Ingmar Bergman’s 1977 film, Autumn Sonata, is a work that represents various familiar themes and narrative structures that have been previously represented in the artist’s ouvre throughout a undoubtedly prolific and inspirational career. Accordingly, one may consider this film a work of postmodernist deconstruction. The film both begins, and ends, with the inclusion of the supporting character of Viktor (Eva’s husband) addressing us (the audience) directly, looking straight into the camera, almost as if we were in the theatre and an actor was breaking the fourth wall as he was speaking to the audience in the form of soliloquy.
One may argue that the structure of this film evokes a certain return to the narrative structure of the chamber drama, represented in such earlier Bergman films as Through a Glass Darkly or the The Silence; thus, harkening back to an earlier point of the artist’s career, before his investigations into postmodernism. Undoubtedly, the mix of these two distinguishable motifs results in a rather, nuveau, contemporary, expression of the artist’s life work. The one largely distinguishable factor between this sort of ‘chamber film’ and the one from the earlier portion of the artist’s career is that the type expressed in Autumn Sonata focuses on the relationship between two actors instead of four. The reason being that in a sonata, the musical structure relies on the interplay between two instruments while in a chamber piece, the musical structure relies on the interplay between four instruments; hence, we can see the reason why Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence rely on a larger number of leading characters; Autumn Sonata, of course, relies predominantly on examining the relationship between two leading characters: Eva and Charlotte.
The idea of the collaboration between the two legendary Bergmans of world cinema resulted in the film rights being sold worldwide before it even officially went into production. Ingrid and Ingmar had been wanting to work together for a long time and in a rather amusing remembrance from the Ingmar autobiography he remarks that Ingrid had passed him a note, during the 1972 screening of Cries and Whispers at the Cannes Film Festival, asking him the long lost promise that he had made to the actress that the two would eventually collaborate when the opportunity arose. Consequently, when Bergman wrote Autumn Sonata he had nobody else but two actresses in his mind: Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann. He would accept nobody else.
Yet, when the two did actually get on set to collaborate, the working relationship was by no means easy going. Ingrid Bergman at this point in her life was already dying of cancer and therefore, had to strain herself just to get up for work for the day; be that as it may, this physical strain may have helped contribute to the reality of the scathing, dark, cold character of Charlotte in Autumn Sonata. Despite that, Bergman found her acting style old-fashioned and largely unrefined since her early days of stardom in the golden years of Hollywood. He humorously remarks in his autobiography: “I discovered that she had rehearsed her entire part in front of the mirror, complete with intonations and self-conscious gestures. It was clear that she had a different approach to her profession than the rest of us. She was still living in the 1940s.” (Images, p. 329-32) Also, Ingrid was uncomfortable during filming with the amount of close-ups that the director required of her. She had been used to the style of acting in accordance with the old theatrical style in which one would project his/her expressions so that they could be conveyed even to those members of the audience in the farthest reaches of the theatre. Despite that, the two did manage to see through their differences and Bergman scholar Peter Cowie remarks that when the film was done and edited completely “no one loved Autumn Sonata more than Ingrid”.
This analyzation of this sonata, this relationship between two parties: a mother and a daughter is perhaps best represented in the scene in which Charlotte and Eva play Chopin’s A Minor Prelude. This investigation into the relationship between a parent, who has wholeheartedly dedicated him/herself to a life in the arts, so much so that it has resulted in his/her estrangement from his/her offspring, is undisputedly evocative of both the director’s relationship to his children and to his own mother. However, I won’t take the time to explain the background of those claims for lack of time, but I hope you will trust me that the evidence is there and that it has been proposed various times by various critics over the years. Despite that, it is worth mentioning a few of the major important points to remember when analyzing the A Minor Prelude scene in Autumn Sonata. We see the faces of Eva and Charlotte squeezed into one composition, so close yet so distant, so repressed, yet, so expressive. It is a profound cinematic moment, an expression of the highest level of artistic skill/execution/conception that can possibly be represented in the filmic medium. The music for the scene was actually recorded by Bergman’s third ex-wife, an Estonian born, Swedish concert pianist named Käbi Laretei. It is interesting to note how well she provides the two separate interpretations of the piece: first, an amateur’s crude, labored and largely, incorrect take on Chopin’s piece and then, secondly, she provides a professional’s more seasoned, nuanced and enlightened interpretation. The effect is quite interesting as we watch a mother shatter the hopes and ambitions of her daughter, speaking at great lengths, through the power of allusion about the state of their mother/daughter relationship, through the mere playing of a piece of music. As we know, when Charlotte arrives at the parsonage where her two daughters, Eva and Helena live, along with Eva’s husband, Viktor, it has been seven years since she has last seen her daughters. Through various bits and pieces of the film we are made to get quite a good impression of Charlotte’s moral character.
A performer, image is everything to Charlotte and therefore, she almost seems to be acting constantly, as if she is always wearing a mask and hiding her true feelings, emotions and vulnerabilities from the world. Yet, when she first arrives upstairs and begins to get changed and settled in, we get a foreshadowing of the drama that is to come when she reveals some unsettling, perhaps quite awkward, vivid details about the death of her ex-lover, Leonardo; however, like a true-bred performer, she is quickly able to shake off her sadness and reassume the role of the completely in control, competent professional. That is, until she is surprised with the information that Helena, her mentally challenged daughter that she abandoned as a baby, is staying at the parsonage as Eva and Viktor had decided to take her out institution and into their own care. For the most part, Charlotte was quite embarrassed by both of her daughters, mentally challenged or not, given the fact that Eva, although demonstrating some great potential in the days of her early education, never amounted to much but a common housewife, first marrying a doctor for some years and then remarrying to a minister. To that same point, I think Peter Cowie’s analyzation of the work up to this point is quite telling: “The heart of the film, taken from this point on, consists of a running duel between Eva and her mother. The atmosphere is quite claustrophobic. Bergman applies his close-ups without mercy; Eva and Charlotte are crammed into the composition together, unable to evade each other’s accusations; more often, one head alone fills the frame, betraying emotion, strain and bitterness.” (Ingmar Bergman, Peter Cowie)

I will finish the rest of this later… it is about half-way done now.

Cheers.