Close to life
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Close to life |
| Original title | Nära livet |
| Country of production | Sweden |
| original language | Swedish |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 84 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Ingmar Bergman |
| script | Ingmar Bergman Ulla Isaksson |
| camera | Max Wilén |
| cut | Carl-Olov Skeppstedt |
| occupation | |
| |
Brink of Life (original title: Nära livet ) is in black and white twisted Swedish film drama by Ingmar Bergman from the year 1958 .
action
Cecilia, who is still at the beginning of her pregnancy, is admitted to the maternity ward with heavy bleeding. Shortly after arriving, she loses her child; she is kept there for observation and placed in a room with two other women, Stina and Hjördis. Stina is about to give birth, while the worker girl Hjördis is also under observation for bleeding. The viewer later learns that Hjördis' bleeding was caused by her attempt to cause a miscarriage.
During a visit from her husband Anders, Cecilia accuses him of not wanting the child because they were both loveless married, and accuses herself of weakness. During their argument, the word “divorce” is uttered, and Anders leaves the station affected. Stina and her husband Harry are looking forward to their child, but Hjördis' boyfriend refuses to come to the hospital. A ward doctor tries to persuade Hjördis to have her unwanted child, which she fights against. At night, Stina, who is in labor, is taken out of the room. Hjördis, who is left alone with Cecilia, says that her boyfriend has already forced her to have an abortion and that she is afraid to return to her mother, whom she separated in an argument. Cecilia encourages her to make at least one attempt at contact.
The next day, Stina is brought back to Hjördis' and Cecilia's rooms, her child was stillborn. At Anders' sister's request, Cecilia agrees to see him and reconsider her plans for separation. Hjördis decides to have her child and calls her mother, who offers her to come home.
background
Production and film launch
Following the international success of Wild Strawberries , Bergman made his next film not for the production company Svensk Filmindustri , for which most of his work was created at the time, but for Nordisk Tonefilm . Two stories by Ulla Isaksson , who also wrote the script, served as a template . Bergman also introduced the figure of the Hjördis.
Nordisk Tonefilm's studios were located in a former gymnasium, where the film was made in late 1957. On March 31, 1958, Near Life premiered in Sweden.
In the Federal Republic of Germany , Nahe dem Leben was not shown in cinemas, but on television for the first time on March 25, 1978 .
Position in Bergman's work
Sehnsucht der Frauen (1952) already contained a longer sequence showing one of the protagonists shortly before giving birth in the maternity ward. Close to Life , however, only takes place in the station and avoids changing locations and flashbacks . Ingrid Thulin's role is similar to that in Wild Strawberries , here too she plays an intellectual woman who expects a child from a man who does not want children himself.
Ulla Isaksson wrote the screenplay for two other Bergman films, Die Jungfrauenquelle (1960) and Die Gesegneten (1986).
Reviews
The film met with a predominantly positive response from domestic and international critics, with many reviewers highlighting Bergman's comparatively reserved, simple visual style, which they described with adjectives such as “ascetic” and “documentary”. Der Arbetaren praised that "Bergman's pretentious language" had been "replaced by a poetic one", and Dagens Nyheter spoke of Bergman's best film and "one of the best in Swedish cinema" thanks to an excellent script and "real life" director at all. The verdict was by no means unanimous: Expressen called the film an “artistic miscarriage” because of its lack of “visual virtuosity”, and Jonas Sima rated it as fake and theatrical in a 1968 interview with Bergman.
In Germany, the lexicon of international films described the film as "sensitive and staged with excellent actresses".
Awards
- Award for Best Actress at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1958 to Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck , Bibi Andersson and Barbro Hiort af Ornäs
- Award for Best Director in Cannes to Ingmar Bergman
Web links
- Brink of Life in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Near Life in the Swedish Film Database of the Swedish Film Institute , accessed September 24, 2012.
- ↑ a b Birgitta Steene: Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide, Amsterdam University Press 2005, ISBN 9053564063 , p. 235.
- ↑ Ingmar Bergman: Pictures, Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-462-02133-8 , pp. 275-287.
- ^ Hauke Lange-Fuchs: Ingmar Bergman: His films - his life, Heyne, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-453-02622-5 , pp. 136-138 u. 287-288.
- ↑ Near life on the website of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation , accessed on March 24, 2012.
- ↑ a b Near Life in the Lexicon of International Films .
- ↑ Ulla Isaksson on the website of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, accessed on March 24, 2012 (Swedish).
- ↑ Arbetaren No. 14 from April 1951, quoted from Birgitta Steene: Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide, Amsterdam University Press 2005, ISBN 9053564063 , pp. 233-235.
- ↑ a b Quoted on the website of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, accessed on September 24, 2012.
- ^ Stig Björkman, Torsten Manns, Jonas Sima: Bergman on Bergman, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-596-24478-1 , p. 150.