The ex- movie star Mai Zetterling found more satisfaction in directing. In interviews she denied that she is an intellectual, but more intelligent films about male-female emotional politics are hard to come by. Unusually frank and intense, these dramas for the 1960s art film circuit pack a visceral impact — the extreme situations and content disturbed critics concerned with Good Taste. It’s a trilogy of respected works: Loving Couples, Night Games and The Girls.
Three Films by Mai Zetterling
Blu-ray
Loving Couples, Night Games, The Girls
The Criterion Collection 1162
1964-1968 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2022 / 79.95
Written by Mai Zetterling & David Hughes
Directed by Mai Zetterling
The immensely talented Mai Zetterling began as an actress on stage and film and eventually found herself most satisfied writing and directing. Initially an exotic export from Sweden, she didn’t care for Hollywood but found creative opportunities in England,...
Three Films by Mai Zetterling
Blu-ray
Loving Couples, Night Games, The Girls
The Criterion Collection 1162
1964-1968 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2022 / 79.95
Written by Mai Zetterling & David Hughes
Directed by Mai Zetterling
The immensely talented Mai Zetterling began as an actress on stage and film and eventually found herself most satisfied writing and directing. Initially an exotic export from Sweden, she didn’t care for Hollywood but found creative opportunities in England,...
- 12/27/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
George Seaton connected an ideal cast to this true-life WW2 story so good that a lazy script and slack direction can’t sink it. William Holden is the American-Swede who spies for the Allies, ruining his own reputation and schmoozing with Nazis that will kill him if he slips up. Wonderful Lilli Palmer is the patriot-agent who steals his heart. The locations are impressive but one inspired scene captures with perfection the utter depravity of fascist power. If ever a WW2 movie needed a remake, this one qualifies.
The Counterfeit Traitor
Region-free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 118
1962 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date April 27, 2022 / Available from /
Starring: William Holden, Lilli Palmer, Hugh Griffith, Carl Raddatz, Ernst Schröder, Charles Régnier, Ingrid van Bergen, Helo Gutschwager, Wolfgang Preiss, Werner Peters, Erica Beer, Stefan Schnabel, Klaus Kinski, Eva Dahlbeck.
Cinematography: Jean Bourgoin
Production Designer: Ellen Schmidt
Art Directors: Hal Pereira, Tambi Larsen, Mathias Matthies
Film Editors: Hans Ebel,...
The Counterfeit Traitor
Region-free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 118
1962 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date April 27, 2022 / Available from /
Starring: William Holden, Lilli Palmer, Hugh Griffith, Carl Raddatz, Ernst Schröder, Charles Régnier, Ingrid van Bergen, Helo Gutschwager, Wolfgang Preiss, Werner Peters, Erica Beer, Stefan Schnabel, Klaus Kinski, Eva Dahlbeck.
Cinematography: Jean Bourgoin
Production Designer: Ellen Schmidt
Art Directors: Hal Pereira, Tambi Larsen, Mathias Matthies
Film Editors: Hans Ebel,...
- 5/17/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
On July 14, 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman was born, and a quarter-century later, he began to bring his cinematic voice to the world. A century after his brith, with an astounding body of work like few other directors and an influence that reverberates through the past many decades of filmmaking, his filmography is being celebrated like never before.
Starting this February at NYC’s Film Forum and then expanding throughout the nation “the largest jubilee of a single filmmaker” will be underway in a massive, 47-film retrospective. Featuring 35 new restorations, including The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Scenes from a Marriage, Fanny and Alexander, and many, many more, Janus Films has now debuted a beautiful trailer alongside the full line-up of films.
The Ingmar Bergman retrospective begins on February 7 at NYC’s Film Forum and then will expand to the following cities this spring:
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Wa
Detroit Film Theatre,...
Starting this February at NYC’s Film Forum and then expanding throughout the nation “the largest jubilee of a single filmmaker” will be underway in a massive, 47-film retrospective. Featuring 35 new restorations, including The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Scenes from a Marriage, Fanny and Alexander, and many, many more, Janus Films has now debuted a beautiful trailer alongside the full line-up of films.
The Ingmar Bergman retrospective begins on February 7 at NYC’s Film Forum and then will expand to the following cities this spring:
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Wa
Detroit Film Theatre,...
- 1/8/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
“Cries And Sisters”
By Raymond Benson
One of the late, great Ingmar Bergman’s skills as a filmmaker was to write and direct memorable roles for women. He was one of the few directors, such as Ford or Altman or Allen, who repeatedly relied on a “stock company” of actors throughout his career. While there were many wonderful male actors who worked for Bergman (Max von Sydow, Erland Josephson, Gunnar Björnstrand), we generally remember the women—Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, Bibi Andersson, among many—for baring their souls on screen in Bergman’s challenging, difficult works that always elevated the art of film to breathtaking levels.
Cries and Whispers is an excellent example of the power of the female actor. It’s essentially a four-woman chamber piece, taking place in the late 1800s in Sweden, about three sisters and a servant, their relationships to each other,...
By Raymond Benson
One of the late, great Ingmar Bergman’s skills as a filmmaker was to write and direct memorable roles for women. He was one of the few directors, such as Ford or Altman or Allen, who repeatedly relied on a “stock company” of actors throughout his career. While there were many wonderful male actors who worked for Bergman (Max von Sydow, Erland Josephson, Gunnar Björnstrand), we generally remember the women—Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, Bibi Andersson, among many—for baring their souls on screen in Bergman’s challenging, difficult works that always elevated the art of film to breathtaking levels.
Cries and Whispers is an excellent example of the power of the female actor. It’s essentially a four-woman chamber piece, taking place in the late 1800s in Sweden, about three sisters and a servant, their relationships to each other,...
- 3/30/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Oscar-winning Danish director of Babette's Feast
In April 1988, a week before his 70th birthday, the film director Gabriel Axel, who has died aged 95, walked up on stage at the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles to receive the best foreign language film Oscar for Babette's Feast (1987), the first Danish movie to achieve that honour. In a mixture of Danish and French, the slim, grey-bearded, bespectacled Axel quoted a line from the character of the General in the film: "Because of this evening, I have learned, my dear, that in this beautiful world of ours, all things are possible."
It was the pinnacle of Axel's long career and marked the beginning of a resurgence of Danish cinema. (Another Danish film, Bille August's Pelle the Conqueror, won the foreign language Oscar the following year.) Despite several fine films, there was previously little in Axel's oeuvre to predict the perfection of Babette's Feast.
In April 1988, a week before his 70th birthday, the film director Gabriel Axel, who has died aged 95, walked up on stage at the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles to receive the best foreign language film Oscar for Babette's Feast (1987), the first Danish movie to achieve that honour. In a mixture of Danish and French, the slim, grey-bearded, bespectacled Axel quoted a line from the character of the General in the film: "Because of this evening, I have learned, my dear, that in this beautiful world of ours, all things are possible."
It was the pinnacle of Axel's long career and marked the beginning of a resurgence of Danish cinema. (Another Danish film, Bille August's Pelle the Conqueror, won the foreign language Oscar the following year.) Despite several fine films, there was previously little in Axel's oeuvre to predict the perfection of Babette's Feast.
- 2/11/2014
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Sad news tonight folks. Longtime Ingmar Bergman collaborator, Gunnar Fischer, has passed away earlier today at the ripe old age of 100. I just saw the Masters Of Cinema twitter feed posting a link to this Swedish web site (HD.se), announcing that he had died earlier today in Sweden.
From the translated story:
Gunnar Fischer out of time
The photographer and film director Gunnar Fischer died on Saturday, 100 years old.
Stockholm. He worked closely with Ingmar Bergman in the 50′s in classic films such as Summer with Monika, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and The Magician.
- He passed away in the afternoon. This fall, he would have turned 101 years, says his son and cinematographer Jens Fischer said.
Gunnar Fischer was employed by the Swedish Film Industry 1935-1970 and the 1970-75 Svt.
Fischer‘s cinematography is well represented in the Criterion Collection. You can find him working with Bergman early...
