Josephson, Erland

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Let others in 1968 Prague fret over liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Prague surgeon and avowed womanizer Tomas is focused on the happiness of pursuit. He's determined to live with a lightness of being unfettered by things like commitment and Communism. A young doctor's quest for sex and his stumbling into love are part of the rich storyline of this lyrical film from the landmark Milan Kundera novel produced by Saul Zaentz (The English Patient Amadeus) and directed by Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff Henry & June). Daniel Day-Lewis Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin indelibly form the romantic triangle at the center of Tomas' world. It's a shifting world of hope spoiled and renewed of lives blighted byoppression and reinvigorated by deep maturing love.Running Time: 114 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569734043 Manufacturer No: 73404

Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, the happily irresponsible Czech lover of Milan Kundera's novel, which is set in Prague just before and during the Soviet invasion in 1968. Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche are the two vastly different women who occupy his attention and to some extent represent different sides of his values and personality. In any case, the character's decision to flee Russian tanks with one of them--and then return--has profound consequences on his life. Directed by Philip Kaufman, this rich, erotic, fascinating character study with allegorical overtones is a touchstone for many filmgoers. Several key sequences--such as Olin wearing a bowler hat and writhing most attractively--linger in the memory, while Kaufman's assured sense of the story inspires superb performances all around. --Tom Keogh

The Magic Flute - Criterion Collection

Ingmar Bergman's vision of The Magic Flute (sung here in Swedish) remains one of the indisputable classics in the opera-as-film catalog, its charm and enchantment undiminished since the film's initial release in the 1970s. This is a case not of competition between two geniuses (and two media) but of affirmative, graceful, and enlightening synergy. Instead of simply filming a staged run-through of the opera, Bergman chooses to play with the framework around such a performance (given in Stockholm's elegant Drottningholm Theatre)--and he moreover rearranges the order of the scenes in the final act. Intermittent shots of audience reactions--including those of a young girl infectiously involved in the story--and sudden, psychologically probing close-up angles result in a richly textured, multilayered effect.

Certainly Bergman renders the fairy-tale aspects of Mozart's mise-en-scène with such buoyant detail that the film makes an excellent entrée both for youngsters and for anyone who is uneasy about how to approach an opera. Yet there is much food for thought to be savored by the already initiated as well. One of Bergman's more brilliant interventions is to depict Sarastro and the Queen of the Night as a divorced couple engaged in a bitter battle over daughter Pamina. The director supplies plenty of energetic wit and arabesques of allusion (in addition to his Prospero-like demeanor, the high priest Sarastro is shown at one point during the intermission perusing the score of Parsifal), and--as might be expected of one of film's greatest symbolists--teases out the opera's weightier allegorical levels with hauntingly beautiful effect. Brilliant chiaroscuro and contrasted lighting patterns, for example, offer ongoing visual commentary on the contest between darkness and light. The cast is exceptionally photogenic, their abundant youth and obvious chemistry more than compensating for the often no-more-than-mediocre vocal performances (with the exception of Håkan Hagegård's utterly disarming, still-fresh portrayal of Papageno). For a desert-island audio recording, try Thomas Beecham. --Thomas May

Ingmar Bergman puts his indelible stamp on Mozart's exquisite opera in this sublime rendering of one of the composer's best-loved works: a celebration of love, forgiveness, and the brotherhood of man. The Magic Flute (Trollflöjten) stars Josef Köstlinger as Tamino, the young man determined to rescue a beautiful princess from the clutches of parental evil. Criterion's edition features the film's glorious soundtrack in the original stereo format.

The Dancer

Donya Feuer's The Dancer follows the young and gifted student Katja Bjorner through years of intensive training at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, as she develops into an international ballet star. Filmed with an eye toward conveying the physical aspects of dancing, the pain, sweat, and tears, as well as the exquisite beauty, The Dancer captures the fierce determination and struggle that goes into the desire to dance at the highest level.

Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg

On Schindler's List there were hundreds of names.

On Raoul Wallenberg's there were tens of thousands.


"A film of epic ambitions" (The New York Times), Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg chronicles the last days of the war in Budapest. It is a moving and sensitive portrait of internationally known hero, Raoul Wallenberg, a small-scale businessman whose life was transformed after he witnessed bodies being thrown from a train on its way to Auschwitz.

International film star Stellan Skarsgård (Aberdeen, Dancer in the Dark, Good Will Hunting, Amistad, Breaking the Waves, The Hunt for Red October) "is merely perfect" (New York Post) as Raoul Wallenberg, an attache to the Swedish Embassy who moved to Budapest, Hungary in 1944 to help Jews escape Adolph Eichmann's deadly path. Wallenberg saved over 60,000 people in Budapest's Jewish ghetto by helping them escape Hungary with Swedish papers ("Wallenberg passports"), or getting them placed in protective housing. His greatest challenge came in 1945, when he saved the lives of some 65,000 Jews in the ghetto by forcing the hand of the German general responsible for their fate. On January 17, 1945, Wallenberg was taken to Moscow as a Soviet prisoner. He was never released, and his fate has remained a mystery.

Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen)

The delicate, dangerous line between genius and insanity is brilliantly plumbed in this haunting film from Ingmar Bergman that's "a dazzling flow of surrealism, expressionism and full-blooded Gothic horror" (The Observer). Haunted by demons past and present, artist Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) fights a losing battle to retain his sanity and maintain his artistic prowess. His wife Alma (Liv Ullmann), desperate to help him, finds herself starting to share his hallucinations. But as Johan's mind continues to unravel, Alma is forced to choose between her love and her life.

Scenes From a Marriage - Criterion Collection

Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage opens with a couple--Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson)--being interviewed for a magazine. Every moment seems to teeter on the brink of some rupture; just as they start to get comfortable, the interviewer has them freeze for a photograph. After making some bland general statements, they both start admitting intimate details, confessing that they were brought together by mutual misery, then cheerfully claiming that theirs is a model marriage. The entirety of Scenes from a Marriage, which chronicles their emotional relationship even after their divorce and marriages to other people, continues to have these contradictory moments of honesty and self-deception, cruelty and kindness, concern and self-obsession--all laid bare by the skillful actors and the subtle, constantly shifting screenplay. Every scene is a small movie unto itself; in fact, Scenes from a Marriage was originally a six-episode TV show, which was carefully edited down into a unified film. This is one of Bergman's most immediate and accessible works, concerned more with the facts of human behavior than symbolism or abstract themes. Bergman understands how to balance what could be horrible pain and despair with the characters' earnest efforts to improve their lives. His imitators reduce everything to sheer suffering and alienation; Bergman sees the best in his characters, even when their actions are terrible. This 1973 film won numerous awards, including several acting honors for Ullmann. --Bret Fetzer

Marianne (Liv Ullman) and Johan (Erland Josephson) always seemed like the perfect couple. But when Johan suddenly leaves Marianne for another woman, they are forced to confront the disintegration of their marriage. Shot in intense, intimate close-ups by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, the film chronicles ten years of turmoil and love that bind the couple despite their divorce and subsequent marriages. Flawless acting and dialogue portray the brutal pain and uplifting peace that accompany a lifetime of loving. Originally conceived as a six-part miniseries for Swedish television, The Criterion Collection is proud to present not only the U.S. theatrical version, but also, for the first time on video in the U.S., Ingmar Bergman's original five-hour television version of Scenes From a Marriage.

The Sacrifice

The Passion of Anna

The art of Ingmar Bergman reaches its pinnacle (Life) in this penetrating portrait of four lost souls seeking solace in one another even as their lives are torn apart by deception isolation and psychological turmoil.On a windswept barren island Andreas (Max von Sydow) lives simply and quietly until he becomes entangled with Anna (Liv Ullmann) a beautiful mysterious widow and a neighboring couple (Bibi Andersson Erland Josephson) harboring their own sorrows and illusions. But soon secrets from Andreas and Anna s pasts threaten to shatter not only their desperate attempt at love but their tenuous hold on reality as well.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/LATIN Rating: NR UPC: 027616867896 Manufacturer No: 1002588

Saraband

You know you're back in Bergman country when a character begins speaking to the camera right from the start. In the prologue to Saraband, which was made for Swedish television, Marianne (Liv Ullmann) recounts the changes that have taken place since Scenes From a Marriage, the miniseries-turned-feature that introduced the central couple. Johan (Erland Josephson) has retired from academia, while she continues to practice family law. Since splitting up for good, they haven't seen each other in over 30 years. Marianne decides it's time to reconnect and makes plans to visit Johan at his remote cottage. While they catch up, she gets to know his estranged son, Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt), and beloved granddaughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius), who are staying in the guest house. Both are still reeling from the death of Henrik's wife, Anna, two years ago. Although she never appears--she's represented by a portrait of Bergman's late wife, Ingrid, to whom the film is dedicated--Anna's ghost haunts them all (even Marianne, who never knew her). Divided into 10 parts plus the prologue and epilogue, Saraband looks more like a play than a film, which is not necessarily a drawback (it's in keeping with the "scenes" of the original series). The focus is on the characters and their words. They could be anywhere at any time; their problems are personal yet universal. For two hours, the outside world does not exist. In the complete universe Bergman has created for them, it doesn't need to. As much a love letter to his wife as to his muse, Ullmann--who has rarely been better--Bergman has stated that Saraband will be his final work. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Cries & Whispers - Criterion Collection

Ingmar Bergman's great 1972 film is about the elemental things: death and dying, sex, injury, repression, and the body as a fount of sustenance. No wonder Bergman chooses to focus on female characters, in this case three sisters--one of whom is dying of tuberculosis--and a maid who is the only one capable of caring for the ill woman. The film is noteworthy for many reasons, not least of all an interesting camera style that marries beautiful imagery with an anxious frame. That tension perfectly suits the overlapping psychodramas of the piece, but this is a movie that ultimately pushes beyond the particulars of these characters' virtues or neuroses to a greater mystery, one that somehow sustains our existence while slowly taking it away. A landmark film. --Tom Keogh

Legendary director Ingmar Bergman creates a testament to the strength of the soul-and a film of absolute power. Karin and Maria come to the aid of their dying sister, Agnes, but jealousy, manipulation, and selfishness come before empathy. Agnes, tortured by cancer, transcends the pettiness of her sisters' concerns to remember moments of being-moments that Bergman, with the help of Academy Award®-winning cinematographer Sven Nykvist, translates into pictures of staggering beauty and unfathomable horror.