Pretentury of the Century

Kris Hattori
CTCS 502
Professor Kase

He Would Always Have Been Isak Borg, Ingmar Bergman

While Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957) is a film that largely embraces the personal, there are clear links to religion and Swedish nationalism that resonate throughout it. I believe that these three categories can never be fully segregated from each other despite an auteur’s intention to create a film that focuses on one. Bordwell hints at why this may be true. He explains that the competent art film viewer, "...watches the film expecting not order in the narrative but stylistic signatures in the narration: technical touches and obsessive motifs (Bergman's character names) (Bordwell 59)."

When viewing an art film, one can make the concession that even the most infinitesimal details can betray authorial marks. Because of this, I believe that a film must be looked at in terms of quantitative and qualitative patterns in order to discern the differences between conscious decisions, unconscious decisions, and simple happenstance.

At one level, the film is a narrative about one man who is able to relieve some of the loneliness in his life by taking both a physical and mental journey. Examining the film at an authorial level, it is the work of Ingmar Bergman, who wrote the screenplay after taking his own road trip to a town from his youth and toying with the idea of the past and present merging. He elaborates, "The film was based on my experiences during that trip to Uppsala. It was all as simple, concrete, and tangible as that. And I had no difficulty at all in carrying it through (146)."
His choices in the film, both formal and narrative are distinctly his own. He asserts that one of the film's most iconic scenes, the dream sequence in which the protagonist, Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström), walks down a street and encounters a hearse and his own living corpse, is based on a recurring dream that he had been having at the time. The scene is brightly lit, imagery is hauntingly alien, and sound design is disorienting. Bergman has created a scene that is distinctly personal art in both content and formal execution.

From the film’s introduction, we see Borg pause to make a move on a chessboard and dismiss it with a grunt. This simple interaction places the chessboard’s importance over many of the other props in the movie. It seems to be a nod to The Seventh Seal, a Bergman film that immediately preceded Wild Strawberries, in which death himself commanded the game. In the dream sequence, Borg encounters a clock with no hands that looms overhead. While these are simply props, I believe that they indicate that there is a threshold that a particular element of a movie must meet based on importance or distinctiveness before registering it into one of the three categories. As is the case with the handless clock (clocks and time being recurring motifs in Bergman’s work), this distinctiveness can operate across an auteur's films.

The reflections of the personal resonate more heavily through Wild Strawberries than its representation of the ideological or national. Borg even shares the same initials as Bergman. The odds that this would happen by chance are one in 676. When an interviewer questioned Bergman about the decision, he responded that it was an "innocent coincidence (Björkman 146)"—a response that seems about as coy as The Beatles insisting that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was not about LSD, especially when one considers the sheer amount of autobiographical content within the film.

RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS
Many critics like to point to the ideological implications within the film, often citing Bergman's own Father, a Lutheran minister and strict disciplinarian as a reason for this. When asked about how conscious he was about including Catholic implications within Wild Strawberries, he simply replied, "Not at all (Björkman 146)." Despite this, it is hard to ignore the quantity and specificity of formal and symbolic elements in Wild Strawberries that can be read as distinctly religious.

Borg and his daughter in law, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), meet with university students Sara (Bibi Andersson), Viktor (Björn Bjelfvenstam), and Anders (Folke Sundquist). The group takes a lunch outdoors where Viktor, a rationalist doctor to be, and Anders, a theologian and future Lutheran minister, argue the merits of religion and rationality. They exchange clichés such as “religion is the opiate of the masses.” Unable to settle their differences, they both implore the wise Borg for an opinion, which he deflects by reciting a hymn rather than answering. This lack of concern seems to mirror Bergman’s own thoughts on the issue—that he would simply like that his own message. In this case it is likely that Borg’s own thoughts stray towards reconciliation with his father (Törnqvist 127).

