- Cries and Whispers
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Cries and Whispers 
Swedish theatrical release posterDirected by Ingmar Bergman Produced by Lars-Owe Carlberg Written by Ingmar Bergman Narrated by Ingmar Bergman Starring Harriet Andersson
Kari Sylwan
Ingrid Thulin
Liv Ullmann
Inga Gill
Erland JosephsonMusic by Johann Sebastian Bach
Frédéric ChopinCinematography Sven Nykvist Editing by Siv Lundgren Studio Svensk Filmindustri Release date(s) 21 December 1972 (United States)
5 March 1973 (Sweden)Running time 91 minutes Country Sweden Language Swedish Budget 1.5 million SEK Cries and Whispers (Swedish: Viskningar och rop, lit. "Whispers and Cries") is a 1972 Swedish film 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.
Contents
Plot
Cries and Whispers takes place in a lavish mansion in the 1800s, filled with red carpets and white statuary. It depicts the final days of Agnes (Harriet Andersson), who is near-death with cancer. Her sisters Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) have returned to the family home to be with her. They remain distant and awkward, and struggle to comfort their sister, while dealing with shock and the fear of mortality her death is bringing to them. The deeply religious maid Anna (Kari Sylwan), whose own daughter died young, is able to comfort her. At length, Agnes dies, and a priest (Anders Ek) arrives at her death bed. Later in the film she returns to life 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, tracing each woman's personality to the childhood they spent together. Maria remembers her failed marriage; Agnes remembers her unrequited devotion to their distant mother; Karin struggles with self-harm.
The last flashback, from the deceased Agnes' point of view, is narrated with her diary, and shows her sisters descending upon the house clad in white, like angels. The last words are Agnes whispering "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection. And I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."
Cast
- Harriet Andersson as Agnes
- Kari Sylwan as Anna
- Ingrid Thulin as Karin
- Liv Ullmann as Maria (and her mother)
- Anders Ek as Isak, the priest
- Inga Gill as Story teller
- Erland Josephson as David, the doctor
- Henning Moritzen as Joakim, Maria's husband
- Georg Årlin as Fredrik, Karin's husband
- Linn Ullmann as Maria's daughter
Production
Writing and pre-production
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.[2]
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 Käbi Laretei.
Reception
Cries and Whispers was extremely well received by critics. The New York Times' Vincent Canby called it a "magnificent, moving, and very mysterious new film".[3] Writing about the film in his series on "Great Movies", film critic Roger Ebert says "To see it is to touch the extremes of human feeling. It is so personal, so penetrating of privacy, we almost want to look away."[4]
Awards
Cries and Whispers was shown out of competition at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where Bergman received an overwhelming emotional response by the audience.[2] and where it won the Vulcain Prize of the Technical Artist.[5] At the 46th Academy Awards it was nominated for five awards, the Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design for the costume designer Marik Vos and unusually for a foreign-language film for Best Picture. In the end Sven Nykvist won the cinematography award for his work as director of photography.[6] To qualify for the academy awards the film was rushed to a premiere in Los Angeles county, before the official premiere in Sweden a few months later.[2]
Cries and Whispers was nominated and won several other awards on festivals and from critics associations. At the 27th British Academy Film Awards Sven Nykvist was nominated for Best Cinematography and Ingrid Thulin for Best Supporting Actress,[7] at the 30th Golden Globe Awards the film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.[8] and at the David di Donatello ceremony Ingmar Bergman won in the category Best Foreign Director and Andersson, Sylwan, Thulin and Ullmann won the Special David award.[9] In Scandinavia the film won the Guldbagge Awards for Best Film, Harriet Andersson for Best Actress and Sven Nykvist the Special Jury Price, the Jussi Award for Best Foreign Director and the Bodil Awards for Best European Film. The film won also several awards from critics associations, including the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, National Board of Review awards and National Society of Film Critics awards.[10]
References
- ^ "Viskningar och rop (1973) – Inspelningsplatser" (in Swedish). Svenska Filminstitutet. http://www.sfi.se/sv/svensk-film/Filmdatabasen/?itemid=4905&type=MOVIE&iv=RecordingPlace. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
- ^ a b c Gado, Frank (November 1986). The passion of Ingmar Bergman. Duke University Press. pp. 397–399. ISBN 9780822305866.
- ^ Cries and Whispers – The New York Times
- ^ Roger Ebert on Great Movies – Cries and Whispers
- ^ "Le Prix Vulcain de l’Artiste Technicien" (in French). Commission supérieure technique de l'image et du son. http://www.cst.fr/spip.php?article49. Retrieved 14 November 2009.
- ^ "Database entry for Cries and Whispers". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1258186661989. Retrieved 14 November 2009.
- ^ "Film Nominations 1973". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. http://www.bafta.org/awards/film/nominations/?year=1973. Retrieved 14 November 2009.
- ^ "Database entry for Cries and Whispers". Hollywood Foreign Press Association. http://www.goldenglobes.org/browse/film/23895. Retrieved 15 November 2009.
- ^ "Database entry for Cries and Whispers" (in Italian). Accademia del Cinema Italiano. http://www.daviddidonatello.it/english/premia.php. Retrieved 15 November 2009.
- ^ "Viskningar och rop (1973) – Utmärkelser" (in Swedish). Svenska Filminstitutet. http://193.10.144.138/sv/svensk-film/Filmdatabasen/?itemid=4905&type=MOVIE&iv=Awards. Retrieved 15 November 2009.
External links
- Cries and Whispers at the Internet Movie Database
- Cries and Whispers at AllRovi
- Cries and Whispers at the Ingmar Bergman Foundation
Categories:- 1972 films
- Swedish films
- Swedish-language films
- 1970s drama films
- Films directed by Ingmar Bergman
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