In the fall of 1971, Bergman began filming Shouts and Whispers, shifting from a cross-examination of religion to an exploration of family life, and Bergman was paranoidly immersed in the atmosphere of self-imagery, and regarding the original intention of the film's portrayal of four women, he wrote: "I have expelled these images from my mind again and again, refusing to use it to make films." But the images never got away, and I reluctantly agreed with it: three women were waiting for another woman to die, and they took turns taking care of her."
The original name of "Shouting and Whispering" is "Red Apricot", and the title of the film comes from mozart quartet's music review: "It sounds like shouting and whispering", in the film, Bergman deliberately divided the whole film into four acts, like Mozart's quartet, corresponding to the different lives of the four protagonists. At the same time, the color atmosphere of the film implies a very strong meaning, and Bergman even tried for the first time to use a fixed camera to try to faithfully restore the lifestyle and attitude of the family, so that the audience can act as a judge of emotional fluctuations. In terms of effect, it not only renders the empathetic environment atmosphere, but also makes the emotional elements more smooth and natural.
Cinematographer Sven Nickwest won the Best Cinematography Award at the 46th Academy Awards, in addition to which the film was nominated for "Best Picture", "Best Director", "Best Original Screenplay", "Best Costume Design", although it did not win the award in the end, it was a great honor, which meant that every detail of the film was fully affirmed.
Today, I want to explore the philosophical connotation of this film from the three dimensions of women's dedication, the preciousness of family affection, and the estrangement between people, and enter Bergman's colorful emotional world together to explore the source of his cognition of morality, life and death, and soul.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01, the four-act structure is like a quartet, and the immoral male reflects the sacrifice and dedication of women</h1>
As we all know, Bergman is a stage director, and theater is both his job and his most talented form of artistic expression. Film is of great significance as his "hobby", helping him to get rid of the heavy administrative pressure of the Royal Theatre and find the artistic origin of a lifetime of inner exploration. In the form and performance of this film, Bergman adopts the four-act play form he is most familiar with, and completes the formal division of the plot through the fading and fading out of red.
In the four-act play, Agnes's pain, comfort, departure, and remembrance are the main lines, running through Maria and Karin's childhood memories, adult emotions, and the hidden efforts of the maid Anna. In string performance, quartet is the purest form of music performance, usually two violins, a viola, a cello configuration, so that each instrument plays a different part, so that the overall timbre is the purest. In the film, the structure of these four acts and the four heroines are like footnotes to the quartet, infused with strong emotional elements and playing a symphony of female emotions.
The first act of the play takes Agnes's painful illness as the starting point and explains her sisterly relationship and childhood memories that are not harmonious with Maria and Karin; the second act takes Maria's affair as a continuation, leading to the impact of the family environment on her and the sharp contradiction with Karin; the third act takes Agnes's death as the transition, allowing the audience to feel the pain of parting and the relationship between the two sisters; the fourth act ends with Agnes's return, with Anna's deep concern for Agnes reflecting the three sisters' struggles and contradictions , the relationship of integration. With the development of the four-act play, the audience can clearly feel that the sentimental elements are becoming more and more intense, and the relationship between the four people from the light as water to the contradictions to the harmonious coexistence and even the ideal is blurred, from reality to dream, expressing the cherishing of life and the sacrifice and dedication of women.
In many of Bergman's films, male characters are absent, such as Silence and Masquerade, which only illustrate their views on the world through female depictions. In "Shouting and Whispering", although there is a male image, this male has serious moral flaws to flatter the image of the female majesty. For example, the doctor David not only lacked basic professionalism, but also lacked basic ethics for the external encounter with Mary. When he diagnosed Agnes, he adopted an attitude of indifference. And when Mary threw herself into her arms, he rejected her with indifference and mockery, because of her selfishness, her insensitivity, her indifference.
