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Ingmar Bergman’s 1968 film, The Hour of the Wolf, is a continuation of the postmodernist themes of deconstructivism introduced in Bergman’s earlier 1966 work, Persona. Embracing the principles of self-conscious cinema, as did its predecessor, there are many moments in the film that one may point to as being strikingly metacinematic. To that same point, beginning in the film’s first moments, the viewer can actually hear the sounds of a film crew working on a set, apparently, preparing to set up a shot. Before long though, it is clear that this is the film crew that is working on the set of this film itself, as we hear a voice giving orders, which clearly, belongs to Bergman himself. Be that as it may, one may argue that this sort of metacinematic representation is only a short step away from Persona, which began with the actual images of a projector beginning to show a film. Yet, instead, this time we only hear a film crew preparing to shoot a scene. Despite that, although not directly metacinematic, there is a moment later on in the film in which many critics argue is quite reflective of the art form itself. One may compare this scene to the sort of ’play within a play’ in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, Hamlet; regardless, the scene I am speaking of, of course, is the wonderful puppet show that we see when Johan Borg, is a guest at the castle of Baron Von Merkens.
This scene plays into the profound themes of disintegration that Bergman scholar, Marc Gervais, proposes in his audio commentary of the film provided on the MGM issue of the DVD. Indeed, he is quite right to suggest that the entire film is a sort of extended metaphor for the disintegration of the artist in postmodernist society. As with many characters in Bergman’s films, one may argue that Johan Borg is representative of Bergman or, the artist himself, just as the characters of Antonius Block from The Seventh Seal, David from Through a Glass Darkly or Pastor Ericsson from Winter Light have arguably, represented identity traits that are characteristic of the life experience of Bergman himself. Despite that, here we have the same sort of themes of artificiality, embracing art for art’s own sake, as have been proposed in Bergman’s previous film, Persona. Just as we have begun to become engrossed in the film’s narrative, just as the film begins to seem to recreate reality in a sort of escapist manner, Bergman rips the rug out from under our feet and says: “Wait! This is a movie!” One may argue that he almost reminds us that he is the puppet master, as we see this eerie character of Baron von Merken’s capture all of the characters complete attention with this, rather, crude, simplistic form of entertainment; the puppet show. Thus, perhaps in this moment Bergman offers an implicit critique of conventional forms of cinema, cinema that too often lowers itself to the level of cheap-thrill, escapist, objective, conventional narrative-driven product.
Being Bergman’s only work of horror, per say, it is interesting to see Bergman’s inspiration taken from early German expressionist cinema and/or early forms of the European silent cinema from the 1920’s and teens. It is interesting how Bergman, being a devout, intellectually-driven artist, takes this conventional genre and completely makes it his own by modernizing the thematic content of the narrative and furthermore, by compulsively indulging in making his audience aware of the art form as they indulge in it; thus, providing the viewer with further evidence supporting the argument that this film serves as a prime example of Bergman’s self-reflective cinema.
One can clearly see Bergman’s inspiration (almost a tip of the hat) from such pivotal expressionist masterpieces as F.W. Murnau’s, 1922 film, Nosferatu and Robert Wiene’s 1920 film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Specifically, Bergman’s usage of overdone, almost, expressionistic make-up on Max Von Sydow’s character of Johan Borg is quite reminiscent of the make-up in the two early German expressionist films that I’ve just mentioned. Furthermore, the landscapes that are included in the beginning of the film, with the great rock forms of the Swedish archipelago, are strikingly expressionistic in their stark contrasts of light and dark, also, in their sort of generally austere composition; one of the characteristic traits of early expressionist cinema is that character’s emotions could be represented through setting and mise-en-scence; thus, this film, if taken to be a modern continuation of the expressionist genre, is no exception.