Criterion Collection: Sawdust & Tinsel [DVD] [1953] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Ingmar Bergman's Sawdust and Tinsel, tells the story of Albert (Åke Grönberg), a circus ringmaster, who arrives at his former hometown, where he attempts to restart his marriage with his wife Agda (Annika Tretow), whom he left for the circus. She rejects him, whilst Albert's mistress Anne (Harriet Andersson), upset by his indifference towards her, has an affair with Frans (Hasse Ekman), a theater actor.

During a performance given by the circus, Frans taunts Albert. Enraged, Albert challenges Frans to a fight and loses. Albert tries and fails, to commit suicide. In the end Albert and Anna have no choice, but to except their fate and reluctently remain unhappily committed to one another.

The most interesting scene was a flashback, concerning the circus clown Frost (Anders Ek) and his estranged wife Alma (Gudrun Brost).

This mesmerisng scene depicts a trusting Frost coming down to the beach, to find his wife entertaining an army platoon. Seeing her enjoy the company of other men destroys him. As the soldiers laugh at the couple, Alma face changes from happiness to humiliation and then hysteria. As Frost carries her back, the look of pain and sadness spreading across his face is tragic. This brilliant scene is silent except for the music, the jeering of the soldiers and the splash of the waves, creating a spellbinding, haunting effect.

This is Bergman's thirteenth film as a director. Sawdust and Tinsel is considered to be the most complicated and shocking film he ever made. The cinematography by Sven Nykvist (their first collaboration),the brilliant screenplay and fantastic acting, makes this an early Bergman masterpiece.

Special Features: Bergman Trailers and Film Notes
Running time: 88 mins
Language: Swedish
Subtitles: English
Certificate: 15
Region 0
Black and White
Dolby 2.0

One of my favourite Bergman films, this is from his early works. It is great to see the Criterion Collection release this special edition with good extra features (a newly restored high definition digital transfer with five minutes of new material, audio commentary by Bergman scholar Peter Crowe, a video introduction from Bergman from 2003, and an essay booklet).

This early Bergman film is the potent visual seed from which all his later (greater) films grow.To see it is to see them before they had been articulated and flowered.All the acting in this superb film is first rate: Ann,(Anderson),dripping with sensuality, but with a profound saving innocence.Albert(Gronberg), driven as the circus director,by anger and humiliation.And Frost(Eckman), the clown to end all clowns,who we see at the beginning in an expressionistic flash-back shot in stark sunlight of unimmaginable horror in long-off crowd shots or in close-ups comparable to Christ carrying his cross(his partner,Alma). We are in a travelling circus trekking across the country to its next town.This town is where Albert's wife lives with his children and he's going to see them.She is now successful and he wants to leave his younger mistress and the circus and settle down in security and peace. Anne fears him returning to his wife and she cuckolds him with a sleazy theatrical cad.Bergman's vision of the sexual-emotional battle between the sexes is particulary well realized,the hoops we all(yes us) have to jump through to bond through humiliation and desire and the need for security. However the creative artist -another theme-is driven by demons and lays bare his soul.We also get the interplay and contrast between cinematic space and theatrical space.Bergman came from a theatrical tradition and utilises it with his use of light and shadow and long-shot.With cinematic space, he moves right up close or people move towards the camera like Anderson.Albert's close ups show him in all his sweaty suffering.But he is, like the theatre director, a tyrant and they both keep their shows on the road.But the theatre folk look down their noses at the circus folk at the bottom of the pecking order.This circus is not Felliniesque,but more like one of the lower circles of hell.As Bergman said in praise of this film and why he likes it: it is wild,but never loses control.This came after Summer with Monika and before Smiles of a Summer's Night and The 7th Seal. Bergman proves his genius.