I was watching this film today and I got to the part where the pastor
says "Holy Holy Holy, Lord God Almighty" which is close to the end, and then
the dvd just stopped. Can someone tell me what happened next?
Thanks
Wish we could know what happened next, but Bergman never made a sequel...
I thought this ending was brilliant - sometimes I find it hopeful and sometimes pessimistic. But you make up your own mind.
That is the end of the film, all three films in his trilogy of faith end as abrupt as that. What is so interesting is that the ending makes you feel as if the film happens in real time. He ends a sermon in the beginning, and starts one at the end. I love how Bergman ends his films. Especially Scenes from a Marriage.
shareAgree, all three of the "Trilogy" films show a tight unity of time, people and space,they all take place in a kind of closed set of locations, with a limited circle of people and during a very short span of time (from maybe three hours in Winter Light to about 30-36 hours in [i)The Silence[/i].
There really isn't anything more to be seen after he intones the service. For a background to think about the movie, you might put a recording of Bach organ music, or Shostakovich's 24 preludes (a sort of "piano diary" written in 1933) on the cd player.
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The film begins with intense self-doubt and eventually doubt in both God and faith. After the hunchback makes that incredible speech, the pastor's faith is re-affirmed: there is hope. The film ends in that reaffirmation when the pastor begins the sermon even though there is only one person attending.
Think T.S. Eliot:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
I like your Eliot quote, but I think you might be on uncertain terrain with your logical progression from faith to hope. Hope for whom? For Tomas or for Marta?
I completely disagree with this interpretation. The point is Jesus himself is abandoned by God, Jesus himself at the end can no longer believe. At the end of the film the pastor mechanically recites the words of the mass to an empty church - the mass has come to signify, not presence, but the absence of God. And in any case, no one has come to hear it. One of the interesting things about the film is that it's so well lit. Doubt and God's absence are not symbolised by dusk or night, but by bright harsh daylight - at one point intensifying until it almost obscures the features of the pastor's face. No room left for shadows.
I agree with grandlunar.
www.psmovies.co.sr
I think that both interpretations are valid, which is what's great about this movie. Some people view it as a repudiation of faith, while some view it as a confirmation of faith. Both interpretations are supportable in the film, and neither is falsifiable.
To get back to the original question, the final line is "the whole world is filled with his [God's] glory," which can be completely sincere or bitterly ironic depending on how you read the rest of the film. I lean toward sincere, and I personally think that the hunchback's story actually has the effect of tying Tomas's existential struggle to Christ's passion, thus connecting doubt, paradoxically, with true faith. So, when he comes out and opens the church service by saying that "the whole world is filled with God's glory," he's affirming that although this is a "wintry" world where countries experiment with atom bombs and people very rarely come to church, it is still filled with "light"--that is, that glimmers of hope shine through suffering.
In response to ndrwdyng71's original post to this thread:
I think he gave in. He finally decided that there is always going to be the endless doubt in one's self. Is there a God? Is there nothing? Is there nothing but God? If God exists then does it matter? Why worry if he exists? Just keep holding to the faith as you have done in the past. And this is how the film ends. With us feeling we must hold onto the winter's light, the light at the end, the guiding light. It's all really boring to be honest.
Hunchback question = the meaning of the film for me.
God is distant/non-existant really = that's ok as long as you understand that. The Priest agrees with the hunchback, well the Priest already said the same thing to Max Von Sydow's character before, but instead of committing suicide after hearing it from the hunchback the Priest preaches because the vision of absent God has been reaffirmed and in that realization is the truth about one's self in the universe, that all things only and ever pass through the self and after you die that's it, so that's ok, find your solace while you are here with other people.
People can be close to one another at times and fulfill the God role, though it is a very difficult thing to do most of the time in life, in fact people are annoying most of the time.
The church isn't empty remember, Ingrid Thulin's character is there as usual.
And it doesn't matter if it is or not because we are watching it on the screen.
