MovieChat Forums > Scener ur ett äktenskap (1973) Discussion > It's too bad Johan didn't die in the end...

It's too bad Johan didn't die in the end instead...


I absolutely love Bergman's films and many of his ideas, but I have always found this film and series very flawed mainly for one reason: Johan is completely unlikeable. There is nothing in his character to admire, to sympathize with, or anything. He's cruel, heartless, and just an old fashioned jerk. I found myself wanting to smash his face in most of the time and even more so in the sequel Saraband. There is still so much to love in this series, especially the stunning dialogue and cinematography of the whole thing. But, I cannot, and will not ever be able to consider this the masterpiece that so many have because of Johan's character. I have thought a long time about it and have thoroughly decided that he is in no way pitiable. There may have been a chance if he hadn't hit her. That scene in many ways ruined the movie for me. It's unbearable to watch after becoming so intimate with these characters. I really wish Johan had gotten it a lot worse and that she never went back to him. Sigh, well, I feel better now that I've finally got that off my chest. Just for good measure *beep* Johan.

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I came away from the film with the exact same problems. Johan was just a completely selfish, cold-hearted and violent bully when it suited him; and a complete hypocrite too. He would openly tell Marianne how Paula was a better lover than her despite his own hatred of knowing a womens sexual history. And I also felt frustrated by Marianne being a complete martyr to the relationship she hadn't done anything wrong other than being maybe too easy-going.

Other than that - great film! However I've only seen the theatrical version and would be keen to see the full TV series as I felt the film was quite uneven and awkwardly paced due to the compromises that would have come with re-editing it for the cinema release.

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I don't know. I watched the television version, and he wasn't entirely hateable. I don't know why, but he just wasn't. Must've been extra scenes and the intro scenes. There was one intro scene after the divorce signing in which they clarify that both of them were venting long-festering feelings. For me, this clarified bergman's intentions for the scene. They really portrayed him as a very pitiful creature who never really could really love anyone that well. He was led to be this cold, smart academic, but he doesn't know how to deal with his/others' emotions.

Also, don't forget that this is realist cinema (incidentally or on purpose). Sinking as low as to kill one of the main character would go against how reality would work most of the time. In this type of movie, you don't have to love the characters; you just have to appreciate something about the movie. For me, the strength of the film is its complexity. It is an enormously emotionally complex film. You don't have a hero, a villain; you just have a realistic portrayal of a marriage. Killing the character for poetic justice would ruin it. That's an "easy out" in a movie that isn't easy to watch.

Maybe you have to watch the TV version to appreciate Johan. If you already have seen it...I don't know. Maybe you just didn't like his character lol

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I don't know that likeable characters are necessary to a film's success. Of course that is not the case, and some of my favorite films have few or even no real likeable characters.

So that is not the issue.

Perhaps there is, nonetheless, an issue here, and that is in the plausibility of Marianne's being in love with Johan in the first place. Of course even in the beginning, specifically in the scene where they describe how they "got together", there does not seem to be much about what most people think and talk about with the subject of romantic love. Instead is described a form of being comfortable with each other and what sounds more like a partnership based on practical considerations.

But even in such terms why did Marianne feel drawn to Johan?

I frankly do not think the film really explains this overtly, leaving it to us to speculate. Perhaps Marianne is the sort who feels her spouse must balance her, and was not looking for her mirror image. Her brief description of her first husband seems to imply that he was of a similar personality, or at least more like how she would like to describe herself - likeable, concerned for others. She implies the tragedy of their child's death drove them apart, in part, but then she ended up with the very different Johan.

And if one thinks about it, Johan's own prickliness and difficult behavior is not really implausible at all. In the real world easy going people, for lack of a better term, are not averse to allying themselves with more difficult people, and in fact that easygoing quality may be necessary in order to put up with the more difficult member of the two.

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I think you're onto something Kenny. Very well put.

Josephson did a fine job in portraying Johan as someone with no redeeming qualities at all. I imagine this was necessary in order to gauge Marianne's devotion.

In the end Marianne and Johan seem very comfortable and relaxed with each other. I put that down to Johan finally being himself rather than what his parents, and society for that matter, expected him to be.

Getting back to the topic, in one respect Johan did die, the discontented one.

I quite liked this film. I wouldn't say I liked it enough to watch the full TV series but enough to add the sequel, Saraband to my watch list.

For the record, I rated this film 7/10.

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I really think it was SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (along with CRIES AND WHISPERS, FACE TO FACE, THE SERPENTS EGG, and AUTUMN SONATA) that, temporarily anyway, killed Bergman's reputation amongst film fans for a while, despite the fact that all of them except SERPENT'S EGG were pretty big hits upon their releases. FANNY AND ALEXANDER did a lot to alleviate that, but he really did have a patch of films/TV productions in the 70s that were hard to stomach. People went, but although initially being impressed with the acting and soul bearing, so many of us ended up hating them. For some, FANNY AND ALEXANDER was too little too late. Had he just leapt from, say SHAME or THE PASSION OF ANNA right to FANNY AND ALEXANDER, he'd have more fans today. Happily, people are starting to forget some of those films and focus on the classics: SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, WILD STRAWBERRIES, THE SILENCE, PERSONA, SHAME...

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Yes indeed with Wild Strawberries setting Bergman's high-water mark. Not only did it have the broad spectrum of emotions typical of Bergman's films but it also had magic moments making it a real gem.

