Image My Life in Film

by Marianne Ruuth

  The Passion of Anna is in some ways a variation of Shame. It depicts what I really wanted to show in Shame — the violence manifested in an underhanded way.

  Actually, it is the same story but told more credibly.

  I had kept a detailed workbook in which I had taken notes, which are interesting to read now. As early as February 1967, there are notes that show me laboring with the idea of Fx00E5;rö as the setting for the Kingdom of Death. Someone walks across the island out of a longing for something that exists far away. Several stops along the journey. Simple, frightening, and strangely exciting.

  There you have the basic concept, and it remained as the basis for the finished movie. But suddenly the concept grew in every possible direction. For a while I worked on a complicated project that revolved around two sisters, a dead Anna and a living Anna. Two stories alternating in counterpoint to each other.

  On June 30, 1967, my workbook contains the following statement: “One morning I awakened and decided to abandon the story about the two sisters. It feels too large, too unwieldy, and too uninteresting from a cinematic point of view.”

  Nothing of the screenplay existed at the time but a detailed outline, in which both story lines were composed of long sequences of dialogue. So when the European Radio Union ordered a television play, it did not take me more than one week to extract The Reservation from my notes and put a piece of theater on its feet. It is therefore understandable that The Reservation and The Passion of Anna are so closely associated.

  The rest of my enterprise consisted of extensively reshaping what would turn out to be The Passion of Anna. This process went on all summer long, and in the fall we began filming.

  The Kingdom of Death continues to show up again and again in my notes. Today I regret that I didn’t hang onto my original vision more strongly.

  Instead, a different movie emerged out of the original vision of the Kingdom of Death. Among other things, the connection to Shame became increasingly important.

  In both films the landscape is the same, but the undeniable threats seen in Shame are much more subtle in The Passion of Anna. Or as it says in the text: the warning signs lie beneath the surface.

  The dream in The Passion of Anna begins where the reality of Shame ends. Sadly, it is not especially convincing. The fatally stabbed lambs, the burning horse, and the hanged puppy suffice to create the nightmare. The ominous false suns in the introduction have already established the mood and tone of the film.

  The Passion of Anna could have been a good film, had the traces of the 1960s not been so evident. They leave an imprint, not only because of the skirts and hairdos, but, even more essentially, because of the important formal elements: the interviews with the actors and the improvised dinner invitation. The interviews should have been cut out. The dinner party should have been vastly different, much tighter.

  It is regrettable that I frequently became so worriedly didactic. But I was scared. You are scared when you have, for a long time, been sawing off the branch upon which you sit. Shame was truly not a success. I worked under the pressure of a firm demand that my film be comprehensible. I could possibly defend myself by saying that, in spite of this, it took all my courage to give The Passion of Anna its final shape.

  The four leading characters in the film use Johan (Erik Hell) as an accomplice in their game. There exists a parallel between Johan and the fisherman Jonas in Winter Light. Both become victims of the characters’ paralysis and inability to engage in human emotional experience.

  My philosophy (even today) is that there exists an evil that cannot be explained — a virulent, terrifying evil — and humans are the only animals to possess it. An evil that is irrational and not bound by law. Cosmic. Causeless. Nothing frightens people more than incomprehensible, unexplainable evil.

  The filming of The Passion of Anna took forty-five days and was quite an ordeal. The screenplay had been written in a white heat. It was more a description of a series of moods than a traditional, dramatic film sequence. Ordinarily, I solved any anticipated technical problems immediately in the writing stage. But here I chose to deal with the problems during filming. To some extent this decision was made because of a lack of time, but mostly I felt a need to challenge myself.

  The Passion of Anna was also the first true color film Sven Nykvist and I did together. In All These Women we had filmed in color according to the established rules. This time we wanted to make a film in color as it had never been done before.

  Contrary to our usual collaborative experiences, we found ourselves in endless conflicts. My intestinal ulcer acted up, and Sven had vertigo. Our ambition was to make a black-and-white film in color, with certain hues emphasized in a strictly defined color scale. It turned out to be difficult. The color negative exposed slowly and demanded a totally different lighting than it would today. The poor results of our efforts confused us, and, regretfully, we argued often.

  It was also 1968. The seeds of rebellion from that year began to reach even the crew at Fårö.

  Sven had an assistant photographer with whom we had worked on several earlier films. He was a short man with round glasses, like a military serviceman. Nobody had been more diligent and industrious than he. Now he was transformed into an active agitator. He called big meetings. He declared that Sven and I behaved like dictators and that all artistic decisions should be made by the whole crew.

  I declared that those who did not like our way of working could return home the next day with their salaries intact. I was not going to change my method and schedule of shooting and did not intend to accept artistic decisions from the crew.

  The Passion of Anna: the four leading actors. Erland Josephson. Bibi Andersson. Max von Sydow. Liv Ullmann.

  Nobody wanted to go home. I saw to it that our agitator was assigned to other duties, and the filming of The Passion of Anna continued without any further protest meetings.

  The filming, however, became one of the worst I have ever experienced, equal to This Can’t Happen Here, Winter Light, and The Touch.