I would agree with grandlunar too. I'd only add that it looks like the Pastor is going through the motions at the end. This seems to be what he has decided: he'll have to live with his existential angst. There is no alternative, either you believe in God or you do not. With Marta, it's basically the same thing: she remains in the church at the end, after the Pastor had brutally told her off earlier and after the organist gives her a cold dose of reality about the Pastor. She decides to live with it, to go through the motions. This is what life turns out to be for many of us.
like he says to Persson, "Life must go on".
he has lost his faith, Marta is not loved back, noone shows up to the sermon, and the organ player would rather be at a concert, however, right now this is all they have.
so may it be untill something else comes along for them all.
I, however, completely disagree with your disagreement.
It is Algot, who gives us the answer just before the mass begins. The central theme: God's silence. That is what it's all about. The unbearable silence which leads to Tomas' disbelief.
Tomas here is asigned a dual role. 1) He is the the disciple, that has left his God, just as the disciples did in the Garden of Eden. He indeed left God and went on a rampage of destruction whereby he destroyed the lives of others instead of being God's hands on earth, incarnating love, doing God's work. 2) He also takes the role of Christ. Even though (almost!) everyone has left him, he continues his work. And why? Because not everyone has left him. It is not an empty church (as grandlunar says), Märta is there! (The same Martha, that cares for Jesus as a faithfull discipel (Luke 10,38-42).
Tomas realises, that he himself has been unfaithful and left God, thereby leaving Jesus to the worst torment of all, nyt physical torment but total abandonment. After Algot's speach, he is "back on track" having regained his faith.
That's how I see it.
> (The same Martha, that cares for Jesus as a faithfull discipel (Luke 10,38-42).
You didn't mention doubting Tomas. :->
That is how it ends; faith is, in a superficial way, lost. However, a greater understanding now exists for the priest. God isn't his too have a full understanding of, God is mysterious and often silent. Rather then having to rely fully on his role as a priest, and as his role of being someone close to God, he now begins to comprehend a need to experience God through other people, and through his environment.
His faith hasn't disappeared, rather it has become more real. Clearer as a reality and more distant personally.
Last film seen: Forrest Gump 6/10
Bergman describes the ending of the film as the "stirrings of a new faith". He finds this a difficult section to write. Yet in a conversation with Sjöman he feels he has found a solution:
"Have you ever heard of 'duplication'? On certain Sundays the parson has to hold two services: one in the main parish and then one in the chapelry, the sub-parish in the next district. Now it is custom in the Swedish church that if there are no more than three persons in the congregation, no service need be held. What I do is this: when Björnstrand comes to the district church, the church-warden comes up to him and says: 'There's only one churchgoer here.' Yet the parson holds the service all the same. That's all that is needed to indicate the new faith that is stirring inside the parson."
I am new to Bergman, and have yet to develop my thought lines in connection with his ideas as they appear in his art, however much of what has already been expressed on this board concerning this moving film I have given some thought to. So I make a distinction between what Bergman held to be true at that time and tried to suggest in his film, and what we as viewers may hold to be true on these matters.
In order to come to terms with each, I fell back on the rather simple and comical notion I recently heard, which was "The First Rule of Holes: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging". The way I see this notion applied (broadly speaking) to the film is that there is a connection between the direction in life in which we proceed, and things which we control and are responsible for. The particular dynamic I am referring to here has to do with the idea that - the question that the soul sets before itself is the question of its own choice. If you focus on an unanswerable question, can you blame God when he is silent? Now I can't really say what I think Bergman would have to say about such an idea, but we can ask Algot Frövik, the Sexton. He had a lot to say about this matter. While he didn't say the following, there is a direct line from his thoughts to the following: You are asking the wrong question. Look at the two malefactors on the two sides of the Crucified One. One demands a relief which he does not expect to be granted and mocks as well; all in the same breath. He wants his "salvation" under his own terms. The other malefactor says, not attempting to justify how he ended up where he did, but takes up a position of empathy with the one who didn't deserve what humanity served up to Him. Both, if you will, find themselves in a hole. The one says. "Ha, you see, there is only 'holehood' you preach 'godhood', but I say there is only 'holehood'. That's where I am. That's where you ended up, so cut the 'god' talk. There is only misery, even for you!’ The other says, to continue the allegory, 'True you are in a hole, but it is the hole that men have put you in. You don't belong there, and it is wrong that we have done this to you. But in looking to you, I must look up. And in so doing I see a direction out of this hole. This is what I aspire to. This knowledge is what you have brought me."
