Sawdust and Tinsel - Criterion Collection

Sawdust and Tinsel - Criterion Collection
by Ingmar Bergman

Sawdust and Tinsel - Criterion Collection
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: ?.ke Gr??nberg; Harriet Andersson; Hasse Ekman; Anders Ek; Gudrun Brost; Annika Tretow; Erik Strandmark; Gunnar Bj??rnstrand; Curt L??wgren; Kiki; Naemi Briese; Erna Groth; Mona Sylwan; Gunborg Larsson; Hanny Schedin; Gunnar Lindberg; Majken Torkeli; Agda Helin; John Starck; John W. Bj??rling
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Swedish (Original Language); Swedish (Subtitled)
Format: DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-11-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Criterion Collection

Movie Reviews of Sawdust and Tinsel - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: Not a Fanny & Alexander
Summary: 4 Stars

The photography & direction are excellent. The female characters are credible, but the men are not truly lifelike. The actor Frans comes closest, but the stage director and circus men are more like types than real people. They are symbols of people trapped, or the forces trapping them, no more real than the soldiers of the opening scene. I'm not a fan of people as symbols rather than people as people. The former approach works fine in a Bunuel film or "O Lucky Man!" because their intention is to exaggerate by presenting the absurd. Their comment is on inherent illogic of life. Bergman's vision is one of the hopelessness of life, whether caused by circumstances or the individual's nature, though he seems to imply (correctly in my view) that the latter causes the former. Unfortunately, he makes the presentation hopeless by the implication that growth is impossible.
As with "The Serpent's Egg", the vision is dark, insurmountable, and fatalistic. Such a view of life or mankind may be executed well, as it is here, but can never stir us within as can, for instance, "The Seventh Seal" or "Fanny and Alexander", both dark in different aspects - one in the knight's death, the other in the father's death and the restricted life the children endure - but both also offer a final scene in which a future life of growth and happiness is possible. In SS, the young couple survive and we can hope they'll continue human civiliztion; in F&A, the final speech by the precocious uncle tells us that despite all, we are duty bound to live life as best we can, to make the most of things. Neither film stirs us with sentimentality, yet they do stir us. "Sawdust & Tinsel" does not raise us up, does not give us much of a deeper sense of life. This is an existentialist message.
The DVD commentary is well done, informative, and definitely adds to the esperience of the film. Without it, I would have given this only 3 stars.

Summary of Sawdust and Tinsel - Criterion Collection

Ingmar Bergman presents the battle of the sexes as a ramshackle, grotesque carnival in this, one of the late master s most vivid early works. The story of the twisted relationship between a turn-of-the-century traveling circus owner (Ake Gr?nberg) and his performer girlfriend (Harriet Andersson), Sawdust and Tinsel features dreamlike detours and twisted psychosexual power play that presage the director s Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal, works that would soon change the landscape of art cinema forever.
This early film by Ingmar Bergman, made before his international hits Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal, was vilified by critics when it first came out (one referring to it as "a piece of vomit"), but with time has earned a reputation as one of the master filmmaker's first important works. Sawdust and Tinsel touches on many of Bergman's standard themes--vanishing love, godless existences, the redemptive power of theater--in its telling of a disillusioned circus owner (?ke Gr?nberg) and his young mistress (Harriet Andersson of Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly) as they set up for yet another performance in a small town. Both contemplate leaving the circus and each other, as Gr?nberg pays a visit to his now-independent wife (an exceptional Annika Tretow), and Andersson allows herself to be seduced by a local actor (Hasse Ekman), only to find herself used and humiliated. One can see traces of the melancholy Smiles of a Summer Night in the romantic roundelays that start out bright and end up bitter--the constructs may be farcical at times, but the emotions are raw and heartfelt. And stylistically, from the first frame the film evokes strong similarities to The Seventh Seal; in fact, this film marks the first collaboration of Bergman and his legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Despite some awkward dialogue and a static pace, Sawdust and Tinsel shows a young, assured Bergman finding his way to the themes and techniques that would define his later films. A must-see for Bergman aficionados. --Mark Englehart

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