Master of the Macabre

The film director’s record of artistic achievement is notoriously spotty Given a certain degree of independence and the privilege of choosing his own material, a John Ford can turn out The Informer, a Jean Renoir, Grand Illusion, and a William Wellman, The Ox Bow Incident. But these are pearls spaced at intervals on a string of beads. More often than not, the commercial demands of movie production force such men to disappoint their audiences with banal endeavors. Nor are their efforts aided by the supervision of certain producers to whom, in the words of Nita Naldi, “Kipling is a kind of herring.” The perennial exception is Ingmar Bergman, who not only selects his subject, but writes and directs the film treatment as well; who is, in effect, a novelist writing in cinematic language. This accounts for the great virtues—the minor flaws—of the latest in his series of successes, Through A Glass Darkly.

It is almost an axiom that great, and even respectable, novels cannot be effectively translated into movies. Too many of the literary nuances are lost; carefully drawn portraits boil down to simple figures. Two fairly recent adaptations, The Sun Also Rises, and Tender Is the Night, are to their models as grape juice is to champagne. Bergman has avoided this difficulty by creating solely for the camera. (His screen plays are published in book form after the films have been released.) He began his career not as a director, but as the author of the script of Torment—a movie which, while highly acclaimed at the time, seems, sixteen years later, to be murky and pretentious. The title, however, indicates the tenor of all of his later films except his comedies.

JC

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John Carden

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The film director’s record of artistic achievement is notoriously spotty Given a certain degree of independence and the privilege of choosing his own material, a John Ford can turn out The Informer, a Jean Renoir, Grand Illusion, and a William Wellman, The Ox Bow Incident. But these are pearls spaced at intervals on a string of beads. More often than not, the commercial demands of movie production force such men to disappoint their audiences with banal endeavors. Nor are their efforts aided by the supervision of certain producers to whom, in the words of Nita Naldi, “Kipling is a kind of herring.” The perennial exception is Ingmar Bergman, who not only selects his subject, but writes and directs the film treatment as well; who is, in effect, a novelist writing in cinematic language. This accounts for the great virtues—the minor flaws—of the latest in his series of successes, Through A Glass Darkly.

It is almost an axiom that great, and even respectable, novels cannot be effectively translated into movies. Too many of the literary nuances are lost; carefully drawn portraits boil down to simple figures. Two fairly recent adaptations, The Sun Also Rises, and Tender Is the Night, are to their models as grape juice is to champagne. Bergman has avoided this difficulty by creating solely for the camera. (His screen plays are published in book form after the films have been released.) He began his career not as a director, but as the author of the script of Torment—a movie which, while highly acclaimed at the time, seems, sixteen years later, to be murky and pretentious. The title, however, indicates the tenor of all of his later films except his comedies.