Eventually, Viktor and Anders' differences erupt into a shoving match that Borg and Sara watch from the car, amused. The short fight is filmed at a long range, leaving the viewer simply as a spectator. It lacks the intensity and involvement that close ups and fast cutting between the two combatants would bring to the viewer. Thus Bergman uses formal methods to transform the fight between two friends into a controlled exhibition of levity. Here Bergman uses them as a way of infantilizing an argument between religion and rationalism through allegory. Their sophomoric debate and one dimensional natures make them decidedly impersonal characters. In neither of the two encounters between Viktor and Anders does one gain a clear upper hand on the other.

The origin of obvious visual symbolism such as the stigmata Borg receives by puncturing himself on the nail is hard to deny; however, the recurring themes of mortality, confession, and redemption can easily be said to transcend religious dogma. Dissecting the ideological from the personal becomes problematic at this point due to Bergman’s own relationship to Lutheran Protestantism. Perhaps the ideology has shaped so much of him during his formative years that his decisions are unconscious. This could account for the heavy religious implications throughout the film which oscillate with the lighthearted banter between Viktor and Anders. Although Bergman admits that there is a general religiosity to the film, even this seems to be a concession that he makes only to appease his critics.

SWEDISH NATIONALISM
In the first flashback to Borg’s past, the viewer is greeted with a stylized depiction of the Swedish bourgeoisie. From the color of the walls, appliances, and clothing of Borg’s family to the sunlight pouring into the room, everything is white on white. French argues that the idyllic imagery is taken from the iconic works of Swedish designer, Carl Larsson (French 53). As Sara becomes torn between Borg and his brother, she retreats into a darkened hall. Shadows creep over her face as she confesses her turmoil. It is here that Bergman breaks the façade of this Swedish ideal and subverts the iconic Swedish imagery in order to serve his own narrative.

The structure of the Swedish educational system provides Bergman with a framework for the film's narrative. It is the catalyst for Borg’s need to travel and allows him to hold a place of reverence amongst the three students. Although Bergman engineers the simplistic dichotomy between Anders and Viktor, it does not appear as though this is his indictment of a poor educational system or of the Swedish youth. Bergman admits that while he had attempted to make the three students representative of the Swedish youth, they are a weakness of the film. Bergman recalled "Even at this time the image was utterly outdated (Björkman 147)." The simplistic nature of the trio is often attributed to Bergman’s own disconnect with the age group.

DEMARCATION
What we see occurring most often in Wild Strawberries is an overlapping between the personal and the ideological and an overlapping between the personal and the national. Bergman explains, "I'm a radar set. I pick up one thing or another and reflect it back in mirrored form, all jumbled up with memories, dreams, and ideas (Björkman 18)." He seems to hint the impossibility of absorbing and redistributing ideas of nationalism or ideology without coloring them with one's own experiences.

This becomes one of the most problematic aspects of quantifying a film, its scenes, or even its stills as providing meaning discretely in a single register or representation. It seems that while a filmmaker can intend, at least consciously, to create scenes that register as being personal, ideological, or national, there are levels of the unconscious that can speak volumes to viewers. Bergman describes wrestling with the conscious and unconscious.

Bergman explains:
All the time a film is being made, one flinches away from marginal thinking. If I relyin on my intuition I know it will lead me in the right direction…If I begin hesitating and discussing, I get so tangled up in personal complications and become so crudely aware of what it really is I’m depicting, I can’t go on…Obviously I was perfectly well aware from the outset, on the other hand, that Engineer Ahlman and his wife are a scurrilous portrait of Stig Ahlgren and his wife (Björkman 140).

Bergman himself later becomes an unreliable source to his own film as he stated that his admission that Isak Borg was portrayal of himself as “a tired, old egocentric, who’d cut himself off from everything around him—as I had done (Ruuth 22),” as being false. Bergman’s own indecision points at the reality that one cannot separate the personal, ideological, or national within a film. It is up to the viewer and the critic to set the threshold for qualifying these elements as such.



Bibliography
Björkman, S et al (1973). Bergman on Bergman. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Bordwell, D (1979). The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice. Film Criticism, 4(1), 56-64.
French, K & French, P (1995). Wild Strawberries. South Bank, Waterloo: BFI Publishing.
Ruuth, M (1994). Images. Bloomsbury, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Törnqvist, E (1995). Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press.

Raft Project

Hes a traveling botanist.

