SHAME
Sweden, 1968, 103 minutes, Black and white.
Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Sigge Furst, Birgitta Valberg, Hans Alfredson, Ingvar Kjellson, Raymond Lundberg, Frank Sundstrom, Willy Peters.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman.
Shame is one of Ingmar Bergman'a many excellent films of the 60s. From the 50s to the early 60s he was preoccupied with explicitly religious themes from the experience of death in The Seventh Seal, ageing in Wild Strawberries through madness in Through a Glass Darkly, explicit religious themes in Winter Light , to the absence of God in The Silence. From the mid-60s, with Persona and its psychological exploration, Bergman’s interest moved into the wider world of contemporary society. War themes were present in Winter Light with the ordinary man terrified of the Chinese dropping a bomb. Vietnam and its atrocities are alluded to in television clips in Persona.
It was inevitable, perhaps, with the emphasis on nuclear apprehension in the 60s that Bergman would make a war film. With his regular cast of the time, Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, he shows Swedish society confronted suddenly by war and their having to cope with it. His film does not rely on extraordinary alarms but her on ordinary people coping with uncertain situations. Bergman also works on the level of meaning and symbols by including a number of symbolic dreams.
While there is no really explicit reference to nuclear war, Bergman is clearly influenced by the discussions of the times and makes his contribution to understanding the effect of war on humanity.
1. The film as a Bergman film? His reputation, cinematic style, themes and insights?
2. Bergman and his view of war and anti-war? War as a social situation, its implications for people? The focus on people during occupation and invasion and the horror of an uncertain situation and how they would react in crisis? How did he communicate the basic horrors of war? the audience's emotional response by identification and judgment of themselves? Intellectual appreciation of the situations and intellectual judgments and decisions about war?
3. The quality of the black and white photography, the island atmosphere? The focus and filming of ordinary people and the emphasis on close-ups and profiles and combinations of these? The contrast with the sequences of violence and forests in flame etc? the atmosphere of ordinariness in transition to the horror of war? The importance of the environment, the sea, the contribution of the dream effects? The contribution of the long takes, of tableau, for conversations about issues?
4. The revelations of dreams to the theme and the title? Eva's explanation of being in someone else's dream and that they will awake and be ashamed? The significance of Jan and his happy dream about the orchestra? the meaning of the final dream and her explanation? The significance of beauty, war invading beauty, the fascination of roses burning and destruction? the significance Eva having a daughter when she was childless? The ability to remember something that ought to be remembered but has been forgotten? Indications of people, their conscious and unconscious as regards war and their reactions? The significance of the structure: the focus on three days in Jan and Eva's experience? A transition to the long day and the encounter with Jacobi until his death? The succession of short episodes and glimpses after this?
6. The importance of the war theme and the plausibility of war in Sweden? (Sweden's neutrality during World War II compared with that of Norway or Denmark and the repercussions on Bergman and Swedish audiences?) The length of the war, the occupation and its effect on people and their having to cope, live their ordinary lives yet be fearful? The significance of the radio and communication? The invasion, the invaders with their sense of liberation? The dangers of collaboration, the resistance? Battles, survival, terror and destruction? Amnesties, camps, refugees? The uncertain atmosphere, politics? The unknown? The reasons and motivation for people involved in war? Could audiences identify with such situation?
7. Eva and Jan as a couple? The significance of their being musicians, artists? Their work in the orchestra and their being used to training and discipline? The repercussions after they left the orchestra? The significance of their being artists and the discussions about art, especially the comments of Jacobi about art? Their marriage for seven years, their not having children? Moods, the war creating hostility between them? How much love was there in their love for the other? Their experience of the war, their breaking apart, their not understanding each other as they changed? The ordinariness of their waking up, the breakfast, going about their work? Woods and Eva's impetuosity, Jan's tears? Hie getting his coat? The
atmosphere of their buying their fish, the encounter with the man selling their goods and yet the background of troop movement and tanks? The happiness of the buying of the wine and the looking at the antique? Resting at the end of the day and the transition to the next day of violence? How well could audiences identify with Eva, and Jan as man and woman, ordinary couple, people with strengths and weaknesses, complex and ambiguous in their attitudes?
8. Eva and her saying that she was a strong woman? The contrast with Jan as weak? the humanity in each of them? How selfish? The long sequences and takes of their interrelationship, and estimates of the war situation and their reactions? Fear, their parking their car to escape, travelling through war landscapes?
9. The invasion and the television program? Torture and fear? The fact that they wore befriended by Jacobi? Their motives changing? Eva allowing herself to be seduced by Jacobi? Jan and his fear leading to hostility? The aggression of the coward? The sequence of their fighting before Jacobi's arrival, listening to his views? Jan and his weeping and hiding the money? reaction to the destruction of their home? The fact that Jan could shoot Jacobi, could deceive and shoot and rob the deserter? Eva and the contrast with compassion? How were they towards each other an they moved towards the boat and the final voyage? Would such hostilities have emerged in a peace situation? Eve, as a more ordinary person, moved by control and fear, love? The important sequence of their clash as they worked after the three days? The significance for her of her infidelity? Her decision to go along with Jan, provide the food and leave the house and go in the boat?
10. The importance of communicating fear, uncertainty especially at the day in which they left their house and packed, drive, encountered the war, moved through a landscape with tableau of death? Their return to their house after this experience and their resting in contrast with the night before?
11. The terror of sudden arrest, brutal interrogations, interviews, torture? The relief of the reprieve and their return home?
12. A war situation in which they depended on Jacobi for gifts? The humiliation of being dependent? The contrasting attitudes of permitting infidelity, Jan and his ability to kill? The significance of including long talks and explanations with Jacobi? The significance of the discussion of intimacy and his mother's death? on art and its strengths and weaknesses?
13. The Resistance, the search of the house, Fillip and his destruction and murder?
14. What did war leave after the gradual destruction of the house, the environment, the marriage, themselves? Only final instant burning and destruction?
15. The significance of the voyage on the boat, the payment,, the suicide going over the side, the rations of eating and drinking, the drifting, the drifting, bodies in the water? Brief episodes on a voyage of futility to nowhere? The future?
16. The basic war themes, insight into human beings and their strengths and weaknesses? Theme of fear, betrayal, love and hatred? humans as victims? inability to cope? The basic pessimism of the experience of life?
