“A mother and a daughter. What a terrible
combination of feelings and confusion and destruction.”
In an effort to do a little research for once in my life, I
actually looked up the term "sonata," thinking it would have some
formalistic meaning that would have grave importance in regards to the 1978
drama, Autumn Sonata. Ingmar Bergman's not one to choose his
classical music references lightly (see also, Saraband [review]). Isn't a
sonata a melancholy, mood-driven piece, you know, like Beethoven's moonlight
one?
Turns out, a sonata is not as specific as all that. It's a
term that arose to differentiate music written for instruments rather than
pieces composed for voice. It's a distinction of performance. Even so, this may
still give us some understanding on how to approach Autumn
Sonata. Despite being a movie driven by dialogue, the importance is
in the delivery and the instruments performing the author's words. It's about
how, not what, and thus also about what is done without language. It’s as much
about what is not said as it is every syllable spoken.
Though the film has a quartet of characters, this one is really a duet. Autumn Sonata stars Bergman perennial Liv Ullmann as Eva and silver screen icon Ingrid Bergman as her mother, Charlotte. The elder woman is an internationally famous concert pianist, and one, as it turns out, who sacrificed family for career. At the outset of the picture, mother and daughter have not seen each other for many years. Eva is a writer who lives in the country with her husband (Halvar Björk), a minister, far removed from the art-world glitz that defines Charlotte's life. Charlotte has been invited to their home for a reunion and some TLC. Her companion of over a decade has passed away, inspiring her child to reach out and mend fences.
This is a good intention that is better in theory. Charlotte
has barely stepped through the door when old tensions begin to bubble up. The
process is sped along by Eva's hidden surprise: she has taken her younger
sister, Helena (Lena Nyman), into her home. Lena suffers from a degenerative
disease, and last Charlotte knew, she was staying in a medical facility. The
fact that she had no idea that one of her children had taken over the care of
the other shows how far removed she is from her own offspring. Charlotte's
life--and this is one of Eva's main grievances, if not, in fact, the only
one--has always been very much about Charlotte.
Just how much so becomes evident in the very first
conversation between the reunited pair. Though Charlotte pays lip service to
caring about her daughter's life, she spends little time listening, instead
steering everything back to herself and her less-than-humble take on her many
successes. Eva only gets to have her say much later in the day, when she
insists on her mother's silence. This occurs during Autumn
Sonata's longest sequence, as mother and daughter stay up all night
digging through the past. The conversation gets serious and even cruel, as Eva
unloads a lifetime of pent-up disappointments. The central issue is not so much
was Charlotte a bad mother, but are either of these women actually capable of
love? Or are they part of a cycle, each generation passing down its dysfunction
when it comes to expressing affection?
The conversation careens through the women's shared history.
Topics include infidelity, abuse, control, and even music, the one common
ground the two maybe could have shared had Charlotte allowed it. Ullmann has
the more showy role. Eva is a damaged pressure cooker in need of release, and
once the tears and the shouting begins, nothing can stop them. (Indeed, in the
new HD transfer, you can see the physical toll it takes on her like never
before. Ullmann’s red-rimmed eyes look absolutely painful.)
Yet, this is Ingrid Bergman's movie. In essence, the
"autumn sonata" is Charlotte's crucial final-act performance, as the
diva improvises for her toughest audience. Are her facial expressions, the
silent reactions, the most honest? Or can we believe her verbal explanations?
Her attempts to turn everything around by saying it was she who was abandoned,
that what she needed was a child who would take care of her, since she herself
was incapable? Sven Nyquist’s camera searches and probes, looking for the important
tell-tale sign, moving between the actors. The framing is as intimate as the
shots are sometimes distancing. It’s particularly telling that, during
flashback scenes, the memories are peered at from a distance, often from
outside the room.
Both participants capture our sympathy and our frustration.
Eva has legitimate complaints, but she is also adolescent and morose, and
equally as self-absorbed as her mother, who is in turn shallow and insecure and
totally reliant on others for her sense of worth. There is an irony to seeing a
mother having a nightmare where she is smothered in her sleep by an unseen
assailant; the common notion would be that it’s the matriarch who does the
smothering. It’s actually this terrifying dream that causes her to cry out,
simultaneously proving her point that she is need of aid (and, of course, that
is why she has come to visit) and sparking argument that will dominate the next
several hours of their lives. There is very little resolved between the two,
except maybe the realization that they just need to stay away from each other.
But then, Autumn Sonata isn't about
resolutions. There is no right or wrong in Ingmar Bergman's scenario. Rather,
it's about the catharsis of the performance. It's like how Charlotte describes
the Chopin piece her daughter attempts to play: it's supposed to be challenging
and even ugly, the player has to struggle to get through it. The important
thing, though, is that she does. The difficulty of the composition still
exists, but so does the musician who dared to expose herself to these troubles.
Criterion’s Blu-ray re-release improves exponentially on the picture and sound of its original 1999 DVD (though it should be noted that the pictures used here are from that standard-definition DVD and not from the high-def reissue). Colors are vivid, and detail is exceptional. They have also considerably upped the game in terms of bonus features, with a massive on-set documentary, interviews, and the now-common Ingmar Bergman introduction joining the excellent Peter Cowie commentary from over a decade ago.
Criterion’s Blu-ray re-release improves exponentially on the picture and sound of its original 1999 DVD (though it should be noted that the pictures used here are from that standard-definition DVD and not from the high-def reissue). Colors are vivid, and detail is exceptional. They have also considerably upped the game in terms of bonus features, with a massive on-set documentary, interviews, and the now-common Ingmar Bergman introduction joining the excellent Peter Cowie commentary from over a decade ago.
in 1967, two decades after World War II, he met resistance from people who didn't think Hitler and his Nazis should be the subject of satire. Brooks saw it a different way: he was depowering the evildoers by making them the object of ridicule. They rule by terror, but it's hard to be terrorized when you're laughing.
of To Be or Not to Be.)
