's probably just one of those films that people know is great, but don't like to talk about in everyday conversation.
Savvy
"and maybe some people don't know what to say about it".....I completely agree with you there. Winter Light is one of Bergman's lesser abstract films.The idea that he wants to put up is pretty much clear, unlike a lot of his creations where it takes a lot of mental prowess to get to what he is really trying to say.But the key to the greatness of this film is accepting the interpretation of this very idea.It is pretty much normal to me that there is little movement or volume in this thread. It comes to me as a surprise that this film got a popularity rating of 7.8 while i expected it to be much lower.
IMO winter light is one of Bergman's finest creations. Simple idea coupled with a complex afterthought. For me it is right up there in the top spot along with Persona and will continue to have a profound influence on my thought process throughout my life.
Never hate your enemies...it affects your judgement.
This board actually seems pretty lively compared to the "Passion of Anna" board. Which is a shame, because that's one of my favorites.
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Jack White killed a man with his bare hands.... While singing and playing guitar.
It doesn't feel like an actual movie. More like an atheist chorus. An analogy would be like filming the dialogues of Socrates as if they were actual dialogues.
shareat different times I might slightly alter my ranking of Bergman films. Of them all I think Persona is his real masterpiece, and is partly so because it is so audacious and consciously cinematic in a way that, for me, works. I also have a strong fondness for The Seventh Seal since it was his first film I saw, and the cast really is extraordinary. So many scenes in it are memorable. And The Passion is one I am much tied to because I simply cannot believe how in effect underrated it seems to be, perhaps because it is too experimental at the same time it doesn't "look" experimental.
And then there's Wild Strawberries, The Silence, the tv version of Scenes From a Marriage and on and on. And what is a ranking really about in such a great field?
So where does Winter Light fit? Perhaps that is an irrelevant question.
I can say that Winter Light is as a film a perfect film, or as near to perfect as a film can get. The performances are spot on. The editing is simply fantastic, not a single frame wasted. The narrative and dialogue give perfect expression to the themes addressed. The look of the film, from the sets and locations to the lighting and the cinematography, are perfect and perfectly in keeping with the themes.
Why then is Winter Light not more discussed and such?
Well, it is certainly not a happy film, or one that has a feel and expression to it that gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Beyond that I sometimes wonder whether a crisis of faith in God is all that relevant to enough people today, distracted by technology and such from the great Existential questions and issues.
It is a difficult film on several levels. That's probably the main reason.
But for me it is a film that's themes and tone makes difficult to love, but I do love it.
Ebert wrote a great review of it where he suggests the story is an AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL one, due to the way Bergman's father was also a clergyman.
So the scene where the pastor sits inside of the car waiting for the TRAIN to pass by, and says that his father also wanted him to be a member of the clergy as well, is actually Bergman speaking about his own life through his character:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-winter-light-1962
"My parents dreamed of me becoming a pastor," he tells her. Cowie thinks that the pastor stands for Bergman at that moment -- Bergman, the son of a strict Lutheran who listened to his father's sanctimonious sermons in church and then came home to cruel punishments.
I wonder if there are other ways in which Bergman speaks through the character of the pastor.
the cry of an artist who fears his message has not been heard? Is his art the father who has forsaken him? Has he been powerless to help those who came to him in real need, while focusing on his career and his reputation?
To the degree that "Winter Light" is autobiographical, and that we will never know, it is the portrait of a man who thought he was God, and failed himself.