Fanny and Alexander (Special Edition Five-Disc Set) - Criterion Collection
by Ingmar Bergman
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DVD Cover Information
Director: Ingmar BergmanDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); German (Original Language); Swedish (Original Language); Yiddish (Original Language); English (Dubbed)
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 312 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-11-16
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Fanny and Alexander (Special Edition Five-Disc Set) - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: Paganism Vs. Puritanism
Summary: 4 Stars
A qualified masterpiece, Ingmar Bergman's late work `Fanny and Alexander,' makes another strong emotional appeal with nearly every scene he shot. Perhaps spoiled by his greatest works `Through a Glass Darkly,' `The Seventh Seal,' and `Wild Strawberries - Criterion Collection,' it's easy to dock anything less in the Bergman legacy. Nevertheless, clocking in at 3:08, this 1984 Foreign Best Film Oscar winner could have been tightened up and not so tedious in places.
The film is not merely autobiographical, it is a study in contrast. The film begins with the wealthy Eckdahl family celebrating the holiday season. There are stories, readings, feasting, and dancing through the house in a daisy chain. The parents are a part of the theatre, and Christmas brings a holiday show with a cast party brought back to their home. "Generosity, warmth, and kindness," instructs the family patriarch to the servant staff, a consequential force throughout the movie. (Not necessarily like `Gosford Park;' however, for they accentuate the main characters with only a few tales of their own.) Seldom has Christmas been captured so festively on film.
Fanny and Alexander--I'm guessing without much risk that Alexander is Bergman--are the children whose enchanted lives are sorely tested after the death of their father, who appears to have a stroke onstage. (The still scenes leading up before and after his death from the deathbed are laden with Bergman's trademark poignancy.) Once grief has inflicted all the primary family members, Emilie Eckdahl becomes engaged to the (Episcopal? Lutheran?) bishop, and they wed.
As a matter of course, step-parents "often" make the lives of their step-children a trial, even in the best of circumstances and with the best of intentions. Emilie, understandably, wanting to make the vows count, agrees to leave their lush residence and move into the pastor's place, where "purity and austerity," make their mark in every nook and cranny of their new house. From molasses sandwiches and hot chocolate comes a fare with little fanfare, a probable porridge with strict codes of prayer, waking and retiring hours. Corporal punishment rears its ugly head, reminding the viewer of regrettable times past, and looking at the present, a hope for a happy medium. Love is "strong and hard" in the pastor's house. Even his sister, Henrietta, raises her ugly head and tries to force her rearing methods upon the children.
Bergman gives his splendidly shot sojourn a summation of his entire body of work. Themes such as death and life, mortality and reverie, sex and death, and both sides of belief in God, read like Bergman's greatest hits. He also touches upon evil as it been unleashed upon the world contrasted with the resolution, "Let us be happy while we can be happy." Carpe diem once again tries to win overall as it is contrasted with "insomnia, poverty, and humiliation," with some depressing foil characters. His still camera contrasts of steam rising from snowy streams and sorrow as it comes in a spring downpour are wonderfully Bergman's.
As eloquent as his late film is, all qualifiers still point about the consequences of life itself. Never forgetting the pastor step-father, Alexander and Bergman leave us a movie with lingering regrets that some people do God a great PR disservice.
Summary of Fanny and Alexander (Special Edition Five-Disc Set) - Criterion Collection
It was instantly acclaimed the crowning masterwork of Ingmar Bergman's career, and time has not dimmed the Olympian status of Fanny and Alexander. Bergman drew upon memories of his own childhood for this portrait of the Ekdahls, the upper-class Swedish family whose celebrations and tribulations are seen through the eyes of 10-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve). The world of the theater, of puppet shows and magic lanterns, does battle in this scenario with the cold realities of the palace of the bishop--a man whose influence over Alexander's mother gives the movie the stark outlines of a fairy tale.As for the Criterion five-disc DVD: This may be the most beautiful DVD release ever devoted to a single film. The original 188-minute international release is here, of course, in all its original glory. (It won four Oscars: foreign language film, costumes, art direction/set decoration, and cinematography--the last to longtime Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist.) An audio commentary by Peter Cowie gives useful background.
That film was carved out of Bergman's preferred 312-minute version, telecast on Swedish TV and included here. While the shorter cut remains a wonderful movie, and complete unto itself, the five-hour film is a deep, luxurious expansion. There is more of the Christmas Eve party that begins the film, more of the theater, more of Alexander's imagination. Especially meaningful is a long sequence between Fanny and Alexander and their doomed father, as he demonstrates the nature of storytelling with a simple chair.
Also here is The Making of Fanny and Alexander, Bergman's feature-length self-portrait, and a fascinating look at the rapt attention he bestows on actors and camera. DVD extras include a penetrating hourlong TV interview Bergman gave in 1984, and a 40-minute documentary shot in 2004 with reminiscences from cast and crew (including actors Guve, Pernilla August, and Erland Josephson). A handsome booklet includes essays by Rick Moody and Paul Arthur, and one disc is made up of pithy introductions shot by Bergman in 2003, for 11 of his classics, plus a sampling of trailers. Fanny and Alexander was Bergman's final theatrical film, though he has gone right on making TV movies and writing screenplays. This is a fitting treatment of his triumph. --Robert Horton
Through the wide eyes of ten-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve), we witness the great delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family—a sprawling, convivial bourgeois clan living in turn-of-the-century Sweden. Intended as Ingmar Bergman's swan song, Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander) is the legendary filmmaker's warmest and most autobiographical film, a triumph that combines his trademark melancholy and emotional rigor with immense joyfulness and sensuality. The Criterion Collection is proud to present not only the theatrical version—winner of the 1984 Academy Award? for Best Foreign Language Film—but also, for the first time on home video in the U.S., the original five-hour television version, together in a single boxed set. Also included is Bergman's own feature-length documentary The Making of Fanny and Alexander (Dokument Fanny och Alexander), offering a unique glimpse into his creative process and a candid behind-the-scenes look at a monumental film in the making. INCLUDED WITH FANNY AND ALEXANDER, FOR THE FIRST TIME ON DVD: THE MAKING OF FANNY AND ALEXANDER The Making of Fanny and Alexander is a fascinating look at the creation of a masterpiece. Directed by Ingmar Bergman himself, this feature-length documentary chronicles the methods of one of cinema's true luminaries as he labors to realize his crowning production. Featuring Bergman at work with many of his longtime collaborators—including cinematographer Sven Nykvist and actors Erland Josephson, Gunnar Bj?rnstrand, and Harriet Andersson—The Making of Fanny and Alexander is a witty and revealing portrait of a virtuoso filmmaker.
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