Erland Josephson Movies

Pride, ambition and creative temperament take their toll on a marriage in this drama written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Stig Eriksson (Stig Olin) is a violinist who, after being hired to perform with an orchestra led by demanding conductor Sonderby (Victor Sjostrom), meets another new members of the ensemble, fellow violinist Marta Olsson (Mai-Britt Nilsson). Stig is attracted to Marta, and she has similar feelings for him, though she needs to be assured his interest is not merely sexual before she invites him to move in with him. Stig believes he has the talent to become an orchestral soloist, while Marta plays for the love of music and has no illusions about her potential for stardom. After they marry and Marta gives birth to twins, Stig persuades Sonderby to give him the demanding assignment of lead soloist for a concert featuring Mendelssohn's String Concerto; Stig's performance is all but disastrous, and as his hopes are shattered he questions his talent and his potential, despite Marta and Sonderby's reassurances about his gifts as an ensemble musician. In time, Stig's disappointment and the responsibilities of parenthood lead him into an affair with Nelly (Margit Carlquist), the libertine wife of fellow musician Mikael (John Ekman). Till Gladje (aka To Joy) features a classical score dominated by the works of Beethoven, with Mozart and Smetana also included; Bergman's passion for classical music would also figure into his later films Autumn Sonata and his adaptation of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Brink of Life (original Swedish title: Nara Livet) can be described as an Ingmar Bergman potboiler--keeping in mind that a potboiler from Bergman is better than a major production from almost anyone else. Eva Dahlbeck, Ingrid Thulin and Bibi Andersson portray three mothers in a maternity ward. In the course of a few days, each woman reveals to the others their life stories and intimate thoughts. And each wrestles with the decision whether or not to keep their babies or give them up for adoption. Brink of Life was adapted by Bergman from an original story by Ulla Isaakson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

What is so rare, and cherishable, as an Ingmar Bergman comedy? All These Women concerns the sexual misadventures of cello-playing Jarl Kulle. Amidst his many romantic pursuits, the egotistical Kulle endeavors to get his life story published, "bribing" a writer by agreeing to perform the latter's musical compositions. Bergman regulars Eva Dahlbeck, Harriet Andersson and Bibi Andersson costar in All These Women, while the screenplay was cowritten by another stalwart member of the director's stock company, Erland Josephson. Originally titled For Att Inte Talla om alla dessa Kvindor, All These Women is better known in English-speaking countries as Now About All These Women. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Hour of the Wolf (original Swedish title: Vargtimmen) is Ingmar Bergman's spin on the demons that plague his fellow creative artists. Max von Sydow plays a painter who, while spending a summer in seclusion with his pregnant wife Liv Ullmann, is visited by bizarre and disturbing visions. Before long, Ullmann is also experiencing her husband's hallucinations; one of these, an old, faceless woman, advises Ullmann to read Von Sydow's diary. Doing so, Ullmann discovers that her husband has been cheating on her with Ingrid Thulin. In the subsequent domestic squabble, Von Sydow shoots and wounds his wife. The artist's punishment for this behavior is to have his lover, now dead, spring back to life and humiliate him in full view of Ullmann. Hour of the Wolf has something to say about the dangers of artists becoming too self-centered and self-involved; one hopes that most artists are not as thoroughly punished (or punishable) as Max Von Sydow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Swedish feminist drama focuses upon three women in a traveling troupe of thespians performing Aristophanes' Lysistrata. Each of the women has some serious problems and fears to overcome. The husband of one has two lovers. The lover of another will not marry her, and the third's husband stays home to care for the kids. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Cries and Whispers stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Thulin as the sisters of dying cancer patient Harriet Andersson. Both sisters have already had brushes with death: Ullman has had an affair which prompted her husband's suicide, while Thulin has long wanted to do away with herself, at one point mutilating her own vagina out of self-hatred. As for Andersson, she has been in pain so long that she feels as though she's in the midst of death-in-life. With her two sisters wrapped up in their own problems, Harriet turns to her housekeeper Kari Sylwan for comfort; Sylwan has herself suffered the death of a child, and has developed a philosophical attitude towards impending doom. One of the most influential moments of the film -- when two of the sisters share the innermost thoughts that they'd kept from one another for so many years -- is filmed without benefit of dialogue, with the music of Chopin (enhanced by cinematographer Sven Nykvist's carefully selected camera angles) "speaking" for the ladies. While Cries and Whispers only won the Oscar for cinematography, the film did very well for itself in international awards contests. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally created as a six-part series for television, this film -- widely regarded as one of Ingmar Bergman's most powerful later works -- offers a close-up examination of a relationship as it slowly falls apart, and investigates the toll it takes on both parties. Johan and Marianne (Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann) are a seemingly successful professional couple who have juggled careers as (respectively) a doctor and an attorney with marriage and children; when we first encounter them, they're being interviewed by a television reporter about what makes their marriage a success, an event contrasted by a later meeting with an openly bitter and combative couple (Bibi Andersson and Jan Malmsjö). But things are not always what they seem on the surface, and Johan announces he has become involved with a younger woman. Johan seems to give little thought to the harm he has done to Marianne, while she is devastated by his abandonment of her. After a stay in Europe, Johan returns to Sweden and visits Marianne; eventually, the divorced couple briefly comes together, but the damage done is too severe to mend. Focusing less on narrative than on a deep-focus portrayal of the thoughts and emotions of two characters, Scenes From a Marriage originally ran nearly 300 minutes in its original television edition; Bergman later edited the film to 168 minutes for theatrical release in Europe and North America. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Liv Ullmann plays Dr. Jenny Isakson, a psychiatrist who is taking a vacation while her husband Dr. Erik Isakson (Sven Lindberg) is elsewhere. Haunted by visions of an old woman, Jenny suffers from profound, inexplicable depression. Desperately in search of a escape from her doldrums, she has an affair with married doctor Tomas Jacobi (Erland Josephson). This only serves to spark an attack of hysteria for Jenny. Again visited by hallucinations of the old woman, she attempts suicide. While hovering between life and death, she imagines she sees all the people who've been influential in her life, and rails against them for causing her neuroses. Only while recovering does she learn who the spectral old woman is and why she is undergoing so harrowing an emotional experience. Like his later Scenes From a Marriage, Bergman's Face to Face (Ansikte mot ansikte) originated as a multipart TV series, which was then pared down into a two-hour-plus feature film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After years of ignoring the shy cousin whom she and her peers taunted mercilessly as a child, a middle-aged woman (Ingrid Thulin) wrenches the poor man (Erland Josephson) out of his self-chosen solitude to accompany her on a trip. Despite developments which deepen their knowledge of one another, the communication between them does not portend long-lasting intimacy. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This effective drama about crisis and change in an unorthodox family is directed by Franco Brusati, best known for his earlier Bread and Chocolate. Marta (Hella Petri) lives in a large country estate after retiring from her career as an opera singer. She is not alone. Two women live with her, Claudia (Eleonora Giorgi) and Anna (Mariangela Melato), of uncertain familial ties, though perhaps nieces. Claudia and Anna are established in a lesbian affair and both depend on Marta like daughters would depend on a mother. Marta's brother Nicky (Erland Josephson) and his lover Picchio (David Pontremoli) arrive one day because Marta wants to take the two couples for a brief trip to Venice. Circumstances conspire to change those plans as one crisis after another, as well as a tragedy, make Claudia, Anna, and Nicky rethink their dependent behavior. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The intertwined lives of people of both Polish and German extraction who live on the pre-World War II border between the two countries are explored in this drama. Valeska is the Polish/German matriarch of a family living on the German side of the border. Her son is involved with the Hitler youth, but nonetheless keeps secret the presence on family land of a Jew who is hiding from the authorities. When the son inadvertently kills a soldier to prevent his sister from being raped, he runs away after borrowing money from the Jewish man. When soldiers come to the family's door looking for the missing soldier who had been billeted there, the Jewish man commits suicide. In another episode, one of the family's daughters marries a German soldier in a ceremony presided over by a Polish priest. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide