Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Jan (Max von Sydow) struggle to preserve their love during a brutal civil war in Ingmar Bergman’s SHAME
SHAME (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Friday, November 30, 2:00 & 6:50
Series runs through December 14
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
Ingmar Bergman’s Shame is a brilliant examination of the physical and psychological impact of war, as seen through the eyes of a happily married couple who innocently get caught in the middle of the brutality. Jan (Max von Sydow) and Eva Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann) have isolated themselves from society, living without a television and with a broken radio, maintaining a modest farm on a relatively desolate island a ferry ride from the mainland. As the film opens, they are shown to be a somewhat ordinary husband and wife, brushing their teeth, making coffee, and discussing having a child. But soon they are thrust into a horrific battle between two unnamed sides, fighting for reasons that are never given. As Jan and Eva struggle to survive, they are forced to make decisions that threaten to destroy everything they have built together. Shot in stark black-and-white by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Shame is a powerful, emotional antiwar statement that makes its point through intense visual scenes rather than narrative rhetoric. Jan and Eva huddle in corners or nearly get lost in crowds, then are seen traversing a smoky, postapocalyptic landscape riddled with dead bodies. Made during the Vietnam War, Shame is Bergman’s most violent, action-filled film; bullets can be heard over the opening credits, announcing from the very beginning that this is going to be something different from a director best known for searing personal dramas. However, at its core, Shame is just that, a gripping, intense tale of a man and a woman who try to preserve their love in impossible times. Ullmann and von Sydow both give superb, complex performances, creating believable characters who will break your heart. Shame is screening November 30 at BAM as part of the BAMcinématek series “Max von Sydow,” consisting of twenty-two wide-ranging films celebrating the outstanding career of the now-eighty-three-year-old Swedish actor; the festival continues with such other works as William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror,, Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian, and, yes, Mike Gordon’s Flash Gordon, with von Sydow playing Ming the Merciless.
It’s almost impossible to watch Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal without being aware of the meta surrounding the film, which has influenced so many other works and been paid homage to and playfully mocked. Over the years, it has gained a reputation as a deep, philosophical paean to death. However, amid all the talk about emptiness, doomsday, the Black Plague, and the devil, The Seventh Seal is a very funny movie. In fourteenth-century Sweden, knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) is returning home from the Crusades with his trusty squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand). Block soon meets Death (Bengt Ekerot) and, to prolong his life, challenges him to a game of chess. While the on-again, off-again battle of wits continues, Death seeks alternate victims while Block meets a young family and a small troupe of actors putting on a show. Rape, infidelity, murder, and other forms of evil rise to the surface as Block proclaims “To believe is to suffer,” questioning God and faith, and Jöns opines that “love is the blackest plague of all.” Based on Bergman’s own play inspired by a painting of Death playing chess by Albertus Pictor (played in the film by Gunnar Olsson), The Seventh Seal, winner of a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, is one of the most entertaining films ever made. (Bergman fans will get an extra treat out of the knight being offered some wild strawberries at one point.) The Seventh Seal is screening November 27 at BAM, kicking off the BAMcinématek series “Max von Sydow,” consisting of twenty-two wide-ranging films celebrating the outstanding career of the now-eighty-three-year-old Swedish actor. Von Sydow has appeared in such other serious fare as Bergman’s The Virgin Spring and Shame, such thrillers as Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, such epics as Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror and Jan Troell’s The Emigrants, and such comedies as Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas’s Strange Brew and Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters. In addition, he’s been in two of the biggest bombs ever, Mike Gordon’s Flash Gordon (as Ming the Merciless!) and David Lynch’s Dune, was the older priest in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, and he even played Blofeld in Irvin Kershner’s Never Say Never Again opposite Sean Connery’s James Bond. Of course, no matter what the project, Sydow brings an elegance and grace to it, lifting it up and always making it a whole lot better just for his presence.
In 2006, Toby Jones portrayed Truman Capote in Infamous, but he had already been upstaged by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who had won the Best Actor Oscar earlier that year for playing the social gadfly in the 2005 biopic Capote. Well, history is likely to repeat itself; Jones can currently be seen on HBO playing Alfred Hitchcock in Julian Jarrold’s The Girl, which follows the Master of Suspense as he obsesses over Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller) while making The Birds and Marnie, under the careful watch of his wife, Alma Reville (Imelda Staunton). It’s a slight film, but Jones does a fine job as the creepy Hitch. However, his performance is liable to get lost with the theatrical release of Sacha Gervasi’s Hitchcock, in which the great British director is played by the inimitable Sir Anthony Hopkins, with Helen Mirren taking on the role of Alma as they struggle to make what would become their biggest success, Psycho. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible for the audience to separate Hitchcock from Hopkins, a central failing that, compounded by a lifeless subplot involving a potential romance between Alma and writer Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), leaves the film rather dry and boring. It is fascinating to watch Hitch battle the studio (and the censors) over the financing and distribution of what was an extremely controversial film at the time, but the imaginary scenes with serial killer Ed Gein (Michael Wincott) are forced and unnecessary, and while James D’Arcy does a good job playing the quirky Anthony Perkins, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel are wasted as Janet Leigh and Vera Miles, respectively. And yes, that’s Ralph Macchio as writer Joseph Stefano. Based on Stephen Rebello’s well-received 1990 book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Gervasi’s feature debut — he previously wrote and directed the 2009 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil — is like a fair-to-middling Hitchcock flick or an average episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, containing interesting tidbits but never really achieving the captivating sense of mystery and romance (and fun!) that made his films and himself so special. It’s a shame that with two pictures tracing Hitchcock’s unique working process during a seminal period in his career, both fall relatively flat.