From the translated story:
Gunnar Fischer out of time
The photographer and film director Gunnar Fischer died on Saturday, 100 years old.
Stockholm. He worked closely with Ingmar Bergman in the 50′s in classic films such as Summer with Monika, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and The Magician.
- He passed away in the afternoon. This fall, he would have turned 101 years, says his son and cinematographer Jens Fischer said.
Gunnar Fischer was employed by the Swedish Film Industry 1935-1970 and the 1970-75 Svt.
Fischer‘s cinematography is well represented in the Criterion Collection. You can find him working with Bergman early...
- 6/12/2011
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
I'm a big Ingmar Bergman fan and for that reason alone I enjoyed Smiles of a Summer Night. With some directors you just feel a connection, you get their jokes, you share similar wonders and question the same things. I love his approach to religion and questions of mortality. However, this film doesn't really deal with much of that at all, which is probably the reason I merely liked it and wouldn't necessarily suggest it as a must buy. Though, for Bergman fans, it's certainly one to add to your collection.
While described as "one of cinema's great erotic comedies" by Criterion, that's a bit misleading, especially for today's audiences. Perhaps it would be more properly worded as "quietly" erotic and "subtly" funny. You won't be laughing out loud, at least not very often, and while Harriet Andersson (Through a Glass Darkly), Eva Dahlbeck and even the pregnant (but hiding...
While described as "one of cinema's great erotic comedies" by Criterion, that's a bit misleading, especially for today's audiences. Perhaps it would be more properly worded as "quietly" erotic and "subtly" funny. You won't be laughing out loud, at least not very often, and while Harriet Andersson (Through a Glass Darkly), Eva Dahlbeck and even the pregnant (but hiding...
- 6/8/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
This Sunday, David Phelps and John MacKay, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Chair of Film Studies at Yale, will be presenting a double feature followed by a discussion at UnionDocs in Brooklyn. I cede the floor to David:
Two unsung masterworks: Jean-Luc Godard's Kids Play Russia (1993) is a personal history of Soviet montage, and Vsevolod Pudovkin's Storm Over Asia (1927) is one of its great exemplars. In both, against the voice of a lone renegade, the West invades the East to capture it — that is, in images of its stereotypes. Sight makes might? In these spectacular assaults on spectacle, Pudovkin stresses the imperialists' lives led "for appearance sake," and Godard argues that Western cinema will only see things by its code. And yet both, shooting documentaries in "the land of fiction" and editing them as dramas, redeem fiction as a possible, documentary reality; Godard starts seeing echoes...
Two unsung masterworks: Jean-Luc Godard's Kids Play Russia (1993) is a personal history of Soviet montage, and Vsevolod Pudovkin's Storm Over Asia (1927) is one of its great exemplars. In both, against the voice of a lone renegade, the West invades the East to capture it — that is, in images of its stereotypes. Sight makes might? In these spectacular assaults on spectacle, Pudovkin stresses the imperialists' lives led "for appearance sake," and Godard argues that Western cinema will only see things by its code. And yet both, shooting documentaries in "the land of fiction" and editing them as dramas, redeem fiction as a possible, documentary reality; Godard starts seeing echoes...
- 5/10/2011
- MUBI
Hitting movie theaters this weekend:
Jumping the Broom – Paula Patton, Laz Alonso, Angela Bassett
Something Borrowed – Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson, Colin Egglesfield
Thor – Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman
Movie of the Week
Thor
The Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman
The Plot: The powerful but arrogant warrior Thor (Hemsworth) is cast out of the fantastic realm of Asgard and sent to live amongst humans on Earth.
The Buzz: When I first heard about this film there was no accompanying metaphorical rumble of thunder. As a matter of fact, I instead grumbled at Marvel’s blunder — a film about Thor? He’s got to be one of the least popular Marvel Comics heroes out there. He’s not even a super hero, he’s the god of thunder, and his books are some of the most boring that Marvel has ever published. What was Marvel thinking? I just couldn...
