Style

It is not difficult to pinpoint what it is that constitutes what Raymond Durgnat has described as the "painterly and architectural" qualities of a film—ie the visual form as distinct from the literary content. These qualities are defined by such techniques as the placing and movement of the camera, the juxtaposition of succeeding shots by the process of cutting, the staging of the action or the arranging of settings in relation to the camera's position to produce pictorial compositions that are pleasing to the eye, and so on. These make up the language of film and cannot be ignored. They are, in fact, paramount. Those who would promote the literary and auditory aspects of film at the expense of the visual should go back to books and theatre. They have not yet experienced the magic of cinema.

My main criticisms of Bergman is that I have always found him technically austere. Rarely am I excited by the way he handles his camera and edits his films. Some visual satisfaction can be obtained from merely watching Gummar Fischer's exquisite photography, but this is not sufficient. Pretty pictures alone do not make a good film and there is more enterprising technique to be found in the Z-graders than in most Bergman films. It seems that whatever emotional response he feels towards his material is quickly subjugated by a rigorous intellectual control. Such control does not auger well for visual flights of fancy or any impulsive attitudes a director may have during the making of a film towards the flow of movement or length of individual shots.

Unhappily I cannot even take refuge in Bergman's screenplays. Some profess to find rich and profound themes in his films, but as I have previously pointed out when reviewing The Devil's Eye, much of Bergman's moral and religious anguish seems to be self-inflicted. His doubts and neuroses, worked out through his films, are of no interest to me. In any case, significance by itself does not constitute good art.

One of the consequences of his stylistic austerity is that his films are unmoving and lack any kind of human warmth. The film 'critic' of Time was right, for once, when he wrote: "The trouble, on the whole, is that Bergman has a far stronger affinity for the eternal symbol than he does for the living moment, more feeling for ideas than top people. He makes his picture more as a philosopher conducts an argument than as an artist tells a story. And when he cannot make his ideas clear in action or vision, he does not hesitate to interrupt the flow of the film and say what he means in words, words, words. Bergman's problem seems to be the same as his protagonist's: as an artist he lives too much in his mind, too little in his feelings; he has hot ideas and a cold heart."

These films appear to me as being unmoving problems treated in an unexciting way. This is why I cannot find in Bergman's work the greatness that some attribute to him.