Main Cast: Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson
Release Year: 1972
Country: SE
Run Time: 95 minutes
Plot
Cries and Whispers stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Thulin as the sisters of dying cancer patient Harriet Andersson. Both sisters have already had brushes with death: Ullman has had an affair which prompted her husband's suicide, while Thulin has long wanted to do away with herself, at one point mutilating her own vagina out of self-hatred. As for Andersson, she has been in pain so long that she feels as though she's in the midst of death-in-life. With her two sisters wrapped up in their own problems, Harriet turns to her housekeeper Kari Sylwan for comfort; Sylwan has herself suffered the death of a child, and has developed a philosophical attitude towards impending doom. One of the most influential moments of the film -- when two of the sisters share the innermost thoughts that they'd kept from one another for so many years -- is filmed without benefit of dialogue, with the music of Chopin (enhanced by cinematographer Sven Nykvist's carefully selected camera angles) "speaking" for the ladies. While Cries and Whispers only won the Oscar for cinematography, the film did very well for itself in international awards contests. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers (Viskningar Och Rop) finds the director exploring many of the same themes as his landmark Persona (1966). A study of three sisters and the "tissue of lies" between them, the film once again measures the tremors caused by long-buried secrets, dreams, and resentments. Not one gesture rings false, particularly in the distant-but-sympathetic performance of Bergman's longtime collaborator (and companion) Liv Ullmann, cast against type as the acidic Maria. Though obviously influenced by Chekhov and Tolstoy, Bergman makes the material his own, disrupting the script's Gothic facade with shocking, distinctly modern feelings and incidents: despite the Freudian and Jungian interpretations that can be made of individual scenes, Cries never substitutes abstract theory for character development. Cinematographer Sven Nykvist keeps the proceedings from becoming an inert chamber play; his expressionistic use of color -- punctuated by the fades to red between sequences -- is unlike anything previously seen in Bergman's work. Cries and Whispers became one of the only foreign-language films ever nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture, and Bergman received his first nomination as Best Director, cementing (if tardily) his status as the leading foreign art-movie director. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Henning Moritzen - Joakin, Maria's Husband; Lars-Owe Carlberg - Spectator; Anders Ek - Pastor Isak; Inga Gill - Aunt Olga; Kary Sylway; Linn Ullmann - Maria's daughter; George Arlin - Fredrik
Credit
Marik Vos-Lundh - Costume Designer, Ingmar Bergman - Director, Siv Lundgren - Editor, Cecilia Drott - Makeup, Borje Lundh - Makeup, Marik Vos-Lundh - Production Designer, Sven Nykvist - Cinematographer, Lars-Owe Carlberg - Producer, Ingmar Bergman - Producer, Ingmar Bergman - Screenwriter, Johann Sebastian Bach - Featured Music, Fryderyc Chopin - Featured Music
Cries and Whispers (Swedish: Viskningar och rop, lit. "Whispers and Cries") is a 1972 Swedish written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann. The film is set on a mansion at the end of the 19th century and is about two sisters who watch over their third sister on her deathbed, torn between fearing she might die and hoping that she will. After several unsuccessful experimental films Cries and Whispers was a critical and commercial success, gaining nominations for five academy awards. This included a nomination for Best Picture, which was unusual for a foreign-language film.
Cries and Whispers returned to the traditional Bergman themes of the female psyche or the quest for faith and redemption. Unlike Bergman's previous films, Cries and Whispers uses saturated colour, especially crimson. It was for the color and light scheme that the cinematographer and long-time collaborator Sven Nykvist was awarded the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Cries and Whispers is set at the end of the 19th century on a mansion. It depicts the last days of Agnes (Harriet Andersson) who is in the final stages of cancer and is experiencing heavy pain. Her sisters Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) have returned to the family home to be with her. They remain distant and cold as their dying sister is reminding them of their life's scars and their own mortality. Only the deeply religious maid Anna (Kari Sylwan), whose only daughter died early, is able to comfort her. When Agnes dies and a priest (Anders Ek) arrives at her death bed she returns to the living for a short moment. In a dream-like sequence she asks her family for love and care. For a moment Karin, Maria and the dead Agnes are getting closer to each other, only to be even more distant shortly afterwards. Only Anna is able to embrace and mourn the dead.
The film is characterized by flashbacks that return to the life of the protagonists and their memories, dreams and desires. Maria remembers her adulterous affair with the physician David (Erland Josephson). Agnes remembers her childhood and her enigmatic mother. Karina remembers how she snubbed her hated husband by harming herself. The last flashback visualizes an entry from Agnes' diary shows where the three sisters clad in white stroll together in the park of the family mansion.
Bergman's films were difficult to market commercially and thus foreign capital was not available to finance the film. Bergman then decided to shoot the film in Swedish and not in English as his previous film The Touch (1971 film) and to finance Cries and Whispers through his own production company Cinematograph. Although he used personal savings of 750,000 SEK and loans of 200,000 SEK he also had to ask the Swedish Film Institute for support to finance the 1.5 million SEK budget. To save costs the main actresses and Nykvist gave their salary as a loan and were nominally co-producers.[1]
Soundtrack
"Suite No. 5 for solo Cello in C Minor, 4th mvt 'Sarabande'" by Johann Sebastian Bach. Played by Pierre Fournier
"Mazurka in A minor, Op.17/4" by Frédéric Chopin. Played by Kabi Laretei
