The Touch. (15.)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman. 1971.
Starring Elliott Gould, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow, Sheila Reid. 115 mins. In English and Swedish, partially subtitled. Re-released as part of the BFI's Bergman season.
Whenever Woody Allen makes/made one of his serious films – tales of infidelity among the professional classes with stilted dialogue, floundering performances, showy camera work, all held down by the dead weight of its solemnity – it would be described as a poor attempt to copy Ingmar Bergman. Watching The Touch though makes you wonder if they weren't actually quite accurate copies of Bergman.
His first film (mostly) in English and with an American star (Gould in the brief window after MASH and Bob and Carol, Ted and Alice when he genuinely was a really big star), this sees Bergman break bold new ground with a drama about infidelity among the professional classes. Andersson is a Swedish housewife who gets lured away from domestic bliss with surgeon Von Sydow by Gould's visiting American archaeologist.
At times you wonder if this isn't some kind of send-up, or satire on the banality of human desires. Von Sydow (occasionally resembling Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters) entertains guests with slide shows of interesting orchids; Gould says things like, “The marriage is a happy one?” The small talk in this film is so excruciatingly forced and artificial, it must be intentional. But their suffering, which is considerable, is presented as real. How much of the film's issues are down to it being mostly written and performed in a language that is not their first is difficult to say: Andersson, who delivers the majority of her dialogue in English, seems to cope better than Gould in it.
After its unsuccessful release in 1971, The Touch became a lost film, never being shown or getting a DVD release. The BFI are sending it out to compete under the waved flag of Lost Masterpiece, like some plucky British Winter Olympian doomed to failure. It borders on the atrocious and yet I kind of appreciated more than some of his superior works. If truth be told, I've never really got the reverence for Bergman, but here, watching a nadir, I could finally see the quality. Sven Nykvist's camerawork, often hand-held, pushing in for close-ups and swinging around to capture the flow of the emotions, is immaculate. The Touch in nonsense, but it is powerful nonsense; turgid but bracing.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman. 1971.
Starring Elliott Gould, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow, Sheila Reid. 115 mins. In English and Swedish, partially subtitled. Re-released as part of the BFI's Bergman season.
Whenever Woody Allen makes/made one of his serious films – tales of infidelity among the professional classes with stilted dialogue, floundering performances, showy camera work, all held down by the dead weight of its solemnity – it would be described as a poor attempt to copy Ingmar Bergman. Watching The Touch though makes you wonder if they weren't actually quite accurate copies of Bergman.
His first film (mostly) in English and with an American star (Gould in the brief window after MASH and Bob and Carol, Ted and Alice when he genuinely was a really big star), this sees Bergman break bold new ground with a drama about infidelity among the professional classes. Andersson is a Swedish housewife who gets lured away from domestic bliss with surgeon Von Sydow by Gould's visiting American archaeologist.
At times you wonder if this isn't some kind of send-up, or satire on the banality of human desires. Von Sydow (occasionally resembling Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters) entertains guests with slide shows of interesting orchids; Gould says things like, “The marriage is a happy one?” The small talk in this film is so excruciatingly forced and artificial, it must be intentional. But their suffering, which is considerable, is presented as real. How much of the film's issues are down to it being mostly written and performed in a language that is not their first is difficult to say: Andersson, who delivers the majority of her dialogue in English, seems to cope better than Gould in it.
After its unsuccessful release in 1971, The Touch became a lost film, never being shown or getting a DVD release. The BFI are sending it out to compete under the waved flag of Lost Masterpiece, like some plucky British Winter Olympian doomed to failure. It borders on the atrocious and yet I kind of appreciated more than some of his superior works. If truth be told, I've never really got the reverence for Bergman, but here, watching a nadir, I could finally see the quality. Sven Nykvist's camerawork, often hand-held, pushing in for close-ups and swinging around to capture the flow of the emotions, is immaculate. The Touch in nonsense, but it is powerful nonsense; turgid but bracing.
