Cheap Scenes From a Marriage - Criterion Collection (DVD) (Ingmar Bergman) Price

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Customer Reviews of Scenes From a Marriage - Criterion Collection

Marriage Is Dead, Long Live Love
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>I used to think that I knew a thing or two about marriage having been married for as long as I have but nothing from my experience had prepared me for the merciless and deep dissection of Marriage: Bergman Style. When we meet Johan and Marianne for the first time, they have been happily (or so it seems) married for ten years. They have two daughters; they are still young, very attractive, healthy, educated, well off, and they seem to love each other very much. But Bergman is not interested in happy families - all happy families are happy in the similar ways. Like Tolstoy many years before him, Bergman explores the second part of the formula - All unhappy families are unhappy in their unique ways. <
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>Bergman and his leading actors Liv Ullmann and Arland Josephson give one of the most truthful, honest, heartbreaking and credible portraits of a couple, one of the most intense character studies ever done on film. For five hours, we share twenty years from the lives of Johan and Marianne as well as their love, hate, misunderstandings, insecurities, anger, jealousy, denial, sadness, pain, despair, and loss. We witness the moments of incredible tenderness and unexpected and shocking violence, both physical and mental. There are no depth that they have not descended in the search of themselves and the meaning of their relationship. <
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>There are actually four marriages Bergman studies in "Scenes from a Marriage" -none of them is happy, all are miserable. Bergman does not deny the possibility of finding a soul mate but his opinion on the modern marriage is quite pessimistic. <
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>It felt like Bergman was saying - marriage is dead, long live love. For hours after the film was over, I could not shake off the sadness and pessimism of it. Only later I realized that even if four marriages in Bergman's film were disastrous, it does not necessarily mean that all couples in the world are or have to be that miserable. Bergman wrote and directed Scenes from a Marriage in 1973 when he was in his 5-th marriage, the one that would last for 24 years until his wife died. He brought in the screenplay (I think so but I may be wrong) the bitterness, resentment, anger and disappointments from his previous four marriages - maybe that's why the film is sometimes almost impossible to watch? <
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>"Scenes from a Marriage" is a masterpiece but it may leave you devastated and emotionally exhausted. I watched the original 5-hours TV version and did not even bother with three hours version. <
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Yet another Bergman masterwork....
This is a masterwork. Bergman managed, somehow, to top himself yet again with this extraordinary miniseries. It is a brutally honest, painful, funny (yes, funny), and depressing portrayal of a marriage disintegrating, getting back together, truly disintegrating, and finally, near the end, coming to somewhat of a reconciliation, even though it's more of a realisation than anything. It's not a tidy little wrapup you're used to in American TV/film. It is simply the story of a marriage between Johann and Marianne. There are many highlights, such as the dialogue in which Johann goes off on women and feminism in episode two. It is hilarious and quite truthful. But the best episode is episode five, when Johann and Mrianne finally sign the divorce papers. Marianne is much more assertive and independent, and Johann is meek and bitter. Marianne lashes into him with every emotion she can muster. Johann eventually breaks out into a pity party, then gets physically violent. Johann was the one who left Marianne for another woman in episode three, leaving Marianne devastated. It turns out that Johann's affair didn't turn out as he expected, and he's turned out to be the meeker of the two, and he doesn't like it. This is such a contrast to the feel good, phony advice that TV gurus, sitcoms, and countless "how to figure out men and women" authors dish out in this country. Relationships are extraordinarily complex things, and here Bergman dives into it like no other filmmaker has. Only Catherine Breillat comes close to the real issues that exist between the sexes as Bergman does here. I, like many others, initially saw only the theatrical version (and it was dubbed in English as well). I also saw it when I was around 19 or 20, so I didn't really get it. I watched it because it was "intellectual", I guess. But seeing it now, and having open my eyes to the world a little wider, I really appreciate it. Thanks to Criterion, I've seen the miniseries version, and it is far superior (like Bergman's Fanny and Alexander) to the cut version. And it plays better on a television, with the full framing intact (the theatrical version is matted). The penetrating closeups of faces really make this extraordinarily intimate telefilm/film/miniseries. You must see the entire series, as opposed to the edited film (while good, it still doesn't get at the heart of the series). If you really want to figure out men and women (or come as close as you probably ever will), see this miniseries. You still won't help you figure out men and women in a permanent sense, but it will help you understand things a bit better. Bergman is a master filmmaker, one of the best this world has ever given us. <
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my man berg man
i watched one episode while my mom was in the room and it was kind of awkward. i was glad she fell asleep about ten minutes in. i watched 'em all with rapt attention, boy are they cool.