Thursday, August 2, 2007
Bergman's Soap
SlateV.com doesn't make it easy to link to a particular video without embedding it, but today's, Thursday, August 2, 2007, video aggregation of Ingmar Bergman's soap commercials made during a studio shutdown in the 1950s has a fascination.
Bergman had a 19th century sensibility appended to 20th century technique; he had a narrative and symbolic talent — a theater director's inventiveness. These advertisements are quaint, strangely contemporary, and slightly off-putting. They place his technique on display without the big ideas he grappled with in his theatrical movies. He clearly got a pleasure in just exploring technique — it was where his playfulness fully revealed itself. There isn't much harmony or music in Bergman, although he directed what is considered to be the best movie of an opera ever ( The Magic Flute ); his rhythms are staccato, somewhat joyless, yet strikingly original. Art can make for strange mixtures — which is a good description of the human personality.