Josephson incarnates a more complex figure – perhaps closer to Bergman in his mature years. The men in Bergman films are generally either weak or else tyrannical, the bullying often covering up for a lack of inner strength. We never lose sight that he is a man of the theatre – a universe whose wonders captured his imagination as a child.Īfter the Rehearsal (1984) is a marvellous vehicle for Erland Josephson, a versatile actor who features as much in these later films as Gunnar Björnstrand and Max von Sydow did in the early years. What makes Bergman, who wrote the scripts for all his mature films, so interesting and unique is that he is often drawing on personal experience, even when the stories are set in the past. The French term auteur has been colonised by film critics, not least the men from the Cahiers du Cinéma, but it basically just means "author", without any of the pretension that inevitably came with "auteur theory". In this case, we are offered the TV series version of Fanny and Alexander as well as the full theatrical release. Essential Bergman isn't to be be found in a single film: it is spread out, in all its rich variety across all of the BFI box-sets. Could this be Bergman’s magnum opus? It is often referred to in those terms, and yet the writer and director’s work is distinguished above all by a great diversity underpinned by a singular vision of the human condition. There are no comedies here – late mid-life brought out the full darkness of the Swedish director’s palette – although Fanny and Alexander both delights and shocks as it combines a characteristic lightness of touch, including a much-loved farting uncle and a child’s eye view of adult rituals, with the terrifying sadism of a Protestant step-father from hell.
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