Light On Dark Water

Bergman: Sawdust and Tinsel (and Port of Call)

I think I put this early (1953) Bergman work in my queue almost as soon we joined Netflix, which is getting to be quite a while back now. I did it more out of a sense of duty than in expectation that I would actually like it, as I didn't expect it to be as good as the classics that would soon follow it in Bergman's career. So it sat there, like a number of other movies, never getting to the top of the queue because my wife and I were always putting other things ahead of it. But lately I've been noticing more obscure titles disappearing from Netflix, and others flagged as being available only after a "long wait," or in the case of this one, a "very long wait." 

So I put it on top of the list, and it turned out that the Very Long Wait was only a week or so, and I tried to watch it promptly in hopes of sparing some other Bergman fan a Very Long Wait.  It more than fulfilled my expectations. It's a story of futility, humiliation, and defeat among the losers (I don't care much for that word, but it is perfectly accurate here) who comprise a traveling circus company that's barely surviving. It contains much that makes many of Bergman's films so grim, but without the magic touch of genius that elevates the others. Not that it's bad, by any means. It's very well done, very well acted, and it does deliver the blow it intends to deliver. But it doesn't strike me as great. I would recommend it only to Bergman fans who want to see everything by the master. Here's a link to the Criterion Collection page. Put the words "circus" and "misery" together, and you have the general idea; even the bear is miserable. Here, for instance, is a characteristic moment in the life of the clown.

Gycklarnas_aftoniv

And while I'm at it: it's been several months now, but I also saw an even earlier Bergman work: Port of Call, released in 1948. It didn't make a really strong impression on me, but it's worth seeing, maybe even if you're not a huge Bergman fan. Although this is a bit of a spoiler, I have to reveal one thing about it, only because it's so surprising: it has a happy ending. Here's its Criterion Collection page.

Thinking about the two together, I realize that one reason for my lack of enthusiasm is that neither has any of the pointers toward the big theological and philosophical questions that filled the works that were to come over the next ten or fifteen years. Nor do they have much of the visual magic, at least to my eyes, though Sawdust  does have its moments in that respect.

Maclin Horton

3 responses to “Bergman: Sawdust and Tinsel (and Port of Call)”

  1. Marianne

    I must say the still you chose to include here doesn’t exactly make want to see Sawdust and Tinsel. But then, for that matter, just the mention of a circus pretty much put the kibosh on the thing for me.
    Your comment about the two films lacking “much of the visual magic” of Bergman’s other films made me go looking for how important his cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, was for that. I found an obit on him at the Guardian; interestingly, it says he co-shot Sawdust and Tinsel. The whole piece is worth a read; here are the beginning paragraphs:

    Someone once said that in the process of filmmaking “if the film is the baby, the director the mother, the screenwriter the father, then the cinematographer is the midwife.” The Swedish cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who has died aged 83, helped bring about the birth of a number of masterpieces, most of them by Ingmar Bergman, his most intimate collaborator.
    This empathetic relationship grew from the fact that both Swedes were the sons of strict pastors who forbade the watching of films, both had unhappy childhoods, and both recalled an early fascination with lighting. Nykvist rarely saw his parents until he was 13. They were Christian missionaries in Africa, who left him at home in Sweden to be brought up by relatives.
    The cinematic vision could be said to have come from their experiences of Sweden’s dark winters and bright summers. Nykvist and Bergman shared a preference for location shooting and natural light. They also agreed that subtle changes of light can alter the meaning of a character’s actions. As Bergman said in the documentary Light Keeps Me Company, directed by Carl-Gustav Nykvist, the cinematographer’s son, “Sven and I saw things alike, thought things alike, our feeling for light was the same. We had the same basic moral positions about camera placement.”

    Not sure I follow that last bit about having a “moral” position on camera placement.

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  2. Mac

    I’m traveling and only occasionally have a chance to check in. Will say something more about this, also on the other thread, later.

    Reply
  3. Mac

    Bergman fans quickly learn to recognize Sven Nykvist’s name. It’s usually prominent in the credits. When I saw it in the opening credits of Sawdust and Tinsel, I got my hopes up. And there are some images that are as good as the later work he would do. “Moral positions about camera placement” sounds like a bit of jive to me.

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