Bergman was equally critical of Karin's husband and pastor. When it comes to meals, Karin's husband is not as dignified as a European, but preysumptuously chews food, making a nasty sound in his mouth, and ignoring the attitude of others to him. When the priest presided over Agnes's funeral, telling the lack of faith and despair, completely ignoring the grief of the mourners, Bergman deliberately used Anders Echo, who had some strange and funny features, to play the priest, in order to highlight the ironic effect by "vilifying" the role.
The women in the film become human symbols of suffering, alienation and dilemma, and they express Bergman's distress, which stems from the helplessness of the search for the meaning of life, Agnes as a female "martyr" like Jesus fell into the torment of illness, and her only communication with her mother was childhood to touch her mother's face with her hands. Women reproduce, but for a long time to bear loneliness, loneliness and despair, in real life many women suffer from postpartum depression, hallucinations and even delusions, not only endure the deformation of the body, but also bear the mental distress. Maria's mental health is constantly eroded by married life, and Karin even uses glass to stab her own genitals, which actually stems from the role of the mother.
The four women in the film have distinct personalities, indispensable, and connect with each other in a closed environment, Anna, although not their sister, is the only one who plays the role of her mother, and when Agnes is in the most pain, he nourishes Agnes's painful heart with her plump body, reflecting the sacrifice and dedication of women. At the same time, revealing their indifferent family relationship at the time of life and death, Bergman wants to express not only condemnation, but hopes to awaken the love in the hearts of the audience through the stories of the sisters and cherish the precious family affection in the world.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >02, heavy and bright black and white red colors constitute a tangled lie, beyond the pain of life and death to reveal the preciousness of family affection</h1>
This film is the most exaggerated use of color in all of Bergman's films, and the red room and character attire are particularly evident at the beginning. This intention is also very obvious: "All my films can be thought of in black and white, with the exception of Shouts and Whispers. In the script, I stated that I thought of red as the inner part of the soul. When I was young, I thought that the soul was a shadow-like dragon, blue like green smoke, soaring in the sky like a winged monster, half bird and half fish, but the body of the dragon was all red." From this, it can be seen that Bergman's use of different colors actually has a profound meaning, but more importantly, these colors constitute a tangled family lie.
In terms of character positioning, Bergman once summed up "Agnes: the dying man; Mary: the most beautiful one; Karin: the strongest one; Anna: the one who serves", the red house symbolizes the womb, the white clothing symbolizes the pure heart, the black mourning dress represents death, the red clothing represents desire, the dying Agnes in the room constantly shouts "Is there anyone who can save me", the physical pain is a metaphor for spiritual confusion, and the three sisters who seem to respect and love each other have a deep diaphragm. On the surface, Maria and Karin extend their hands to rescue at the same time, but in fact, they interpret the estranged family lie through mental torture.
The root causes of the pain of the four women in the film are not the same, Anna transferred her nostalgia for the world to Agnes because of the death of her daughter, Maria suffered because of spiritual emptiness, Karin suffered because of false values, Agnes suffered because she could not feel the existence of affection, she wrote in her diary that "Monday morning, I am in pain", this pain has long transcended life and death, focusing on the nostalgia for precious family affection.
For Bergman, he is full of nostalgia for his mother, who was not able to give her adequate care during her life, and although he enjoyed the success of his career and the endless fame and fortune, he was actually the lonely boy who did not grow up. In order to make up for the lack of affection, he eased the antagonistic relationship with his father after the death of his mother, the father gradually became acquainted from strangers, although it is impossible to make any changes for him, but Bergman is still excited about the little ease of the relationship, which is actually the family point of view he wants to express in this film: no matter how distant the relationship is, blood is thicker than water is an unchangeable fact, we can only try our best to make the family affection harmonious and warm.
As Agnes died, she felt a source of warmth from Anna, who embraced Agnes like a virgin, relieving the pain of her body and soothing the repression of the spirit. Death revealed a hideous face and wanted to devour Agnes's body and soul, so she struggled to cry out, "Accept me, let me be warm!" Stay with me! Don't abandon me", both Maria and Karin refused, only Anna offering warm embraces, the two sisters facing the dawn sky, listening in horror to the laments of the dead.
