Highly unusual and underrated. Bergman says volumes about the future he saw before us in 1977 by returning to 1923 and making what to the casual observer seems to be a film about hindsight. What is most unusual about his treatment is that he completely abstains from moral judgment. He does not feel the need to point a finger and instruct the audience that the Nazis are bad. Dr. Vergerus is not portrayed, as is suggested in another comment, as a villain. In fact, he is given all of the trademark qualities of a villain and then his sincerity and tenderness concerning subjects both tender (his feelings for Liv Ullman's character) and horrifically vile (experiments) are given the most comprehensive hearing in the film and serve as its marvelously conflicting centerpiece. He may be said to be the most emotional character in the film. In the end he must take his own life to escape hypocritical prosecution at the hands of a police inspector who will no doubt be a Nazi official in 10 years time. Vergerus' death, as he views himself in a mirror slightly recalling Powell's "Peeping Tom" from another perspective, is shockingly memorable to this day.
Carradine is perfect, and correct when he says on the DVD that Bergman didn't want a performance from him, just his mystique. We spend much of the film simply on nearly blank reaction shots of his face, and that's a good thing; his very unlikeness makes him a perfect fit. Carradine is the target of much malice and scorn within the cinephile community, but I can't quite figure out why (unless it is simply his arrogance, which I find a little charming). It might have to do with the mountain of junk movies he's been in. At least at the time he had given exceptional performances in "Boxcar Bertha" and "Bound For Glory." With David in "Kill Bill" and Keith in "Deadwood," I hope that Robert Carradine will find some sort of project better than the Lizzie McGuire movie to remind us that in "The Big Red One" he kicked some tail. I don't ever expect to see them embraced by the mainstream, just something that lets them be as good as they can be would be nice.
Ullman gives an excellent performance. It requires her to do so many things that Bergman never had her do any other time, from being a dancing sexpot to flying into a completely spontaneous outburst.
Woody Allen certainly seems to have drawn inspiration from this film for his "Shadows and Fog." The experiment footage is aggressively horrifying.
The assessment that it was a failure in the eyes of Bergman is also mistaken. He said that it was a great disappointment to work on. This comment is illuminated by Liv Ullman on the DVD where she explains that it was the alien work environment that left him depressed and unsatisfied, but that upon a recent viewing he found to his surprise that he was quite proud of the film. I personally found it very entertaining, often surprising and simply a wonder at how Bergman was able for this film to completely sublimate his style to the demands of quite a different kind of picture, but still make it his own.
In its way it is a sort of pre-war "Third Man." It is not among his best, but when your best are many of the best films ever made that's not a harsh judgment. It is more than just an oddity or an Altman-esque "interesting failure."
Carradine is perfect, and correct when he says on the DVD that Bergman didn't want a performance from him, just his mystique. We spend much of the film simply on nearly blank reaction shots of his face, and that's a good thing; his very unlikeness makes him a perfect fit. Carradine is the target of much malice and scorn within the cinephile community, but I can't quite figure out why (unless it is simply his arrogance, which I find a little charming). It might have to do with the mountain of junk movies he's been in. At least at the time he had given exceptional performances in "Boxcar Bertha" and "Bound For Glory." With David in "Kill Bill" and Keith in "Deadwood," I hope that Robert Carradine will find some sort of project better than the Lizzie McGuire movie to remind us that in "The Big Red One" he kicked some tail. I don't ever expect to see them embraced by the mainstream, just something that lets them be as good as they can be would be nice.
Ullman gives an excellent performance. It requires her to do so many things that Bergman never had her do any other time, from being a dancing sexpot to flying into a completely spontaneous outburst.
Woody Allen certainly seems to have drawn inspiration from this film for his "Shadows and Fog." The experiment footage is aggressively horrifying.
The assessment that it was a failure in the eyes of Bergman is also mistaken. He said that it was a great disappointment to work on. This comment is illuminated by Liv Ullman on the DVD where she explains that it was the alien work environment that left him depressed and unsatisfied, but that upon a recent viewing he found to his surprise that he was quite proud of the film. I personally found it very entertaining, often surprising and simply a wonder at how Bergman was able for this film to completely sublimate his style to the demands of quite a different kind of picture, but still make it his own.
In its way it is a sort of pre-war "Third Man." It is not among his best, but when your best are many of the best films ever made that's not a harsh judgment. It is more than just an oddity or an Altman-esque "interesting failure."