It has been way too long since I have seen this, but it left and immediate impression on me while seeing it in a Bergman retrospective in the 1960s. I still remember the haunting scene where (this is going back a long time, so correct me if I am wrong) Harriet Andersson is talking while looking into a mirror – a very dramatic glimpse into her character. I loved Bergman’s use of monologue in this film, to give us a look into the character’s psyche. It was a technique he was to use effectively in all his films after this one. As that is all I can remember, I must go back and see it again. It fits in well with Fellini’s La Strada as powerful films with adjoining themes. I was curious to read recently that it was first released in the US at the time under the title The Naked Night – surely an appropriate title for this dark masterpiece, even though the title was meant to fill the empty arthouse seats, not reflect on the nature of the film. I will now do the homework and see this film again soon.
Fine, fine early Bergman. The cuckold Clown is quite something, and the sequence with him carrying his wife away from the beach and the glaring soldiers is a film painting of indelible anguish. This film always reminds me of how close Bergman and Fellini came to one another early in their careers, both of them have looked closely at the Germans of the 20s.
Bergman, as he says so himself, liked it too. From an interview in 2003: “The film met with a relatively chilly reception, I must say. I thought I had made a pretty good film, maybe even my best film ever at that point. And so then it opened, and it didn’t go over well. I felt sorry for Sandrews, because it wasn’t a cheap movie. The shoot was expensive, long, and quite large in scale. At the same time—Every time I made a film in those days, I was sawing off the branch I was sitting on. I had no established financial footing, so it wasn’t like I didn’t care, that if the movie wasn’t a success, it didn’t matter, or if the audience went or not. It was strictly an economic situation. ‘Bergman made a film that went over fairly well. Maybe he could make another.’ That’s the way it was. I was very fond of SAWDUST AND TINSEL. I thought for the first time that I had made a good film. I still like it very much. It’s wild without losing control. There’s a movement and a rhythm to it…that I like. I have a soft spot for that movie.”
harriet anderson revealed the autobiographical undertow to this film in a fairly recent interview,at the time she and bergman were involved but the significant age difference and bergmans pathological jealousy caused friction and the desire to escape, bergman portrays his nostalgia for his previous more secure relationship when ake gronberg visits his ex wife
SUCH a good movie.
one interesting detail about the filming process of sawdust and tinsel is the antipathy that existed between director and leading man,the process of psychological investigation required for the role semi unhinged gronberg[a similar thing would occur with ingrid bergman ]the demons unleashed in gronberg unsettled bergman without alerting ingmar to the fact that this was truly a self portrait of the director.
Im disappointed that my two attempts to revise this thread failed ,the rejection by bergman of the genuinely naked honesty of this film after the coruscating and bourgeois critical response and what this film revealed about the mans submerged character should be ripe for discussion.or is the film little seen
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I think this film is where the real Bergman begins- I think it is one of his best
Edouard Hill
I recently purchased this film since I had a hankering for Bergman, and it was the most intriguing of his films avalable at the store where I was. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but when I watched it this morning I was floored (not too surprisingly since it IS Bergman) by the interesting shot compositions and beautiful contrasting black and white cinematography, but what REALLY caught my interest was the way in which Bergman beautifully captured the psychological will to escape. Throughout the film through blatant attempts at escape and through more metaphorical gestures Bergman brilliantly captures the human dissatisfaction with life. By the end of the film it is clear (to me) that the theme of the film is obviously that life WILL go on, with or without you, and that there is no REAL escape. As the characters decline into a chaotic state and the ringleader does everything in his power to alter his current situation, the tension comes to a climax as the gun points toward the viewer and yet, very little is truely altered and in the final shot we see the everyone settling back into their arguably dreadful routines.
I found this film to be and intense investigation of the human psyche, and I thought that I would get on and see what all of you who have seen it thought of it… So here we go discuss Sawdust & Tinsel with me, please.