Ingmar Bergman

At the beginning of the 1960s, renowned film director Ingmar Bergman began work on what were to become some of his most powerful and representative works—the Trilogy. Already a figure of tremendous international acclaim for such masterworks as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and The Virgin Spring, Bergman turned his back on the abundant symbolism and exotic imagery of his ‘50s work to focus on a series of impacted, emotionally explosive chamber dramas examining faith and alienation in the modern age. Utilizing a new cameraman—the incomparable Sven Nykvist—Bergman unleashed Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence in rapid succession, exposing moviegoers worldwide to a new level of intellectual and emotional intensity. Each film employs minimal dialogue, eerily isolated settings, and searing performances from such Bergman regulars as Max von Sydow, Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, and Gunnel Lindblom in their evocation of a desperate world confronted with God’s desertion. Drawing on Bergman’s own severely religious upbringing and ensuing spiritual crisis, the films in the Trilogy are deeply personal, challenging, and enriching works that exhibit the filmmaker’s peerless formal mastery and fierce intelligence. The Criterion Collection is proud to present A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman: Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence.

Here at last, the Bergman film most of his fans don't have (and may have never seen it either, if they were not already adults by 1976). This drama about the nervous breakdown of a female psychiatrist, played by the great Liv Ullmann in an unforgettable performance, may not be one of the master's greatest achievements but it's a very interesting, harrowing movie experience. Never released on video on a big scale, and almost impossible to find (Amazon doesn't even lists this title, and ebay only offers a DVD-R copy of a TV-rip), Bergman himself may be responsible of this film's unavailability, since he wasn't very fond of it (see details). Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Film and Oscar-nominated for Best Director and Best Actress.

“God, why did you desert me?” With Winter Light, master craftsman Ingmar Bergman explores the search for redemption in a meaningless existence. In this stark depiction of spiritual crisis, small-town pastor Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand) performs his duties mechanically before a dwindling congregation. When he is asked to assist with a troubled parishioner’s (Max von Sydow) debilitating fear of nuclear annihilation, Tomas is terrified to find that he can provide nothing but his own uncertainty. Beautifully photographed by Sven Nykvist, Winter Light is an unsettling look at the human craving for personal validation in a world seemingly abandoned by God.

While vacationing on a remote island retreat, a family’s already fragile ties are tested when daughter Karin (Harriet Andersson) discovers her father has been using her schizophrenia for his own literary means. As she drifts in and out of lucidity, the father (Gunnar Björnstrand), along with Karin’s husband (Max von Sydow) and her younger brother (Lars Passgård) are unable to prevent Karin’s harrowing descent into the abyss of mental illness. Winner of the 1962 Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film and featuring an astonishing lead performance by Andersson, Through a Glass Darkly presents an unflinching vision of a family’s near-disintegration and a tortured psyche further taunted by God’s intangible presence.

After a decade of battling in the Crusades, a knight challenges Death to a fateful game of chess. More than forty years after its initial release, Ingmar Bergman’s stunning allegory of man’s apocalyptic search for meaning remains a textbook on the art of filmmaking and an essential building block in any collection. criterion.com

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. Starring frequent Bergman collaborator and screen icon Max von Sydow, the film is both beautiful and cruel in its depiction of a world teetering between paganism and Christianity, and of one father’s need to avenge the death of a child. criterion.com

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer. Alma eventually confesses her secrets to a seemingly sympathetic Elisabeth and finds that her own personality is being submerged into Elisabeth's persona. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0060827/plotsummary)

Starkly existential, boldly poetic, slow and grim, Ingmar Bergman’s great classic has haunted film aficionados, baffled and bored college students, inspired innumerable parodists and challenged both believers and unbelievers for nearly half a century. Long considered one of the greatest films of all time, Bergman’s medieval drama of the soul can be difficult to watch but is impossible to forget.

Suecia, siglo XIV. La peste negra asola Europa. El caballero sueco Antonius Blovk y su leal escudero regresan a su país, tras diez años de inútiles combates en las Cruzadas por Tierra Santa. Vuelve como un hombre atormentado y lleno de dudas, y la Muerte se presenta reclamándolo. Con la esperanza de obtener algunos conocimientos antes de morir, el caballero reta a la Muerte a una partida de ajedrez. El hombre busca respuestas a las preguntas claves de la vida, la muerte y la existencia de Dios durante una partida de ajedrez. Unánimemente aclamada como una de las grandes obra maestras de Bergman.