If there is one work that can maximize the marriage life, it is not Bergman's "Married Life".
All the quarrels, squalor, boredom, selfishness, infidelity, jealousy, possession, hatred, exhaustion, dependence, attachment, attachment you may or have encountered in your marital relationship.... Bergman told you about it with his experience through Married Life.
Ingmar Bergman is a Swedish director who has been married 5 times in her lifetime. Bergman was 53 years old when he made Married Life and had four failed marriages. "Married Life" can be said to be a very profound reflection of the master's perspective, the understanding and perception of marriage.
Also because before that, Bergman had directed classic films such as "The Seventh Seal", "Virgin Springs", and "Silence".
During the filming of "Married Life", Bergman has accumulated enough experience to show the emotional flow in the marriage relationship, to show the changes, undercurrents and complexities of the individual in the marriage relationship. Through extremely rich and delicate and multi-layered emotional aspects, it deeply analyzes the individual who is outside the marriage and the relationship between the individual and the marriage.
The 169-minute film is edited from six television versions. Six scenes form an interior drama with a counterpoint structure. The entire film is almost entirely driven by dialogue. In the pinnacle of this married life movie, what kind of story does Bergman tell, and what does he want to tell us about marriage through such a story?
In Bergman's view, if there are no problems in marriage, it will be a problem, but if there are too many problems, it will be a problem. All in all, marriage itself is a place of war where there can be no calm. ”
On the issue of marital relationships, you should also have the following confusion:
Can love save you from loneliness?
Can a marriage without love be sustained?
What makes a couple fall in love but can't get along?
When one party cheats, where does the marital relationship go?
What is the nature of the marital relationship?
...
You may have your own answers to these questions, or you may want to refer to other interpretations. Below I bring you closer to Bergman's revelation from the three aspects of loneliness and intimacy, hatred and attachment, escape and return with limited experience.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >01 Loneliness and intimacy</h1>
Does loving each other save us from loneliness?
At the beginning of the film, Marianne, a divorce lawyer for his wife, and John, an associate professor of husband psychology, are interviewed by reporters. At this time they were married on their tenth anniversary. It seems to be in love and harmony.
Later, at the family dinner, set off by another couple who tortured each other but could not be separated, Pete and Katerina, we almost believed that they really had the perfect marriage.
Until John's showdown of his own cheating, he said
"Do you know how long I want to leave?" Do you know how long ago I wanted to get rid of you? Four years. ...”
Knowing nothing, Marianne calls John's friend, only to learn about John's infidelity, and she is the last to learn. This moment so clearly shows the loneliness in love, and the strangeness between husband and wife.
Marianne thought it was business as usual, and she never realized that John had been trying to get rid of her four years earlier.
This is loneliness in love. A lover who seems to be intimate and close to him never seems to have really touched it.
If loving each other does not free two individuals from loneliness, is it okay not to love?
One of the most interesting episodes is a conversation as a divorce lawyer when you're hosting a woman who wants a divorce after 20 years of marriage.
"I know what you're thinking," the woman was spoiled, she had everything a woman wanted, how could she still be here without illness and moaning that there was no love. Did she ignore friendship, loyalty, security" I tell you something, I have another self in my mind, she has nothing to do with real life. I have the ability to love, but that is already bound. My life now inhibits my potential... Strange things followed, and my senses, visions, hearing, and touch were slowly degenerating. For example, this table, I can see and touch, but I feel very small, boring. And so does everything else, the music, the smell, the cheeks, the voice, everything becomes pale, small, undignified..."
Entering into a marriage without love since there is the ability to love is so blunt to one's perception. How should two people who love and love each other get closer?
Psychologist Erikson sees the development of intimacy as a key task for early adulthood. The need to form strong, stable, intimate, and mutually considerate relationships is a powerful motivation for human behavior. Self-disclosure is an important factor influencing intimate relationships, i.e. "disclosing important information about oneself to others" (Collins & Miller, 1994, p. 457)
John after the showdown cheated on Marianne, "These words are not empty talk, I never expect to touch the real us, I don't even think there is such a thing as the real, no matter what we say or do will cause harm." 」 ”
This is compared to the previous whitewashed expression, even if "I don't think there is truth" This is still a true expression.
It is only at this point that the nature of the problem seems to be dealt with. The problem is Marianne's escape from chaos, and John's need for stability and order together allow them to maintain the illusion of stability and beauty. The essence is how do we deal with our true selves?
