Scenes from a MarriageMarriage: love, a contract, the unification of two people into one existence; it is a bond of matrimony. But a bond--like any good adhesive--is meant to be permanent; separation (and divorce) is a process which invariably leaves a little of the other part behind, damaging both in the process, leaving both a little broken. Not all marriages are destined for dissolution, but some bonds were never meant to be. That doesn't mean there isn't love, though. Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann) love each other very much; that makes their descent into mutual disenfranchisement so painful to bear.
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Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage was originally designed as a mini-series for Swedish television, but was edited in such a way to make it a feature film. While the film's earliest scenes feature moments when Johan and Marianne converse with other characters, the majority of the piece deals with their very personal, one-on-one conversations and confrontations, and for most of the film we are only concerned with these two people whom we get to know at such a personal level, that they might very well be dear friends, lovers, people from our own lives. An early scene involves a dinner party between Johan and Marianne, as well as a couple of friends of theirs, Peter (Jan Malmsjö) and Katarina (Bibi Andersson). Johan and Marianne are forced to bear witness to the implosion of their friends' marriage, as moment by moment in their conversation, they trade verbal blows and increasingly bait the other into an escalating confrontation, while Johan and Marianne are visibly embarrassed by the display. Their disclosures of one another's secrets and willingness to impugn one another foreshadows the advanced stages of marital disintegration which is sure to follow Johan and Marianne. But why? Is the relationship with our two characters so doomed from the start? No; but then no marriage starts under the auspices of getting a divorce. No one really knows someone until you live with them, are forced to share a bathroom with them, plan your weekends around them--know their weaknesses, their failings...their vulnerabilities. Are Johan and Marianne determined to hurt one another? Also, no. In fact, for all their increasing defensiveness and resistance to allow themselves to be hurt as they trudge through the divorce process, I never really felt that they ever fell out of love with one another. But love--I believe--is the single most undefinable word in any language; we love "things", we love "people", we love "feelings". Can one word encapsulate it all? Everyone goes into a relationship selling their best; Johan and Marianne recall the things that made them fall in love with one another--Marianne's zest for social issues in her youth, Johan's romanticism. These elements are sacrificed on the altar of adulthood, as the couple are now married with kids, responsibilities, and the "s-word": schedules; what time is there for spontaneity? Our view into Johan and Marianne's lives is a very intimate one, painfully so. From the start, the awkward interview tells us much about Johan and Marriane; he talks at length about himself, and Marianne describes herself by means of her marriage, and even from the start we sense the differences present between them. Marianne is a divorce lawyer, and one suspects possesses the more lucrative and prestigious career--wearing the "pants" in the marriage, financially speaking. Johan works as an assistant professor at a university, but also composes poems on the side to appease his stifled creative side, although his poetry is regarded as mediocre by his colleague, Eva (Gunnel Lindblom), which hurts his pride. As their marriage falls away--Johan has taken a lover half his age, and left Marianne with the kids, and Marianne takes to writing in a journal at the suggestion of her therapist. Months later, Johan comes to visit while his lover, Paula, is in London, and Marianne reads a passage to him. She recalls how she had learned to put on an act to please others. She pours out her soul in a confessional which is poignant and heartfelt, images of the actress at varying stages of her life accompanying the monologue. It is worth observing that her writing is implied to be better than what Johan's must have been; Johan's response to her extrication of the soul, which was the substitute to satisfying his loins with this visit: snoring.
