SAWDUST AND TINSEL

Sweden, 1953, 94 minutes, Black and white.
Harriet Andersson, Ake Grongberg.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Sawdust and Tinsel is an excellent Ingmar Bergman film from his earliest period. It is a sombre work. It is an allegory of the human condition, a fable about relationships - with the touch of despair and hope.

The film takes place over one day. It focuses on a run-down circus at the turn of the century. The journey theme is clear - and portrayed visually by the circus caravans. Crises for the central figure, the owner of the circus, and his young mistress come to a head on this day. They are matters of life and death.

At the beginning of the day there is a flashback, a parable concerning the clown Frost and his wife Alma. The film concludes with Frost recounting a symbolic dream. While the film works quite well on the level of realism, it works much better on the level of allegory and fable. The film stars Harriet Andersson who appeared in several Bergman films at this time, and was to appear in later decades in his Through a Glass Darkly and, especially, as the dying Agnes in Cries and Whispers.

1. The impact of the film? In itself, themes, treatment? Early Ingmar Bergman? Its place in his canon of films? The work of the '50s, the younger Bergman: his view of the world, human nature, hope and despair?

2. The black and white photography, visual compositions? Bleak, cold, the flashback to the summer story, a sense of period? The trek, the circus? Interiors and exteriors? The town, the theatre and the heightened melodrama, the circus and action? The use of close ups for psychological focuses? The flashback and the use of Mime? The score with its drumbeats, cacophony, mood music. circus music?

3. The title and its references to the circus, to the allegory of life? The illustrations during the opening and final credits?

4. The one-day structure: Albert waking, a significant day of his life, the worst day of his life? Moods, the stories he heard, the people he met, decisions, crises, love and betrayal? Humiliation, the death wish, despair, survival? The venting of his anxieties? The end of the day and the beginning of a new day?

5. The allegory of the human condition: the journey, the caravans, their old and tatty look, the run-down circus, poverty, survival, the clowns, pitiful members of the troupe, being laughed at, their small abilities, the master having difficulty to control, the fickle beauty? Tricks and jokes? The theatre director's speech about the nature of circus and theatre, circus and theatre people, giving of life rather than performance, gestures, reaching ordinary people? The members of the troupe illustrating the themes: the clown, the pitiful old bear, the glamorous heroine falling, the performance erupting into fights?

6. The parable flashback and Frost's dream as parables: the place of insertion: the story told about the military, the picture of the bored military, their military exercises, the phallic symbolism of the cannon-fire, Alma's arrival, old, wanting some glamour, her stripping, her laughing, the soldiers laughing at her, making mischief with Frost, the boy messenger, Frost kicking him but hurrying to his wife, the soldiers gawking, Frost's miming and pathos, the silence, his taking off his clown's clothes, going into the water to save Alma, his carrying her like a cross? The people mocking him, the heat and his falling, the silence and the pity - and all carrying him back? A story of the past? Frost in the present - clown, friend of Albert, drinking, his chatting with Albert, wisdom in his drunkenness, the humour of his circus act, his feeling sorry for Alma, feeling sorry for the bear and for Albert? His pratfalls? The end and his taking off his make-up, the real Frost, his recount, only being able to rest by going back into Alma's womb, his growing smaller and smaller, ultimately disappearing? The meaning of this for himself, for men and women, dependence, the mother figure? Alma finally calling him - and his remark that she couldn't sleep without him?

7. The portrait of Albert: his physical appearance, attractive and unattractive, harsh and genial, waking, relationship with Anne, the cold morning, the continuous travel, the three years without seeing wife and family, his listening to the story about Frost? Poverty, arrival in the town, the idea of disbanding, the idea of the parade, going to the theatre, his subservience to the theatre director, the parade in the town with its joyfulness, the police stopping it, his tidying himself up to go to his wife? Anne's reproaches, her plea for him to stay? His talking to his wife. the coin for his son, his plea to stay at home, his wife's refusing? His seeing Anne going to the jeweller's shop? His jealousy, sweating, talking with Frost, Frost's reference to Othello? The build-up to the performance, the whipping of Franz's hat from him, the vengeance because of his jealousy of Anne, his pushing Anne to tell him the truth about her infidelity? The brutal fight in the circus ring with Franz, his defeat? The gun, playing roulette? Shooting the mirror, going to shoot the bear? His dividing the takings with the troupe? The decision to go on, listening to Frost's dream and its reference to him? Walking on to the next day with Anne? Audience liking and disliking him? An Everyman figure?

8. The contrast with Anne and her youth, beauty, wilfulness? Her dependence on Albert, fear of his leaving, pouting and moods, the parade and her enjoying it, the theatre and her disdain of the manager, Franz's propositioning her, her sassy domination of him, the return, the seduction, his giving her the trinket and her going to the jewellers, her fearful return, her reaction to Albert's jealousy, her telling lies, then the truth, her fear? The act and her skill with the horses, her humiliation in the fall? Watching the fight, fearful that Albert shot himself? The end - on the road again with Albert? Her future story?

9. Alma and her story - old, pitiful, exposing herself to the soldiers, the swim, Frost going into the water, his carrying her, her tears and compassion, her work with the bear - and the parallel between the two? Her beckoning Frost at the end?

10. The circus, the clowns, the driver, the dwarf, the whole troupe - in themselves, their performance?

11. Franz as the seductive actor, Anne seeing through him yet seduced by him, her talking about his prettiness, the hardening of his face, the close-ups of his face and eyes, selfish, using Anne, going to the circus, with another woman, his sneer, the whipping off of his hat, the brutal fight, his winning?

12. The theatre and the contrast with the circus - reality and unreality?

13. The picture of the audience - popular. laughing, enjoying the brutality?

14. Albert's wife, the three years' absence, her sewing for him, her refusing for him to come back. Another man in her life, her boy?

15. The allegorical blend of the humorous and the serious?