The Swimmer Part 5 (Draft)

     Anton rushed through the halls of The Indigo Virgo towards the command deck. There he found his father and Tracy discussing something. “Anton,” his father said as he reached them, “What’s the matter?”

     “The pirates,” Anton gasped, “They’re back. Three ships.”

     “That’s impossible.”

     “How do you know this?” Tracy asked as she moved to her station. “We can’t see outside the Swimmer ship.”

     “I’ve been talking to her,” answered Anton. “To the pilot.”

     “I gave strict orders Anton,” said his father.

     “How do you know she’s not lying?” Tracy questioned.

     “I’m not lying,” the voice broke in on the ship’s intercom. The three of them stood in shock as their computer screens flared to life, showing video footage of three ships heading towards them. Bright light haloed the ships from behind indicating their intense engine output. The voice continued, “The pirates are burning towards our position fast. I estimate 30 minutes before weapon’s range. I suggest you call your crew and disembark before then.”

     Anton’s father stood up straight and addressed the pilot, “This is Captain Smith of The Indigo Virgo. Our jump drive isn’t repaired yet. Judging from those ships, we’ll be run down.”

     “I will hold them off.”

     Five minutes later, the crew of The Indigo Virgo boarded the ship and undocking was taking place. Anton watched the Swimmer from the central monitors as they drew away. From the Swimmer’s dorsal side, he saw a small squadron of twelve craft detach and fly off towards the pirate ships. “Drones,” his father pondered aloud. He snapped his attention away from the monitors and continued to coordinate the repair procedures that The Indigo Virgo still required, putting everything except the jump drives on hold. “Take us away from the Swimmer, we need every second of time it can buy us.” He sat back into the command seat and watched the battle unfold.

     The pirates began to fire immediately as the drones came into their range. Faint glints of light seemed to pulse away from the pirates. It was the rounds from their railguns catching hints of sunlight. From their distance it was the only hint of their deadly fire. The drones darted in and out, converging on the lead pirate ship. The drones began to return fire. Puffs of orange fire blinked to life on the surface of the lead pirate ship. The drones were doing a good job of cutting into the beast, but the pirates continued to burn towards them undeterred. One of the drones exploded, and then another, and another, the pirates apparently coordinating their defensive fire more effectively. Another squadron of drones flew forth from the Swimmer as the first wave retreated. The returning drones docked with the Swimmer. The battle continued with the pirates inching closer.

     Anton unclipped the radio from his belt and held it up. “What’s happening?” He asked, hoping for a response.

     “I’m keeping up the pressure on the pirates,” she replied, at a whisper. “Their ships are tough and my drones need to be repaired, refueled, and rearmed.”

     “You can handle all that on your own?”

     “The interface does a lot of the work, but I’m monitoring a lot of systems at once. Pilots like me learn to split our attention.” She paused. “Hold on.”

     “What is it?”

     A sudden shock of jagged light burst from the face of the Swimmer. In the distance, the pirate ships followed suit with their own twinkles of intense light.

     “We’ve entered range for anti-ship cannons,” she said. “Tell your father to keep The Indigo Virgo behind me.”

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Cropped section of my Digital Life midterm. Still working on it...

The Swimmer Part 4 (Draft)

     Anton delivered the load of parts to the Chief and two hours later, Anton finished his work shift. He hastily made his way to his quarters on The Indigo Virgo. As soon as he shut the hatch to his room, his hip radio crackled to life.

     “Hello, Anton.” It was the same feminine voice.

     “How did you do that?” He asked.

     She actually seemed to chuckle at the question. “What the number of instruments and sensors I have, I can practically see and hear everything you do.”

      “So you mean you’ve been spying on us?”

     “No,” the voice said, slightly taken aback. “Well, yes, sort of. I don’t really mean to. I can monitor everything on my ship, from atmospheric pressure to heat signatures to vibrations. I need to know if something’s gone wrong.”

     “I see. That makes sense,” Anton offered. “If I may ask, why do you want to talk to me? And why were you so willing to help us?”

