CRIES AND WHISPERS

Sweden, 1972, 106 minutes, Colour.
Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullman, Anders Ek, Inger Gill, Erland Josefson.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Cries and Whispers is one of the Ingmar Bergman’s finest films. It is a film about death and its consequences. Two sisters attend the dying of Agnes (echoes of Agnus Dei, Lamb of God). She has tuberculosis and dies in agony. However, the two sisters are very selfish and as they attend her deathbed, there are flashbacks to show the wilfulness of their lives. Their husbands are little better than they. However, Agnes is presented as truly suffering for others, a martyr. She is cared for by the maid, Anna, and after she dies, Bergman composes a scene where the maid holds Agnes as in a Pieta.

The film won an Oscar for best cinematography by Sven Nykvist. He photographed many of Bergman’s films. The colour is exquisite, especially as the film is set in the late 19th century, the interiors are red (Bergman says that he thought the soul was like a damp membrane, all red) and the film uses red fadeouts. However, the sisters are generally dressed in white.

The film is beautifully acted and the actresses won a number of awards. Harriet Andersson has one of the most moving deaths on screen and the prayer by the Lutheran minister, considering Bergman’s Lutheran background and his alleged agnosticism, is most moving.

Agnes can be seen as a Christ-figure. The minister at her funeral prays about the significance of her life and death.

‘If it is so that you have gathered our suffering in your poor body, if it is so that you have borne it with you through death, If it is so that you have gathered our suffering in your poor body, if it is so that you have borne it with you through death, if it is so that you meet God over there in the other land, if it is so that He turns His face towards you, if it is so that you can speak the language that this God understands, if it is so that you can, then speak to this God, if it is so, pray for us... Pray for us who are left here on the dark, dirty earth under an empty and cruel Heaven. Lay your burden of suffering at God’s feet and ask Him to pardon us. Ask Him to free us at last from our anxiety, our weariness and our deep doubt. Ask Him for a meaning to our lives. Agnes, you who have suffered so unimaginably and so long, you must be worthy to plead.’

1. The impact of the film? Acclaim and awards? The film in Ingmar Bergman’s career? The many films exploring life and death themes? The focus on women?

2. The religious dimensions of the film? Agnes as the Lamb of God? Suffering and taking away the sins of the world – of her sisters? The atmosphere of church, the pastor, religion, a theology of suffering? The funeral ceremony? The speech of the priest? His prayer? The specific Christian perspective?

3. The colour photography, Oscar-winning? The beauty of the late 19th century? The country estate? The interiors? The pervading colour of red? The white dresses? The green of the gardens? The tableau? The Pieta? The careful design of the film? The classical-style score? Hymns?

4. The strength of the cast? The veterans from so many of Bergman’s films? Variety in their performances?

5. The title, the cries and whispers – and their being heard in the film? In the house? The cries from the past, the whispers from the past? The influence on the present?

6. The focus on the garden, the light? The interiors with the clocks, the piano? Maria arriving and her red dress? Agnes, in bed, her agony, her face, attempts at relief, sitting up, Anna and her tenderness, Agnes and her tenderness to Maria?

7. The diary, the accounts of the pain, the attitude towards each of the sisters? Anna and her role as servant, companion?

8. Maria, the struts, the dolls, the house, her thumb, her mother? The flashbacks?

9. Karen, her accounts, her life, relationship to her sisters, her marriage, her bitterness?

10. The dresses, the red and the white, Anna and her more modest clothing? Anna as the mother figure? Her prayer, her dead daughter, her faith in God? The apple and the photo of the daughter? The empty cot?

11. Agnes and the white roses?

12. The memories of their mother, the park and the solitude, Maria and her solitude, her attempts to be kind? Agnes, spying on her, love? Karen and her being cold and aloof, playfully cruel? The sisters and their sense of longing, alone, the need for love?

13. Twelfth Night, the magic lantern, the witch? Agnes left out? Maria and her mother, jealousy?

14. Autumn, the red room, the memories, the kiss, the closeness to the mother?

15. The doctor, Maria, the voice-over, memories? The doctor and Anna’s daughter’s illness? Indolence, sneering (the mirror image)? The doctor helping? The affair?

16. Joachim, his relationship with Maria? The breakfast, cold, the self-stabbing by Karen, Maria’s shock? The long close-ups and the red, the whispers?

17. Anna on the bed with Agnes, giving succour? A mother figure, giving her her breast? Agnes’s deterioration, her agony, the reaction of each of the sisters? The emphasis on time, the clocks? Tending her, the nightgown? Reading the Pickwick Papers? The transition to grey dresses? Agnes’s growing agony, the sisters more helpless? Her death?

18. The portrayal of Agnes’s death, the performance by Harriet Andersson? Realistic, harrowing?

19. The sisters in black, the pastor’s prayer, her serene face, the text of his prayer? The conditional sentences, if it is true…, intercede for us?

20. Karen and Frederick, diplomats? Dining, the fish, the glass breaking? The mirror and Anna? The slap? Asking forgiveness? Anna’s refusal? Undressing, the glass, “the tangle of lies”, the mutilation and the crying? The twisted smile? Frederick, smearing the blood?

21. The two sisters, confessing, becoming closer, the ability to touch, especially Maria? The diary and the language of grace? Tentative reaching out, touching? Thoughts of suicide? Asking Maria to forgive? The touch of fondness and reconciliation?

22. The gift to Anna, the will and the property? Anna at the cot, hearing the cry, hearing the two sisters? Agnes talking when dead, tears, no sleep, their inability to leave, the need for each other?

23. The appeal to Karen, inability to love Agnes, leaving? A dream – whose? Agnes’s sobs?

24. Their going to Maria - scared, huddling together, the temptation to come closer?

25. The sisters unable reach out, to come to terms with themselves, with Agnes’s death? Anna and the Pieta image?

26. The sisters, the formality of the grief, the funeral? The discussion as what to give Anna? Their failure? Maria rejecting Karen?

27. Anna and the diary, the ending of the film – rueful, autumn, the sisters? The four walking in white in the garden? Agnes saying all the pain is gone, with the people who loved her most? “This is happiness, I can’t wish for more.” Peaceful, perfect? Do the cries and whispers cease?

28. The resurrection of Anna?

29. Death and resurrection, the process of death – more hideous than its actual redemptive meaning?