Rewatching Fanny and Alexander
Nov. 21st, 2023 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo When we reread a book or rewatch a movie do we hope- at some level- that the story will have changed?
I spent five and a bit hours yesterday rewatching Fanny and Alexander. I had meant to spread it out over several days but once I'd started I couldn't stop.
I've always watched the TV version and not the severely pruned version that got a cinema release. I can't bear to think of any of it going missing.
The middle section with the Bishop bullying Alexander is as painful as anything I know in any film. This has a personal application. I have been a step parent (not for very long I'm happy to say) and know how poisonous the relationship between step parent and stepchild can be...
I had wondered in the past why it's called Fanny and Alexander when Fanny has so little to do. On this viewing I noted how often we find ourselves observing Fanny's face in close-up (and, incidentally, how much she looks as if she's going to grow up to be Ingrid Bergman) Fanny is the watcher, the witness. She takes it all in. She is learning wisdom....
Bergman wanted Liv Ullman and Max Von Sydow for the roles of Emilie and the Bishop- and didn't get them. They had become too grand or too independent or something. Would it have seemed too much like an old-school reunion if he had? The actors he did get- Eva-Marie Froling and Jan Malmsjo- are terrific so who needs an international star?
Did anyone ever give a bad performance in a Bergman movie?
I counted on my fingers the other night and reckoned there were at least thirteen Bergman movies that might reasonably be described as masterpieces. Is Fanny and Alexander the greatest of them all? Silly question. Where does this human need to rank things in hierarchies come from? What it is is the most sustained, the most all-inclusive. It didn't turn out to be the swansong he may have originally intended it to be- because he went on creating, but it does function as a summation of his career.
Max and Liv may not have shown up but we do get Erland Josephson, Harriet Anderson and Gunnar Bjornstrand. It's so good to see them.
The first section is the most Christmassy thing ever.
I spent five and a bit hours yesterday rewatching Fanny and Alexander. I had meant to spread it out over several days but once I'd started I couldn't stop.
I've always watched the TV version and not the severely pruned version that got a cinema release. I can't bear to think of any of it going missing.
The middle section with the Bishop bullying Alexander is as painful as anything I know in any film. This has a personal application. I have been a step parent (not for very long I'm happy to say) and know how poisonous the relationship between step parent and stepchild can be...
I had wondered in the past why it's called Fanny and Alexander when Fanny has so little to do. On this viewing I noted how often we find ourselves observing Fanny's face in close-up (and, incidentally, how much she looks as if she's going to grow up to be Ingrid Bergman) Fanny is the watcher, the witness. She takes it all in. She is learning wisdom....
Bergman wanted Liv Ullman and Max Von Sydow for the roles of Emilie and the Bishop- and didn't get them. They had become too grand or too independent or something. Would it have seemed too much like an old-school reunion if he had? The actors he did get- Eva-Marie Froling and Jan Malmsjo- are terrific so who needs an international star?
Did anyone ever give a bad performance in a Bergman movie?
I counted on my fingers the other night and reckoned there were at least thirteen Bergman movies that might reasonably be described as masterpieces. Is Fanny and Alexander the greatest of them all? Silly question. Where does this human need to rank things in hierarchies come from? What it is is the most sustained, the most all-inclusive. It didn't turn out to be the swansong he may have originally intended it to be- because he went on creating, but it does function as a summation of his career.
Max and Liv may not have shown up but we do get Erland Josephson, Harriet Anderson and Gunnar Bjornstrand. It's so good to see them.
The first section is the most Christmassy thing ever.
