Though Autumn Sonata received mixed reviews on its initial
release, time has been exceptionally kind to it, and today I think it can be
seen as one of the highlights of Ingmar Bergman’s family dramas - more
down-to-earth than his period piece Cries and Whispers, less excessive
than the 5+ hour televised cuts of other dramas like Scenes From A Marriage
and the later Fanny and Alexander - though no less intense than any of
them. Film historian Peter Cowie in an essay on Criterion’s website even goes
so far as to say “As a tour de force of screen acting, Autumn Sonata stands unchallenged as the finest work of Ingmar
Bergman’s last few years as a movie director.”
The story is simple: internationally acclaimed concert pianist
Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) is invited by her daughter, Eva (Liv Ullmann), whom
she hasn’t seen in years to stay with her in her rural home after the passing
of her Charlotte’s longtime companion. They banter a bit upon arrival,
Charlotte breezing in, used to being the center of attention, hijacking an
accomplishment Eva, looking girlish and mousy despite the almost 40-year old
Ullmann’s beauty, tries to relate about a local piano recital she’s given by
topping her story with one of sold out shows in L.A. Then Eva reveals the first
of several surprises she has in store for her mother: Charlotte’s other
daughter Helena (Lena Nyman), who suffers from a degenerative nerve disease and
who had been moved to a nursing home, is now living with Eva and her husband.
This unexpected news cracks Charlotte’s glittery facade, and there’s a mildly malicious
delight as Eva relates to her husband how she expects her mother to handle
herself now that she’s seen Helena again. They also talk in the nursery of
Eva’s deceased son, who was born and died at age 4 without Charlotte ever
having met him. But this is only a prelude as they have a chilly dinner
followed by Eva playing a piano piece for her mother who can’t hold back a
pedantic tongue - though to be fair Eva asks her for her honest opinion. Once
they retire to bed Charlotte awakens from a nightmare and goes downstairs to
find Eva already there, awoken by her nighttime cries. The two begin talking
and the film settles in for its central movement. An angry Eva starts things
off simply and directly enough by asking “Do you like me?” and they’re off, Eva
accusing Charlotte of never being there for the family, telling of her deep
love and admiration that was never returned by her mother, angry about
Charlotte abandoning Helena to her fate, and more. Charlotte, for her part,
defends herself, and what at first seems like righteous accusations from Eva
grow into anger and memories twisted by their years of buried and repressed
resentments into something unfair, bigger even than Charlotte could have done
to her if she’d deliberately tried to psychologically damage her.
The delight of the film is in watching these two actors at the
height of their powers bringing to life Ingmar Bergman’s deeply incisive
dialogue (the film was nominated for Best Screenplay). Each pulls our sympathy
and our disdain at points, and each of them undoubtedly dug deeply into their
own lives to inhabit these characters. Ullmann had written a year earlier of
her own shortcomings as a parent to her daughter Linn (whose father was Ingmar
Bergman), while Ingrid Bergman’s earlier public scandal stemmed from having
abandoned her husband and daughter to go to Italy to make films with (and marry)
Rossellini. And Ingmar, for his part, once boasted to a biographer about not
knowing his own children’s ages, but dating his life by his films. Together,
these three - plus key acting support from both Lena Nyman as the disabled
daughter and Halvar Björk as Eva’s husband, passively observing parts of the
tempest and acting as Eva’s pillar (also setting up for viewers Eva's deep
insecurities in an address directly to the camera which opens the film), create
a chamber drama of withering intensity and seriousness, without even Ingmar
Bergman’s occasional experimental tendencies to lighten the drama. And it would
be criminal to leave out the name of cinematographer Sven Nykvist, whose 19th
collaboration with the director this was, and who was always uniquely able to
render Bergman’s interior worlds in light and images, here all warm, subtle
tones befitting the title and underscoring the brutal emotional storm that
passes through the home that night.
This 45th feature he directed was Ingmar Bergman’s final film made
expressly for theaters; it would be Ingrid Bergman’s final theatrical film as
well (one for which she received her 7th Academy Award nomination) - both would
do work for television after this, but it is the culmination of two stellar
careers in cinema. Three, actually, because it’s also one of Liv Ullmann’s
great performances. Put Nykvist in there as well, and let’s call it four. It's a great one. Back in
1978, the critics just got it wrong.
-
Patrick
Brown
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