Why do men create art? I think it comes from a place where they feel the need to purge the demons from their soul, a cathartic act meant to connect at a deeper level with the world, since the world imposes expectations on what emotions it is okay for a man to convey; that's one interpretation. The flip-side of this is, of course, that it is another justification for the overgrown man-children who fancy themselves possessed of a sensitive side to shirk their responsibilities and the consequences of their actions in the safe and secure setting of fiction; and that is another. Neither are right, and neither are wrong, because they are but two-dimensional assessments of the soul. A lot of people have viewed Scenes from a Marriage as a confessional of Ingmar Bergman's experiences; the talented Swedish auteur was married five times, and had relationships with several women, including star Liv Ullmann. I do not doubt that Ingmar Bergman brought much personal experience from his interpersonal relationships into the story of Scenes from a Marriage, one which is so rich with detail and verisimilitude that anyone who has ever suffered the stings of an embittered argument with a lover would know the soul-shredding sensations explored scene after scene. Most of the film is shot with close-ups of the faces of Johan and Marianne, so intimate and invasive as to make you feel as though you were a voyeur into these private moments of a real couple. Scenes are filled with such palpable emotion that there are two levels of discourse happening at all times: the spoken and the unspoken, the direct and the subtext. Verbal exchanges are at times heartbreakingly tender; Marianne begs Johan not to leave her, clutching his jacket as he prepares to leave, where moments before they carried on about little things like remembering to cancel the appointment for Johan at the dentist's. Other times, they are cutting and jagged as broken glass, with barbs and mortars of passive-aggressiveness fired across enemy lines, while they discuss who it is that should get "granny's clock" in the divorce decree, their back and forth like a tennis match; but as we all know, "love" in tennis means "no score". Quite literally, Scenes from a Marriage is about scenes from a marriage, but it is also about how Johan and Marianne discover themselves, forced to spread their wings apart from their mutually constructed nest of security. The pendulum of their self-exploration swings back and forth between amiability, tenderness, and even lust, to bickering, pettiness, and even violence. The presence of divorce in the film is ubiquitous; Marianne herself is a divorce lawyer, and her skill in her practice comes into play when she has drawn up the papers for her and her own husband, an encounter which presents her in an empowered role, a welcome change of pace from her earlier presence as the devastated, abandoned wife. The balance of power is like a score which favors one player at one point, then the other later; only, there is no real winner in the battle of the sexes. Scenes from a Marriage wisely avoids trying to define love or cast either member of the relationship in a villainous or heroic role, but in the very natural, relatable human role that a real partner would be. Maybe we're not meant to bond forever; Johan and Marianne joke about "five-year contracts" for marriage early on, but entertain the idea that "they are different"...everyone's different, and there is no absolute, perfect answer to the heart.
Recommended for: Fans of a deeply confessional and introspective look into the intimate workings of a marriage in varying states of unmaking. More than just an excuse for clever barbs and witticisms about the sexes, it is a frank and soul-bearing discourse on what it means to be in love, the agony and the ecstasy.
Why do men create art? I think it comes from a place where they feel the need to purge the demons from their soul, a cathartic act meant to connect at a deeper level with the world, since the world imposes expectations on what emotions it is okay for a man to convey; that's one interpretation. The flip-side of this is, of course, that it is another justification for the overgrown man-children who fancy themselves possessed of a sensitive side to shirk their responsibilities and the consequences of their actions in the safe and secure setting of fiction; and that is another. Neither are right, and neither are wrong, because they are but two-dimensional assessments of the soul. A lot of people have viewed Scenes from a Marriage as a confessional of Ingmar Bergman's experiences; the talented Swedish auteur was married five times, and had relationships with several women, including star Liv Ullmann. I do not doubt that Ingmar Bergman brought much personal experience from his interpersonal relationships into the story of Scenes from a Marriage, one which is so rich with detail and verisimilitude that anyone who has ever suffered the stings of an embittered argument with a lover would know the soul-shredding sensations explored scene after scene. Most of the film is shot with close-ups of the faces of Johan and Marianne, so intimate and invasive as to make you feel as though you were a voyeur into these private moments of a real couple. Scenes are filled with such palpable emotion that there are two levels of discourse happening at all times: the spoken and the unspoken, the direct and the subtext. Verbal exchanges are at times heartbreakingly tender; Marianne begs Johan not to leave her, clutching his jacket as he prepares to leave, where moments before they carried on about little things like remembering to cancel the appointment for Johan at the dentist's. Other times, they are cutting and jagged as broken glass, with barbs and mortars of passive-aggressiveness fired across enemy lines, while they discuss who it is that should get "granny's clock" in the divorce decree, their back and forth like a tennis match; but as we all know, "love" in tennis means "no score". Quite literally, Scenes from a Marriage is about scenes from a marriage, but it is also about how Johan and Marianne discover themselves, forced to spread their wings apart from their mutually constructed nest of security. The pendulum of their self-exploration swings back and forth between amiability, tenderness, and even lust, to bickering, pettiness, and even violence. The presence of divorce in the film is ubiquitous; Marianne herself is a divorce lawyer, and her skill in her practice comes into play when she has drawn up the papers for her and her own husband, an encounter which presents her in an empowered role, a welcome change of pace from her earlier presence as the devastated, abandoned wife. The balance of power is like a score which favors one player at one point, then the other later; only, there is no real winner in the battle of the sexes. Scenes from a Marriage wisely avoids trying to define love or cast either member of the relationship in a villainous or heroic role, but in the very natural, relatable human role that a real partner would be. Maybe we're not meant to bond forever; Johan and Marianne joke about "five-year contracts" for marriage early on, but entertain the idea that "they are different"...everyone's different, and there is no absolute, perfect answer to the heart.
Recommended for: Fans of a deeply confessional and introspective look into the intimate workings of a marriage in varying states of unmaking. More than just an excuse for clever barbs and witticisms about the sexes, it is a frank and soul-bearing discourse on what it means to be in love, the agony and the ecstasy.