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saltsan,

I don't know of any objective evidence that Scenes from a Marriage and Cries and Whispers are generally viewed, or should be, with the other seventies films you mention. I am not a big fan, but not a hater, either, of The Serpent's Egg, but that one I do feel fell below his usual standards. Autumn Sonata in particular but also Face to Face, however, got generally respectful reviews.

Putting aside tv films and filmed theatrical work, Bergman did seven major films from 1961 to 1969, and then five from 1972 until 1978 (counting Scenes although shown on tv because of its breadth and scope, but not The Magic Flute, although some do count the later). I love all the sixties films, and Scenes, and perhaps Cries a bit less than others. But the point is that many feel Cries and Whispers is one of the very best Bergman films. In general I don't think there's much evidence of people hating his seventies films as a whole.

Instead someone who really understands his career would recognize that Fanny and Alexander was really his last major film release. He was sort of winding down before it was done, and while he kept working after, he obviously did not continue the kind of work he had done before. Should we look at the seventies films as part of his decline? Perhaps, but at least the earlier ones and for me especially Scenes was of a comparable quality to his earlier work.

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geoffrey,

While I was talking more about the period of their initial attraction, I agree that Johan's personality changed over the course of the story. More reflective, less prone to a distancing sort of irony, while retaining a sort of self aware form of irony. I also think both came to understand an experience common to them, which is perhaps not so uplifting, but still revealing of relative value, and that is the disappointment or even mere lack of enthusiasm they felt in relationships subsequent to their marriage. They provided perspective of a sort. That occurred I think for both of them, but in Johan's case it certainly did represent a change in him.

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Saw both versions...no you don't...he's a selfish dick...

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I think Johan is a tragic character in a way. There is this wall built up around him and sometimes it's as if he's not even aware of it being there. It's like this wall has stilted him, has prevented him from ever feeling anything akin to true love. His lack of being able to genuinely love someone shows just how flawed he truly is, and I think for a moment he experiences utter existential despair over it at the moment after he beats Marianne and sobs for a few seconds at his desk. That moment really struck a chord in me, and I felt bad for him despite his many flaws and shortcomings. Perhaps I am weak for thinking of him as even remotely sympathetic, and I suppose it partially has to do with the fact that I deeply long to help others who seem so blocked off from the ability to experience love and genuine happiness or connection.

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I couldn't agree more with the OP and with most posters here. Few times in my life I've seen completely unlikeable characters in a movie, and this was one of those times. I mean, Bergman could have chosen at least a better looking actor to play the role!

I started to inmediately dislike "Johan" since the very first moment, when he had to describe himself for a journalist... "Smart, sexy, 42 -even though I don't look it..." Yeah, I know, he's an actor delivering the lines the way they were written, but anyway, I would have loved to see another actor in that role.

I'm sure I would have enjoyed the movie with another more appealing actor in it. I spent the nearly 180 minutes asking how the heck such a heavenly, radiant creature such as Liv Ullman was so stuck on such an obnoxious jeark like him. I was hoping the situation would change towards the end and that she would realize she was much better off all alone or with another guy. The ending was rather frustrating.

Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop

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I just watched it and came away with this exact feeling. Even if it was a heart attack because he'd get so angry, I couldn't see her loving him so. The beating he applied to her in his office was the final straw and I only finished watching it because it's a Bergman.

Why ain't you at the garden party you heathen?

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That particular scene made me so angry and, just like you, I got tempted to stop watching. However, the DVD cost me around $20, so I HAD to finish it, LOL. (Well, I also think that anything Bergman/Ullman is worth watching from the beginning to the end at least once).

Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop

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Your inability to sympathize with Johan is due to your own narrow-mindedness and conceitedness.



~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~

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While a very much flawed character, I agree that there is an issue with someone incapable of understanding and to some extent sympathizing with Johan as a character. First of all he is hardly the only one sharing blame for what is wrong with the marriage. While he is the one who pushes for it to end, he pays for it and to a large extent is not only regretful but apologetic. He shows Marianne he still loves her.

Her use of sex meaning lack thereof to "leverage" him was not good and probably was a factor in the marriage's destruction.

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Marianne and Johan are essentially equals in this film and they know it and it's obvious. It's disturbing that viewers think Johan was a bad person. It's unfortunate that viewers feel the need to judge everyone else instead of focusing on their own lives. It's distributing that many people wish to push their moral values onto everyone else, especially those who don't want them and want to be left alone. It's disturbing that viewers would have preferred for the characters (or at least for the male character, as males are antagonized these days) to sacrifice their own desires and needs for the sake of holding together their "marriage". Our collective IQ must be dropping, because the bigotry in this world is clearly on the rise. IMO, all of the above viewers are missing the point of this film, which is that it's a very complicated situation and simple judgments of "right" and "wrong" are impossible to make, and that even actions that the above viewers labeled as "wrong" enhance life and can lead to better outcomes.



~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~

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Not only does Johan not die in the end, but he and Marianne are the key characters in Bergman's "Saraband" thirty years later.

I have friends like Johan, and I liked him -- but I wouldn't want to be a woman involved with him.

Johan is capable of being very open about his feelings with Marianne, though, and it's fascinating to watch the two of them try to verbalize their love, insecurities and fears.

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That's interesting because I sympathize with him and find Marianne completely insufferable.
She annoyingly agreeable, has no backbone, no sense of self worth and is a cold fish in bed.
I would have left her long before he did

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Johan is an alter ego for Bergman. And yes Bergman was a jerk, basically using his fame and success to manipulate and use women. The fact that he was very talented is something else. Talent and character are very different things. The question is: why are there so many women with low self respect that they will put up with people like that just because they're famous and successful? And of course it's not just Bergman, you see this around you all the time.

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