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Autumn Sonata
1978 Drama
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Credits
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Director: Ingmar Bergman
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Script: Ingmar Bergman
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Photo: Sven Nykvist
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Music: Chopin, Bach, Handel
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Cast: Ingrid Bergman (Charlotte Andergast),
Liv Ullmann (Eva),
Lena Nyman (Helena),
Halvar Björk (Viktor),
Marianne Aminoff (Charlotte's secretary),
Arne Bang-Hansen (Uncle Otto),
Gunnar Björnstrand (Paul),
Erland Josephson (Josef),
Georg Løkkeberg (Leonardo)
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Country: Sweden
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Language: Swedish / English
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Runtime: 99 min
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Aka: Höstsonaten
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Summary
After a period of separation, Eva invites her mother, Charlotte, a world class pianist,
to spend a few days with her and her husband Victor, a parish priest. The joy of
the reunion is short-lived, however. The rift begins when Charlotte discovers that
her other daughter Helena is in the house. Years before, when Helena fell ill, Charlotte
had her put into a nursing home. Now, in the terminal phase of her illness, Helena
is being cared for by Eva. Past experiences begin to resurface and culminate in
an explosive showdown for Eva and her mother...
Review
Following on from Cries
and Whispers (1972) and Scenes
from a Marriage (1973), Autumn Sonata
(1978) offers another intimate portrait of a close human relationship that is in the process
of disintegration as bitterness, recrimination and guilt assert themselves. On
this occasion, Bergman deals with one of the most complex and indefinable of relationships,
that between a mother and her daughter. Again, the thing that drives the conflict
to its messy resolution is love, or rather the lack of it, that tortured insatiable nucleus
of good and evil that lies at the heart of every human soul.
As in many of Bergman’s films, the principal characters in Autumn
Sonata are polar opposites which are gradually revealed to be two aspects of the
same whole. The two women in this film could hardly be more different – one is the
outgoing, glamorous pianist Charlotte, the other, her daughter Eva, is an emotionally
repressed parson’s wife. Charlotte’s prodigious sensitivity for music exposes an
inner lack of human feeling, whereas Eva is less accomplished musically but has a bosom
filled with real emotions. Outwardly, Eva appears even more austere than her mother,
but this surface impression is bearly skin deep. Eva is like a pressure valve, holding
back a lifetime of pent-up negative emotions that have been constantly nurtured.
Charlotte is expression without soul; Eva is a soul that cannot express itself.
Only by coming together do the two women achieve a sense of oneness which allows the truth
to come out, releasing the terrible therapy of catharsis that will enable them both to
go on living.
Autumn Sonata is one of
Ingmar Bergman’s bleakest and simplest films, but it is also one of his most compelling.
Although marred by one or two needless plot contrivances, the film conveys the tragedy
of a loveless mother-daughter relationship with immense truth and poignancy. In
the unforgettable sequence where Eva breaks down and reveals to her mother the anguish
that has ruined her life (and it's obvious that she is as much to blame as her mother),
the spectator is subjected to one of the most harrowing scenes in any Bergman film.
It’s like watching a bandage being removed, slowly, from a horrible, festering wound.
As one layer of fabric is removed, we glimpse another which carries the impression of
an even greater wound. On and on, a relentless torrent of misery and recrimination
bursting from a bitter heart...
Yet it is not only Eva we pity, but also her mother,
who realises the extent to which she has failed, and must go on failing. The outburst
achieves nothing but to allow the two women to realise who they are - a child who has
made herself a martyr for want of love (and in doing so fails to see the love of the man
she married), and a mother who is unwilling to sacrifice her career for any meaningful
human relationship. There is no atonement, no happy ending, but both Eva and Charlotte
are somehow improved by their encounter, both have achieved some kind of closure and can
face the future with equanimity.
Playing the part of Charlotte is the legendary
film actress Ingrid Bergman, the first and only occasion she worked with her director
namesake. One of her finest performances, this was to be her last film appearance
before her death, from cancer in 1982. Opposite her was Liv Ullmann, a favourite of Ingmar
Bergman (she was given a leading role in nine of his films), who brings great emotional
intensity and pathos to her portrayal, a perfect contrast with Ingrid Bergman’s more subtle
interpretation of a woman in crisis. The impact of Autumn
Sonata is as much down to the mesmeric contributions of these two great actresses
as it is to Ingmar Bergman's masterful direction and extraordinary insight into the human
condition.
© James Travers 2007
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