To have intimacy in love, or to love each other without loneliness, we must show it, and only after it is revealed can we get close to each other. Is that thorough disclosure good?
There is a short film "He Peeled The Skin for Me" about the male protagonist peeling off his skin in order to please his girlfriend. At first, because of this frank meeting, they seemed to be closer. But then, the skinless man left a lot of blood on the floor and sheets every day... The task of handling housework for girlfriends becomes very heavy. Immediately after, the skinless male protagonist is also frustrated at work and in social life... At the end of the short film, the male protagonist pulls up his girlfriend's skin and pulls it hard.
When one party sacrifices for love, it is natural to expect the other to sacrifice as much.
Everyone grows up in their own experience, and revealing means giving up some self-preservation in exchange for intimacy. Renouncing self-preservation in love will appear as fragile and more vulnerable. This is the reason why it is easier to be stinged in intimate relationships. When it is impossible to grasp the limits of both sides, loneliness also arises.
How should two people who love each other get closer? Self-disclosure.
How does that manifest itself? How is the measure of control over presentation? Like loneliness, it is an eternal proposition.
Returning to the previous question, my answer is that being in love saves us from loneliness to some extent. The premise is to rely on moderate self-expression to get close to each other. But the loneliness derived from love is inexplicable, as John realizes in the film that being with Paula is stronger than the loneliness of being alone.
What about your answer?
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >02 Hate and attachment</h1>
What could be more terrifying than a couple who hate each other?
At the beginning of the film, Bergman quotes Strindberg: "What could be more terrible than a couple who hate each other?" Pete replied, "Maybe the child abuse is a little more brutal"; before Pete said, "And Katerina and I happen to be people who don't grow up." "They are husband and wife who hate each other, children who abuse each other.
What could be more terrifying than that? Have you tried to trace back why a husband and wife relationship that hates each other is so terrible?
Because the hurt in intimate relationships is bloody. Because hate and love are two sides of the same coin.
After John confesses his cheating, John, as the cheater, says to Marianne, "Oh my God, I hate you so much. I used to think, oh my God, I hate her. Especially when you can't see my intentions and you don't react. ”
Bergman portrayed a completely faceless derailer. From John's hatred and pain, we can see that Bergman defended John, just as Tolstoy defended Anna.
The literary spire Lev Tolstein's best-known novel, Anna Karenina, also writes a story about infidelity, where the noblewoman Anna is passionate and vibrant, while her husband is cold and rigid. On a train, Anna meets Vronsky, a young officer, and under Vronsky's fervent pursuit, Anna falls in love....
Anna's fate ends with her final walk on the tracks to meet the train. The description of Anna's pain in the seventh part of the work makes the reader so deeply and sincerely immersed in deep sympathy for Anna, who is a cheater and a victim of fate and society.
It is not difficult to read the defense of Anna from Tolstoy's pen.
When Tolstoy defended Anna Karenina, who cheated on her marriage, what was he defending?
Milan Kundera wrote in The Art of the Novel that man always wants the world to be clearly distinguished from good and evil, because man has an innate, irrepressible desire to judge before he understands. Religion and ideology are based on this desire. Only after transforming the relative, ambiguous language of the novel into their arbitrary, dogmatic remarks can they accept the novel and reconcile with it. They demand that there must be a person who is right; either Anna Karenina is the victim of a narrow-minded tyrant, or Karenin is the victim of an immoral woman ....
This "or/or" actually means that it is impossible to accept that human events are inherently relativistic, and it means that it is impossible to face the absence of the Supreme Judge. It is precisely because this cannot be done that the wisdom of the novel (the wisdom of uncertainty) becomes difficult to accept and understand.
Like John portrayed by Bergman, he is complex, he is cowardly, brave, confident, wavering, confused, childish, narrow-minded, affectionate, ruthless, he is smart, stupid, and so pitiful and helpless... You may not be able to say that he is a good person or that he is a bad person. Between black and white, there is also a deep and light gray. It's like being between love and hate.
We need to have what Milan Kundera calls "uncertain wisdom" to understand.
There was hatred between John and Marianne, and there was still a deep attachment between them.
Lian Yue wrote: "The possibility of breaking up is always there, and no act or contract can be guaranteed." "The entanglement and entanglement between people is so subtle that no form or definition can be decisive. Is it okay not to hate? Can divorce cut off all attachments? Form is form, and there is more underneath the appearance of form. People are complex.
As the film begins, even if it is full of hatred, even if it tortures each other... After Pete and Caterina spoke harshly, a bitter Caterina said, "I have a hopeless tenderness toward him." ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03 Escape and return</h1>
"All that can be done is the return of the long journey."
John, who confessed to cheating, said: We are going to Paris tomorrow. I want to get rid of it all. I couldn't live without Paula, so we decided to go tomorrow. Now I confess everything to you. There was an urge to ruin it all. I was tired and scared, and there was nothing more ridiculous than that.
Then they got ready for bed as usual, and Marianne asked John, "Why don't you travel in your jacket and flannel?" That would look younger. This is ridiculous. John, who is ready to get rid of everything and go to Paris with his lover, still needs to consider travel clothes. How can a person escape from everyday life?
After cursing the tedious routine, John said, "It's good to be a scoundrel."
He was so desperate to escape Marianne, to escape order, to escape routine, and to escape Sweden.
Jiang Xun wrote in "Six Lectures on Loneliness" that the synonym of loneliness is to run away, to go out from groups, categories, and norms, which requires being very honest with oneself and also requiring great courage. That's what John was doing.
But as john failed in his attempt to escape Sweden, his escape from order and routine led him to single-handedly ruin his life.
John, who should have had a bright future, became discouraged, and he had to borrow money from his parents and could not pay for his daughter's travels.
In the divorce torn, John said: "We are all emotionally illiterate, we have all studied anatomy and African farming, we have studied mathematical equations with our hearts, but we have not learned how to face our thoughts." ”
John, who had run away, said, "I've had enough of Paula and I want to go home." I was scared and didn't belong. I'm more dependent on you than I thought..." John said, "Paula gives me a stronger sense of loneliness than when I was alone." ”
He had learned to follow order like an adult, to attain stability and belonging. Later, he still became a child, at the cost of destroying the happy life in universal values. He had escaped from Marianne and wanted to return to Marianne. He fled because of loneliness, but he still fell into loneliness... At the end of the film John says, "I also accepted my true side. From escaping from itself to accepting itself, it is still a kind of return.
This is John's escape and return. You can't escape yourself, you can't escape from everyday life and order, you can only return.
Marianne's escape and return
After John's cheating showdown, Marianne, with tears in her eyes, said, "I forgot to set the alarm." "Order is Marian's label.
At the beginning of the film, John says to Marianne, "You're a perfectionist, and you hate chaos physically and mentally. ”
Marianne, the little nest they date at the end of the film, says, "Are we living in chaos?" I mean everyone. Fear, uncertainty, ignorance, like we're sliding down a hill and don't know what to do. ”
From escaping chaos to facing chaos. Marianne followed her path of escape and return.
In addition to the details of reading the diary, Marianne looks back on her childhood and thinks about how "hiding herself" became her nature and how she became herself. From hiding herself, to discovering that she doesn't know who she is, to the end of the film, Marianne asks John for love and tells about dreams. Bergman narrated, going around in a big circle, and even after experiencing discovery and awakening, Marianne still didn't know who she was. It's a matter of identity, it's everyone's problem, and we can't strip labels like children, parents, couples, social identities, but what do labels mean? It means simplification, and people are so complex... All our lives we are just discovering, chasing, searching, "Who am I?" ”
On a date ten years after the divorce, John said, "You think about what we've realized, how great that was, we found ourselves..."
All encounters come back to themselves, your childhood trauma, your growing experiences, the things you escape... Eventually through your marital relationship, every relationship... Feedback to you. The end of the escape must be to return and only return. You can't escape from fate.
Compared with the discussion of marriage relationship, in this film, Bergman's discussion of the individual's situation in marriage relationship and life is more profound, marriage relationship is superficial, and deeper is the eternal dilemma of human survival.
According to Bergman, there are: brave, cowardly, happy, sad, angry, loving, confused, uncertain, satisfied, cunning, unpleasant, childish, mean, unfathomable, magnificent, narrow-minded, affectionate, heartless, stupid, pitiful, helpless... Those are the more aspects I haven't been able to write based on space.
Recommend you to see.
In fact, I initially conceived eight facets to write, but found it difficult to write. The significance of the classic lies in its richness, in the dark, immutable things that are common to human nature. My perspective has my limitations, as well as its length limitations. Ingmar Bergman is a well-deserved master, and this Douban rated 9 film is one of the very few films that can bring warmth and comfort to Bergman. You will find yourself in the movie, like the other masters have brought you.