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All These Women
1964 Comedy
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Credits
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Director: Ingmar Bergman
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Script: Ingmar Bergman, Erland Josephson
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Photo: Sven Nykvist
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Music: Erik Nordgren
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Cast: Jarl Kulle (Cornelius),
Bibi Andersson (Humlan),
Harriet Andersson (Isolde),
Eva Dahlbeck (Adelaide),
Karin Kavli (Madame Tussaud),
Gertrud Fridh (Traviata),
Mona Malm (Cecilia),
Barbro Hiort af Ornäs (Beatrica),
Allan Edwall (Jillker),
Georg Funkquist (Tristan),
Carl Billquist (Young man)
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Country: Sweden
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Language: Swedish
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Runtime: 80 min
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Aka: För att inte tala om alla dessa kvinnor; Now About These Women
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Summary
Before the coffin of a once great virtuoso cellist, a series of beautiful women come to
pay their last respects. They are joined by Cornelius, a composer and critic who
had been writing a biography of the musician before he died. Cornelius recalls
the days leading up to the great man’s death. Determined to hear him play, the critic
inveigled his way into his house, only to have his efforts thwarted by his entourage of
mistresses, one of whom appeared to have murder on her mind...
Review
The films of Ingmar Bergman fall crudely into two categories. First, there are those
which are works of great depth and feeling, films of genuine artistic merit in which the
director invested every last drop of conscious effort and which reveal great humanity
and insight. Then there are the films which Bergman made, either under a restrictive
contract or at a time of personal crisis, to which he was not whole heartedly committed,
films that were little more than purely commercial enterprises.
The majority of Bergman’s films fit into the first category, and this includes some
of the most highly regarded pieces of cinema ever made. The second category comprises
a small number of lesser works which, whilst judged somewhat more favourably today, were
pilloried by the critics and virtually disowned by their director. All
These Women belongs to this unfortunate category of second class Bergman offerings.
All These Women was made immediately
after Bergman had finished shooting
The Silence (1963), the third in a series
of austere films which explored some deep metaphysical themes. Anxious that The
Silence would be a flop, Bergman was easily persuaded to follow it up with a comedy
which would have much broader appeal. At the time, the director was close to nervous
exhaustion which was accentuated by the far from favourable treatment he was receiving
from his critics. All These Women
was more an exercise in catharsis than a serious attempt at making a film, so it is little
wonder the film failed to make much of an impact.
Bergman wrote the screenplay
for All These Women with Erland Josephson, an
actor who worked with him on a number of occasions - most famously on his landmark 1973
television series
Scenes From a Marriage. The film features
many of the actresses who had starred in previous films by Bergman, some of whom he had
had intimate affairs with. The male lead was Jarl Kulle who, as the pompous music
critic Cornelius, is the virtual re-incarnation of the Don Juan character he had previously
played in Bergman’s earlier film
The Devil’s Eye (1960), albeit with a camp
comic slant. Most significantly, this was Bergman’s first colour film; its
failure contributed to the director’s great reluctance to use colour in future years.
It’s not too hard to see what kind of film Bergman had envisaged making - a scathing
satire on artistic criticism. Unfortunately, this gets somewhat lost behind
the pratfalls, boudoir farce and general Max Linder style tomfoolery. The characters
are the crudest of ciphers, the jokes about as subtle as those you would expect to find
in a cheap Christmas cracker, and the plot virtually non-existent. Yet, for all
its vacuity and crude, juvenile inanity, the film is an enjoyable romp, the perfect antithesis
of an Ingmar Bergman film. Some of the jokes are awful, but there are also a few
that are laugh-out-loud funny. The music, sets and costumes evoke a popular
view of roaring 1920s decadence - a world which, as Bergman states at the start of the
film (no doubt with tongue firmly in cheek), has absolutely no connection with the world
we live in. All These Women may be one
of Bergman’s least significant works, but as a light-hearted bit of fun, it does its job
admirably.
© James Travers 2007
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