Themes: Infidelity, Breakups and Divorces, Crumbling Marriages
Main Cast: Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson, Jan Malmsjö, Anita Wall
Release Year: 1974
Country: SE
Run Time: 168 minutes
Plot
Originally created as a six-part series for television, this film -- widely regarded as one of Ingmar Bergman's most powerful later works -- offers a close-up examination of a relationship as it slowly falls apart, and investigates the toll it takes on both parties. Johan and Marianne (Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann) are a seemingly successful professional couple who have juggled careers as (respectively) a doctor and an attorney with marriage and children; when we first encounter them, they're being interviewed by a television reporter about what makes their marriage a success, an event contrasted by a later meeting with an openly bitter and combative couple (Bibi Andersson and Jan Malmsjö). But things are not always what they seem on the surface, and Johan announces he has become involved with a younger woman. Johan seems to give little thought to the harm he has done to Marianne, while she is devastated by his abandonment of her. After a stay in Europe, Johan returns to Sweden and visits Marianne; eventually, the divorced couple briefly comes together, but the damage done is too severe to mend. Focusing less on narrative than on a deep-focus portrayal of the thoughts and emotions of two characters, Scenes From a Marriage originally ran nearly 300 minutes in its original television edition; Bergman later edited the film to 168 minutes for theatrical release in Europe and North America. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Cut by writer/director Ingmar Bergman to feature length from the original six-part TV miniseries, Scenes From a Marriage still spans six defining incidents from a marriage as it unravels and reaches a new plateau. Starring Bergman alter ego Erland Josephson as philandering husband Johan, Bergman muse Liv Ullmann as maddeningly passive wife Marianne, and featuring Bibi Andersson in a blistering appearance as a friend with her own marital woes, Scenes From a Marriage is an acting tour de force for Bergman's stock company. Bergman offers no easy answers for Marianne's on-going attachment to chronic jerk Johan, illuminating the complex and contradictory nature of connubial bonds (not to mention his own conflicted feelings about women). Shot on 16 mm in a stripped-down style featuring copious close-ups, few exteriors, no music, and no flights of fantasy or memory, the austere visuals perfectly match the story's intimacy and raw emotions. Hailed as another masterpiece from the auteur, Scenes From a Marriage won several prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, including Best Film, as well as Best Actress and Screenplay from the New York Film Critics' Circle. Though some objected to Johan's comfortable fate, the Bergman-scripted and Ullmann-directed film Faithless (2001) serves as a de facto painful epilogue. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Scenes from a Marriage (Swedish: Scener ur ett äktenskap) is a 1973Swedishfilm and mini-series written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The story follows the relationship between Marianne and Johan (played by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson) over the course of a number of years.
Scenes from a Marriage was first released as a TV mini-series of 6 episodes spanning 295 minutes. It was cut down to 168 minutes for cinematic release. When released on VHS and laserdisc, the 168 minute version was used. The Criterion CollectionDVD includes both versions. The film was made on a $150,000 budget and was shot mostly in Fårö, Gotlands län in Sweden. The film won several accolades including BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Liv Ullmann (Best Actress - Drama), and a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2008, a theatrical adaption by Joanna Murray-Smith was performed at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Imogen Stubbs and Iain Glen.
Episode summary
This plot summary is for the 295-minute, TV miniseries version of the work (the feature film retains the episode names as chapter titles). Each episode concludes with comforting shots of Fårö.
Episode 1: Innocence and Panic. The story begins with a laughingly superficial interview of Johan and Marianne by a reporter for a women's magazine, which nevertheless already begins to reveal the tensions the two keep hidden inside. The couple’s friends Peter and Katarina come over for dinner. The latter two are locked in a mutually destructive marriage and are ready for divorce. Later, in bed, Marianne reveals that she is pregnant. Johan & she discuss the possibility of abortion. In a hospital bed after the abortion, Marianne is regretful.
Episode 2: The Art of Sweeping Things Under the Rug. Marianne tries to back out of a Sunday dinner with her parents but fails and realizes how difficult it is for her to defeat other people's expectations. Johan mildly flirts with a colleague at work who carefully yet demeaningly criticizes his poetry. Marianne, a lawyer, counsels an older woman who wants a divorce after twenty years of marriage. Marianne and Johan discuss their sex life, and we learn that Marianne has become uninterested in physical intimacy.
Episode 3: Paula. Johan arrives at the couple's summer home and responds coldly to Marianne’s affectionate welcome. He laconically reveals that he has been having an affair with a younger woman named Paula and says that he is going abroad with her for an undetermined period. Marianne is devastated, her anguish evident in close-ups of her disillusioned face. Johan leaves in the morning. Marianne calls mutual friends to plead with them to stop Johan, but they reveal that they have known about the affair for some time, which deepens Marianne’s despair.
Episode 4: The Vale of Tears. Johan is disillusioned with his lover Paula and visits Marianne, who has a lover of her own. They talk of divorce. Johan tries to seduce her, but she declines, claiming that she still longs for him and would only be hurt by the intimacy. They eventually attempt to make love, and Marianne admits that she wants them to get back together. They end up spending the night together without having sex. Marianne confesses that Paula has written her a letter.
Episode 5: The Illiterates. Marianne and Johan meet at his office to sign divorce papers. Marianne seduces him, but afterwards she confesses that she has only done so in order to prove to herself that she no longer feels anything for him. Angry, bitter retaliations ensue. Marianne claims that in her marriage she was stifled by Johan and society's expectations of her. Johan admits he wants Marianne back and refuses to sign the papers. When Marianne declines, Johan physically attacks her, and the two fight savagely. Afterwards, the two pick themselves up and sign the divorce papers.
Episode 6: In the Middle of the Night in a Dark House Somewhere in the World. Many years have passed since the story began. Marianne visits her mother after her father has died, and her mother reveals that she always did her duty as a wife, though is vague and uncertain as to whether or not she loved her husband, Marriane's father. At his job, Johan drops his current lover and meets Marianne for a tryst at a friend's cabin. Both are now married, but their spouses are away. Marianne sees Johan as small and vulnerable and finds it touching. She admits to enjoying sex with her current husband in a way she never did with Johan, which upsets him. The two come to an understanding after Marianne awakens from a nightmare in the middle of the night. They decide that what they have together is the closest they can get to love.