This is approximately how I understand the film and its ending. Both Märta, and Tomas (as in "the doubter"?) have shifted the focus of their torment from the hole that they find themselves in - to the way out.
(PRN) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id-bFpYQzXE
...we can ask Algot Frövik, the Sexton. He had a lot to say about this matter. While he didn't say the following, there is a direct line from his thoughts to the following: You are asking the wrong question. Look at the two malefactors on the two sides of the Crucified One. One demands a relief which he does not expect to be granted and mocks as well; all in the same breath. He wants his "salvation" under his own terms. The other malefactor says, not attempting to justify how he ended up where he did, but takes up a position of empathy with the one who didn't deserve what humanity served up to Him. Both, if you will, find themselves in a hole. The one says. "Ha, you see, there is only 'holehood' you preach 'godhood', but I say there is only 'holehood'. That's where I am. That's where you ended up, so cut the 'god' talk. There is only misery, even for you!’ The other says, to continue the allegory, 'True you are in a hole, but it is the hole that men have put you in. You don't belong there, and it is wrong that we have done this to you. But in looking to you, I must look up. And in so doing I see a direction out of this hole. This is what I aspire to. This knowledge is what you have brought me."
This is approximately how I understand the film and its ending.
It seems to me that what Frövik offers is a nudge which has two sides to it. The expressed side, as you more or less have stated is a challenge for Tomas. "Are you equal to the Lord in his suffering? You can't suffer more than He did. So don't flatter yourself that your suffering is so great. Why should you expect more?" Yet Frövik continues as he has continued after his fashion of preparing for service with hope and expectation. The barb he gives to Tomas is all about what is on the front side of the events in Palestine. The story continues. It does not end there. Or Frövik wouldn't be there. That is the unspoken side of the challenge. If Christ did all that, and didn't give up. And He continues to work and teach, encourage and inspire us to follow Him, we can have only Hope, or we must ignore how the world was changed, and continues to change under this influence.
If there is not this stern recognition of the depth of the problem and the depth of Faith to be acquired, Tomas would have to drift along inconclusive or conclude it like Jonas did. How can you claim to have faith when you are self obsessed. Wallowing in your own suffering is only possible when you are self centered. The character of Märta broaches this question. Her soul is maturing towards a selflessness which is without expectation and not an obsession with her own emotional needs. She too shows a tremendous new beginning after being brought to the end of the line.
(PRN) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id-bFpYQzXE
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In his search for faith amidst despair Tomas discovers a direction toward a solution. Every step he takes from that moment onward is in the direction of a new discovery of the significance and meaning of faith. Everything from that abrupt moment onward would be a departure from the horizontal in which he has been oscillating. So, the way I understand it, yes - it is intended to be abrupt. Everything from that moment onward would be not only a new movie, but in a new dimension.
... A leap incidently, which it would appear that IB himself was unable to take.
(PRN) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id-bFpYQzXE
As I understand "Winter Light," the ending of the film, which puzzles you, is perfectly fitting. The Pastor, with his unbelief and lovelessness, still performs his duty. He begins the afternoon service. Surely there is strong irony coming from the Pastor's lips: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty; heaven and earth are full of his glory." And that immediately ends the film. This is the same pastor who has recently said (to the man contemplating suicide), "There is no creator. No sustainer of life. No design." And now he utters words that contradict his belief, as we now know that he did at the opening of the film, in the words of communion at the eucharistic service. This handsome Pastor is inside a spiritual wasteland. A magnificent portrait, with a most fitting ending. WPM
share2:I believe one clue that perhaps others have overlooked is given when the organist calls her a turtle dove. Here is the verse in the Song of Songs 2:11-12..."for, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land..." Bergman's Winter Light ends with a glimpse into a soul who has chosen , as all men can do, to acknowledge God's Holiness no matter the outcome of a great and dreadful testing--for that is when winter ends when Spring begins. It is my view that this man has decided he will cry out and acknowledge God's existence to the turtle dove sitting inside of a lighted church and your imagination is left to take over the rest of the story.
share