Jumping the Broom – Paula Patton, Laz Alonso, Angela Bassett
Something Borrowed – Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson, Colin Egglesfield
Thor – Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman
Movie of the Week
Thor
The Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman
The Plot: The powerful but arrogant warrior Thor (Hemsworth) is cast out of the fantastic realm of Asgard and sent to live amongst humans on Earth.
The Buzz: When I first heard about this film there was no accompanying metaphorical rumble of thunder. As a matter of fact, I instead grumbled at Marvel’s blunder — a film about Thor? He’s got to be one of the least popular Marvel Comics heroes out there. He’s not even a super hero, he’s the god of thunder, and his books are some of the most boring that Marvel has ever published. What was Marvel thinking? I just couldn...
- 5/4/2011
- by Aaron Ruffcorn
- The Scorecard Review
Swedish actor best known for the 1966 film Hunger
Per Oscarsson, who has died aged 83, was perhaps the only leading Swedish actor who never worked with Ingmar Bergman. This might have been by accident rather than design, although Oscarsson was known for his manic performances, whereas Bergman's men were usually placid. In other words, Oscarsson was more Klaus Kinski than Max Von Sydow.
Oscarsson's most memorable role was in Sult (Hunger, 1966) as Pontus, a bespectacled, penniless and starving young writer in Norway at the end of the 19th century. His complex, agonisingly convincing portrait of a man, ravaged by hunger, whose mind is on the verge of disintegration, split between moments of lucidity and despair, won Oscarsson the best actor award at Cannes and worldwide acclaim.
Hunger was the first all-Scandinavian co-production. Shot in Oslo, it was based on the famous psychological novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, with a...
Per Oscarsson, who has died aged 83, was perhaps the only leading Swedish actor who never worked with Ingmar Bergman. This might have been by accident rather than design, although Oscarsson was known for his manic performances, whereas Bergman's men were usually placid. In other words, Oscarsson was more Klaus Kinski than Max Von Sydow.
Oscarsson's most memorable role was in Sult (Hunger, 1966) as Pontus, a bespectacled, penniless and starving young writer in Norway at the end of the 19th century. His complex, agonisingly convincing portrait of a man, ravaged by hunger, whose mind is on the verge of disintegration, split between moments of lucidity and despair, won Oscarsson the best actor award at Cannes and worldwide acclaim.
Hunger was the first all-Scandinavian co-production. Shot in Oslo, it was based on the famous psychological novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, with a...
- 2/9/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
I'm off to a slow start this morning. Sometimes it can't be helped. Enjoy this first photo of Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern while I hook up my coffee IV, finish Oscar page revisions, and write about Inception... all while humming Sondheim's brilliant A Little Night Music score. What a mashup that will be.
Btw, loved the Broadway show last night. Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch are theater legends for a reason. Peters was exceptionally moving during "Send in the Clowns" -- I've never heard a Broadway audience go that quiet, basking in every nuance of that spectacular inimitable voice of hers -- and very funny hamming up the comedic portions of the show. There's this line in the second act about watching the summer sky smile, where Elaine Stritch says "That smile was particularly broad tonight." That line reading just killed. It felt like an affectionate elbow to the cast surrounding her that evening.
Btw, loved the Broadway show last night. Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch are theater legends for a reason. Peters was exceptionally moving during "Send in the Clowns" -- I've never heard a Broadway audience go that quiet, basking in every nuance of that spectacular inimitable voice of hers -- and very funny hamming up the comedic portions of the show. There's this line in the second act about watching the summer sky smile, where Elaine Stritch says "That smile was particularly broad tonight." That line reading just killed. It felt like an affectionate elbow to the cast surrounding her that evening.
- 7/15/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
In the 2008 TCM Remembers clip above, you’ll find a collection of film personalities, from Ingmar Bergman star Eva Dahlbeck to Jaws‘ Roy Scheider, from Rear Window screenwriter John Michael Hayes to Il Sorpasso director Dino Risi, from silent film actress Anita Page (seen with Joan Crawford) to Black Orpheus‘ Breno Mello and Marpessa Dawn, from Oscar winner Paul Scofield to schlock goddess Vampira. I dare you not to get choked up even if you don’t recognize most of them.
- 3/9/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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