     “Like I said before, I was curious. It’s not every day I come across people in my travels. And as to your second question, wouldn’t you help people in trouble?”

     “Yes, of course. But, I’m not even sure what you are. My people called you a ‘Swimmer.’”

“Swimmer?” She seemed to mull over the moniker. “I like it. How much do you know about my people?”

“Not a lot. Is it true you pilot your ship on your own?”

“Yes. I interface directly with my ship. My people learned the technology a long time ago.”

“Like, with your brain? You were humans right?”

     Anton was sure she chuckled at his last question. “My people split from your culture hundreds of years ago, but yes. We still consider ourselves humans.”

     “Fascinating.”

     “My physical body is in an interface chamber right now about a quarter of a mile from you. You could say it’s sleeping right now, but my mind is in the ship.”

     “I see. I’m not even hearing your real voice right now, am I?”

     “I’m told it’s a fair approximation. Is this creeping you out?”

     It was Anton’s turn to laugh. “No. I guess you can’t see my facial expressions.”

     “My instruments aren’t that fine.”

     “Well I’m smiling pretty widely. This is incredible. How many people can actually say they’ve talked to a ‘Swimmer?’ The rest of my crew is too afraid to even communicate with you. But, you’re just a... person.”

     “I’m glad.” Synthesized or not, Anton could hear the pleased tone in her voice. “Now I get to hear about you Anton. It’s only fair.”

     “I don’t think there’s much to tell.” Anton sat on his bunk and reclined. “My father’s the skipper of The Indigo Virgo, but you’ve probably picked up on that. I’m here right now mostly to learn about how the ship and crew works. I’ll probably take over the Virgo some day. You must find this incredibly boring.”

     “Not at all!”

     “I’m sure! You must find having to learn how do something so very quaint.”

     “Not really, I wasn’t born into the ship after all. Learning how to ‘be a Swimmer’ if you will, took a lot of training and—hold on.”

     “What is it?”

     “The pirates that attacked you are back.”

     “That’s impossible.”

     “There are three of them.”

     “Ships? They must have a base in-system.”

     “Go tell your father to get your crew into your ship.”

3d stuff -WIP

More Scion DIY

Hamburger Exploded View

I forgot the cheese.

SF 3 day vacation post

Seward Street Slides (part 1 of 2)

“I can’t believe this exists.”

“Well, it does, now help us with the cardboard.”

“No, I mean it doesn’t make any sense. Some city council had to get together and decide that ‘Yes, we will build this deathtrap…for the kids.’”

“Just hold it like this and make yourself into a cardboard taco,” Jean demoed the method a rider would take to make it down. “And make sure you keep your hands tucked in when you pull the sides up.”

We were enclosed in a valley between two lines of housing whose incline had so much more rise than run that a fall backwards while climbing up had been a seriously possibility.

I looked down the concrete slides. Their twisting paths ran parallel to each other and into a sand pit filled with all manner of discarded cardboard: pizza…Amazon…Office Depot. The wear and tear from the weight of a million asses wore off the original preschool green and smoothed the inside of the slides to a reflective grey. From up here they seemed to advance about 10 feet forward for a 40 foot drop.

“I mean, this wasn’t repurposed from being some sort of San Francisco garbage chute or something?” I implored the local residents for an answer as I heard the tentative scraping of one aligning himself before takeoff behind me. I turned around in time to see the top of Tony’s head disappear over the edge.

Halfway down, the slide flattened out for just long enough to launch him in the air as it dropped a final time.

“Uaah!”

Hmm…that was a sound we’ve never heard Tony make before.

He skidded to a stop and said with his usual composition, “Whoa, got air that time.” Tony climbed up the side of the slide with our white piece of cardboard from a microwave box. A large, smooth sticker on the bottom made it the “fast one” compared to another random brown piece we brought. He placed it back at the top of the slide.

I stared down the length of the concrete chute and said to no one in particular, “Can someone hold my cell?” I sat down on top of the cardboard and skidded forward, tentatively. I pictured bloodied knuckles trying impossibly to clutch each other to stop the bleeding. I toyed with the idea of the cardboard disintegrating going down and burning me in the fires of some impossible hyper-friction. In half a second I thought all the things diving boards, rooftops, and modified fireworks made me think. What was I doing? 24 and still putting myself in situations where physical damage was a possible consequence.