Even when Agnes's soul returned, they refused to embrace Agnes, showing indifference and loneliness, and all of this was inseparable from the relationship between parents and children from childhood, inability to communicate is a common disease of modern people, inability to listen often means nowhere to talk, and the superficial Maria tried to get Karin to shed the shackles of indifference but returned to no avail, implying that the self-enclosed heart could not be opened, and it was impossible to accept intimate relationships. But family affection is inseparable from everyone, Bergman wants to express not to ignore the existence of family affection, but to awaken the inner self through physical contact, thereby cherishing the family affection in front of them, and the warm sisterly companions at the end of the film also illustrate Bergman's expectations for this beautiful life.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >03, interpreting the redemption of love in the schopenhauer theory, the "cry and whisper" of the body and soul call to eliminate the indifference and estrangement between people</h1>
The German philosopher Schopenhauer believes that human desires can never be filled, so life is full of struggle and pain, and the greatest sin of man is born, and the three sisters in this film have their own desires, the roots of these desires come from childhood, and over time, the repressed desires will eventually erupt one day, but its essence is still the desire for love.
It is precisely because desire cannot be eradicated that Schopenhauer believes that only death can be liberated, or that the heart can be calmed through the transfer of desire. Bergman goes a step further on this, pointing out that "love is the only force that can save mankind, but the lack of love is the price that human beings pay in the process of civilization", and human beings are either trapped in the vortex of desire and unable to extricate themselves, or struggle in pain until they die. What runs through this film is the constant game of these two kinds of consciousness, reflecting the mental atrophy with the foolishness of the body.
In the Bible, the body is the soul in its external form, and it is through flesh and blood that the body enables the soul to feast with God. Thus in Western philosophy, the body performs an important function that faith cannot perceive. Agnes foreshadows a strong desire for love by suffering in a pure body, as the priest said, "If you have all our suffering in your poor body, if in another world you meet God, if God turns to you, if you know the Lord's language, please leave all your suffering at the feet of my Lord and ask Him to forgive us."
What exactly is forgiveness? That is the lack of love. In Bergman's later years, he wrote that "death returns at any time, and there is no nostalgia for the world, but along the Stockholm Avenue, my 80-year-old body has become more eager than ever", and this longing is also a longing for love. It can be seen from this that the film constantly reveals the process of spiritual development through physical contact. From ignorant children to young ladies to dying old people, although the appearance and experience have changed, what has not changed is our desire for love.
The only person in the film who does not live in pain is Anna, who saves Agnes with all her love and saves her soul, but is powerless to change Maria and Karin, because Agnes loves her family, so Anna can save with love, but Maria and Karin are always self-centered, giving up the right to love, and even have no attachment to the departure of their sisters, so they can only live in pain forever. This is what Bergman called "indulging in endless desires."
More painful than Agnes is the indifference and estrangement between the interpersonal relationship represented by Maria and Karin, in the real world, this indifference and estrangement abound, in this regard, Bergman used his life's experience to persuade the world to change selfish ideas, which is the spirit conveyed by the film's "shouting and whispering", Agnes shouted Maria and Karin over and over again, in order to awaken all viewers to the sense of love and responsibility. Although Agnes died, her soul is never extinguished, and this spirit is like a beacon guiding the world's love.
"Shouts and Whispers" shows Bergman's new attempts at color, emotion, and form, and he is convinced that film is a reproduction of his inner soul feelings, so that each work reflects what he thinks at a certain stage, and constantly improves his taste and style on the road of art. The film focuses on four completely different women with different personalities, showing the sacrifice and dedication of women through the form of a four-act play, showing the preciousness of family affection with the help of a tangled lie, and finally calling for love to eliminate the indifference and estrangement between people, Bergman once had a more advanced statement to express this core "different from reality, infinite light to illuminate the human spirit, and even in a more cruel way to take off the mask of man, for the idyll of our knowledge and swallow more real new territory." Maybe we can just find a little space for us to pierce the mysteries of transcending reality."