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Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage opens with a couple--Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (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 their divorce and marriages to other people, continues to have these contradictory moments of honesty and self-deception, cruelty and kindness, concern and self-obsession--all laid bare by the skillful 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, which was 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 behavior 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 honors for Ullmann. --Bret Fetzer
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Challenging, truthful, utterly rewarding look at marriage,
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This review is from: Scenes from a Marriage (VHS Tape)
Ingmar Bergman's 1974 chamber-drama masterpiece was originally made as a six part mini-series for Swedish television--hence the divided tableau and emphasis on close-ups. Of course Bergman is the greatest purveyor of the close-up, and here he uses it to accentuate the psychological torment and strain that a marriage propagates on its victims (after this movie you'll view marriage as a war, if you already don't). Josephson and Ulmann shine as the dissenting couple, who first put up facades to deny the inevitable, eventually divorce, dive to relationship hell, and ultimately find a happy medium with a burgeoning love that could have never flourished if they stayed married. Interestingly, Bergman chooses to never show the couple's children (that would simply add another tumult to an already tumultuous puzzle). And, if it needs to be said, Sven Nykvist's photography is strikingly beautiful. "Scenes from a Marriage" suffers slightly from too much dialogue and being a bit lengthy--the poignancy is nullified after 170 minutes of relationship vicissitudes--but deserves to be cherished by any fan of "good" cinema or of Ingmar Bergman.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Both versions are brilliant,
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This review is from: Scenes from a Marriage (DVD)
This contains both the original 6 part TV mini series, and the almost 100 minute shorter theatrical version.In either guise, this is an amazing exploration of the decline and fall of a marriage, and the change, regressions and growth of the two people in it. While a few other characters appear briefly, this is almost entirely a 2 actor piece, taking place in small rooms, shot mostly in close ups. Brutally honest about its characters' considerable shortcomings, it also extends to them a generosity and grace. The two central performances by Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson are uncompromising and uncompromised, completely honest and truthful, as if we were eavesdropping on a real couple. Astonishing work by both. It's also an interesting portrait of a social moment - the early 70s - when women were finding their voice as equal partners in marriage and society through the women's liberation movement. The piece feels dated, but only in an interesting way as a look back, and yet seems to have paradoxically lost none of it's relevance. Styles and social customs may evolve, different countries may deal with sex or affairs with somewhat different attitudes, but the desperately complex mix of needs, wants, hurts, resentments and true love that make up a marriage seem to transcend time and place. A very few moments feels forced or untrue, and another very few feel extraneous, but this is a remarkable film. It also ushers in a new phase in Bergman's career, as the ever evolving artist moves into a kind of simple, naturalistic reality that marked much of the work from this point on in his career. Gone are the heavy (if often tremendously effective) symbols and surrealistic touches. This is life; raw, painful, rich and uncompromised. I'm in the minority in that, for me the shortened feature version doesn't lose much in comparison to the 100 minute longer TV mini-series it was edited from. While some interesting details that helped flesh out the story were gone, there is also a laser like focus and heightened intensity that's been gained. For me it's a toss up. They're both great, landmark pieces of film-making and acting, with slightly different strengths and weaknesses, but similar total effect.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A rare movie that invites you to spend TIME with people.,
This review is from: Scenes from a Marriage (VHS Tape)
'Scenes from a marriage' may seem like a bit of a chore: three hours relentlessly focused on two people falling apart. And yet, it is one of Bergman's easiest films to watch, perhaps because it was made for TV, where there is rather more of a duty to hold a casual audience. There are no deep metaphysical questions in the film, no long abstract conversations, little narrative trickery, just the everyday problems of recognisable people, perhaps slightly more articulate than the rest of us.Bergman gives us a host of conventional reasons for the marriage's failure, but he has never been very interested in the naturalistic causes of anything. In long, compelling takes, he gies us the process of marital drama; the experience, the taste, the gestures, irritations; the words expressed to fill up space, or words not thought through enough, yet taken as Holy Writ by the partner; the games, strategies, sarcasms, insults; the veneer of middle-class civility teetering on the brink of savage violence. There is nothing as irreperable or final as a Hollywood film here, people feel one thing one minute, do another the next: they bear the scars but move on, there is no 'fixed' character. People used to Hollywood practices of closure or plot inevitability may find this disturbing. The characters played by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann are rarely sympathetic, but they are more: difficult, sometimes devious, always vulnerable people forced to make hasty decisions that can change lives, or who bear the scars of routine for years before flaring out. In other words, real, true - infinitely more important.
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