The Swimmer Part 3 (Draft)

     Repairs on The Indigo Virgo were coming along smoothly. With the ship berthed, the crew could work on exterior damage without need for bulky EVA suits. Anton stood on the floor of the docking bay, supervising. He concentrated on the work schedule on his clipboard, but couldn’t help looking around the bay. It was massive to hold their merchant vessel and it was only a part of a much larger ship. They had negotiated terms via written messages. Their host did not ask for any repayment and even offered additional supplies and assistance. His father had turned down their host’s offer, he seemed keen on having the crew keep to itself during their stay. He wanted to repair the ship and leave ASAP. But even without the extra help, The Indigo Virgo was on time to be operational before the pirate vessel was likely to return. The radio clasped on Anton’s hip hissed to life.

     “Anton my boy, you there?” It was the chief engineer.

     “Go ahead chief,” he replied.

     “I need an extra set of engine parts down here, can you grab them for me in the machine shop?”

     “On my way.” Anton pushed off from the ground and floated up in the direction of one of The Indigo Virgo’s hatches. He entered the ship and made his way down to the machine shop. Anton was gathering tools into a crate when his raid hissed with a burst of static. “Chief, is that you? I’m at the machine shop.”

     “No it’s not. Hi there.” It was a feminine sounding voice Anton didn’t recognize.

     “Hello, who’s this?”

     “I’m the pilot of the ship you’re docked in.”

     Anton raised an eyebrow, this had to be a joke. “Okay, really. Who is this?”

     “I’m serious Anton. I’ve tuned in to your radio frequency.”

     “Why would you do something like that?”

     “I wanted someone to talk to. It’s so rare for me to get the chance to. But the others on your ship, they’re all suspicious of me. You’re the only one that seems to have my… curiosity.”

     “You’re serious?” Anton looked down at the radio in his hand. “Listen, I’d like to talk to you too, but I can’t right now.”

     “I know. Go finish up your work shift.”

     “I have about two hours left to go on my shift. How can I contact you to tell you I’m done?”

     “Don’t worry, I’ll contact you.”

Tracked Vehicle

Front 3/4 view.


Back 3/4 view.

The Swimmer Part 2 (draft)

A beeping from Tracy’s station interrupted the command crew’s staring at the new ship on screen. She began, a hint of disbelief in her voice, “We’re getting a message from it skipper, text only. It’s offering to render assistance.”

Anton watched his father sit back down in his chair and mull over the information. A moment of silence passed before Anton spoke up, “It wants to help. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“We don’t know anything about that ship,” he replied. “It comes out of nowhere and happens to want to help? It can’t be that simple.” Anton’s father shook his head.

Anton offered, “We’d offer help if we came across a damaged ship, wouldn’t we?”

“It’s not the same.”

“We’re sitting ducks out here. You said so yourself, the raider ship is coming back. What have we got to lose?”

Anton’s father nodded slowly. “Alright. Send a reply. We’ll accept any aid it’s willing to give.”

Tracy relayed the message. As soon as she did, the massive ship began to draw towards The Indigo Virgo. As it came closer, the crew saw that the hull of the ship was not a smooth contiguous surface. Its surface was arrayed with spires and antennae, all seemingly reaching out from the ship. It soon dwarfed The Indigo Virgo and still it continued course.

“Skipper?” Tracy said nervously, her eyes affixed on the looming ship.

“Hold fast. We couldn’t outrun it at this point anyways.”

It passed over them and came to a halt. Along a section of its underside, a sliver of light emerged and began to widen. It continued to enlarge and the crew realized it was an opening hatch. The ship lowered, taking The Indigo Virgo aboard into a vast bay. The bay door closed beneath them and mechanical arms from overhead came down to securely clamp The Indigo Virgo into place.

“For a moment there I was almost expecting it to have artificial gravity,” Anton commented.

“Well,” said Anton’s father. “Shall we go meet our would-be savior?”

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