Winter Light on a MId-winter day
I watched Winter Light by Ingmar Bergman today. It's New Year's Day.
Fabulous film. I noticed that it was beat for beat like the first half of First Reformed--almost every plot point. The second half of First Reformed goes off in a weird direction; Paul Schrader should have stuck with the mimicking of the original, but it did make for a stunning viewing experience, if disturbing and surreal.
It's not, of course, like film-making today. The hyperactivity of today's movies, everything short--the scenes, the cuts, the lines--is it a cause or an effect? Either way, this one is a thinking person's movie, especially since you're reading subtitles.
It's not that the viewer empathizes directly with anyone; the pastor is too absorbed in his own misery; the lover is too self-effacing; the fisherman doesn't seem to have a reason to commit suicide when he has a family to take care of. But that's the point. These people feel these things legitimately even though there is no easily defined reason for it. It's very human, humane, and yet theological.
Fabulous film. I noticed that it was beat for beat like the first half of First Reformed--almost every plot point. The second half of First Reformed goes off in a weird direction; Paul Schrader should have stuck with the mimicking of the original, but it did make for a stunning viewing experience, if disturbing and surreal.
It's not, of course, like film-making today. The hyperactivity of today's movies, everything short--the scenes, the cuts, the lines--is it a cause or an effect? Either way, this one is a thinking person's movie, especially since you're reading subtitles.
It's not that the viewer empathizes directly with anyone; the pastor is too absorbed in his own misery; the lover is too self-effacing; the fisherman doesn't seem to have a reason to commit suicide when he has a family to take care of. But that's the point. These people feel these things legitimately even though there is no easily defined reason for it. It's very human, humane, and yet theological.
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