Ingmar Bergman’s intense family melodrama concerns a successful concert pianist (Ingrid Bergman) who goes to visit her daughter (played by Liv Ullmann), whom she has not seen for many years.
The mother is guilt-ridden, and the daughter still resents all those years of being neglected, not to mention her having to take care of her chronically ill sister.
Narrative Structure:
Eva (Ullmann), wife of the village pastor, invites her mother Charlotte (Bergman) for a visit to her home in the country village. She has not seen her for over seven years.
Her mother is a world-renowned pianist, somewhat eccentric, aging, and has survived several husbands.
Gradually, it becomes clear Eva is not as talented as the mother (despite the fact that she has written two books and plays the piano passably).
Eva’s main concerns are domestic–her roles as wife, mother, and loving sister.
Moreover, her life has had many unfortunate setbacks: she respects but does not love her husband Viktor, their son Erik drowned when only four years old, and she feels that Charlotte has never really loved her.
Eva takes care of her disabled and paralyzed sister Helena (Lena Nyman), whom she has taken out of the hospital into her own home. She is the only person who can understand her sister’s limited speech ability.
Grade: B+ (**** out of *****)
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Swedish theatrical poster
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Like many other of his psychological films, Autumn Sonata is an emotionally intense melodrama, confined to the indoors.
The text is imbued by Freudian psychology, in this case daughter versus mother, who also compete as pianists.
However, the mother’s guilt and raw anger are not fully transformed by thought or by art.
The ending was too mawkishly sentimental, manifest in the reconciliation between the two women.
It was impossible not to read the movie in autobiographical terms: As is well known, in 1949, Ingrid left her husband and daughter (Pia Lindstrom) to work for Italian director Roberto Rossellini, whom she later married and had children with.
This was the first film that Bergman the director and Bergman the actress had made together, and it sadly marks Ingrid’s very last big-screen performance, for which she received the N.Y. Film Critics Circle Award and an Oscar nomination; she later appeared in the Made-for TV “Golda,” as Israel’s famous prime minister, for which she won an Emmy Award.
Oscar Nominations: 2
Actress: Ingrid Bergman
Screenplay (Original): Ingmar Bergman
Oscar Awards: None
The winner of the Best Actress Oscar was Jane Fonda for the anti-Vietnam War melodrama, Coming Home, which also won the Oscar for Story and Screenplay by Nancy Dowd, Waldo Salt, and Robert C. Jones.
Critical Status:
Ingrid Bergman, in her swan song, swept most of the critics awards that year, including Best Actress from the National Board of Review (NBR) and National Society of Film Critics (NSFC).
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