  I HAD NOT SEEN

  Brink of Life (So Close to Life) since I made it in the fall of 1957. But this fact did not stop me from speaking of it in derogatory terms. When Lasse Bergström and I finished our taped conversations about my films and turned off the machine for good, we discovered to our amazement that Brink of Life had not been mentioned, not one word, not even a footnote. We agreed that this omission was strange indeed. So I finally decided to see the film, but at that point I uncovered a stubborn resistance inside me, one hell of a resistance, and I don’t know why.

  I watched the film alone in my screening room on Fårö and was surprised by the resentment I felt. The film had been an assignment: I had promised (I no longer remember why) to make a film for Sweden’s Folkbiografer. I read Ulla Isaksson’s fine short story collection, Aunt of Death, and was captivated by two of the stories, which, if put together, could be made into a screenplay. The screenwriting proceeded quickly and was fun (as it always is with my friend Ulla). I was given the crew I wanted; Bibi Lindström built a manageable maternity ward; everybody was in a good mood; and the work proceeded swiftly. Why so apprehensive? Oh yes! I can see weaknesses and shortcomings, more clearly now than thirty years ago, but how many films from the 1950s still hold up today? Our criteria have changed (and in film and theater this happens at a dizzying speed). A definite advantage to directing a stage performance is that it dives into the ocean of oblivion and disappears. Films live on. I wonder how this book would have turned out if my opus had disappeared, and I had based my comments solely on notebooks, photographs, newspaper reviews, and faded memories?

  But Brink of Life exists exactly as it was seen and heard at the premiere on March 11, 1958, and I sat watching the same film years later in the darkness, alone and influenced by no one. What I saw was a well-told but a bit too long-winded story about three women in a maternity ward. Everything was honest, warmhearted, and intelligently done, with first-class performances, but too m
uch makeup, a deplorable wig on Eva Dahlbeck, poor cinematography in parts, and a few too many literary references. When the movie ended, I sat there, surprised at myself and a little annoyed — I suddenly liked the old film. It was nicely behaved and accurately done and in all probability very useful when it was running in the movie theaters.

  I recall that there had been medical attendants stationed in the theaters. People had a tendency to faint from pure fright. I also recall that the medical adviser for the film, Dr. Lars Engström, allowed me to be present during a birth at the Karolinska Hospital. It was a traumatic and edifying experience. Even though I was the father of five children by that time, I had never been present at any of the births (that’s how things were back then). Instead, I got drunk or played with my miniature electric trains or went to the movies or rehearsed or worked on a movie or, inappropriately, paid attention to other women. I don’t quite remember the details. Anyhow, the delivery at Karolinska Hospital was splendid and not the least complicated. The mother was young and plump and gave birth with both screams and laughter. The atmosphere was exhilarating. I came close to fainting twice, and finally I had to leave the room and hit my head against a wall in order to come around. Then I went back to my work, a bit shaken but immensely grateful.

  Brink of Life: “The actresses remain its biggest asset.” Bibi Andersson. Eva Dahlbeck. Ingrid Thulin.

  I don’t want to pretend that filming proceeded without complications. Folkbiografer owned a long, narrow studio, which was once a school gymnasium, deep down in the basement of an old ramshackle building in the Östermalm area of Stockholm. The adjacent spaces were rudimentary or nonexistent. The ventilation was questionable — the air came in at sidewalk level, pulling in the exhaust from passing cars. It was cramped, dirty, and dilapidated. The Asian flu was raging at the time, and we all fell like dominoes, but we could not cancel or postpone since the actors had contracts for other work immediately following this shooting. To carry on filming with a fever of 104 degrees would seem impossible. It turned out to be perfectly possible. Everyone walked around with masks. From time to time (rather frequently) we went behind the sets, where laughing gas was kept. Laughing gas is as addictive as dope, though it has a shorter effect.

  Max Wilén, the cameraman, turned out to be an adequate craftsman without any sensitivity or joy. We carried out a gloomy collaboration with sullen but polite decorum. The laboratory was also a disaster (scratches and dirt on the developed film).

  All together, the film isn’t much. The actresses remain its biggest asset. Just as in other pressured situations, these women proved their professionalism, inventiveness, and unshakable loyalty. They had the ability to laugh in the face of trouble. They had sisterhood. Consideration and caring for each other.

  Actors, yes, they deserve a special chapter, but I don’t know if I’d be able to explain and illuminate how each one influenced the origin and composition of my films.

  How would Persona have looked if Bibi Andersson had not played Alma, and what would have become of my life if Liv Ullmann had not committed herself both to me and to Elisabet Vogler? And no Harriet in Summer with Monika? Or The Seventh Seal without Max von Sydow? Victor Sjöström in Wild Strawberries’? Ingrid Thulin in Winter Light? I would never have dared to make Smiles of a Summer Night without Eva Dahlbeck and Gunnar Björnstrand.

  I often saw the actors outside the studios in other contexts besides work, but my motives still revolved around my films. Ah, the grandmother, Gunn Wållgren, is a natural. Of course, she must play the grandmother in Fanny and Alexander. Without Lena Olin and Erland Josephson, I would never have written After the Rehearsal because these two actors inspired me and gave me the desire to make it. Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann were necessary for Autumn Sonata. So many mornings, lunch hours, and deliberations. So much joy, confusion, and tenderness. All this devotion — once the shooting ended — changed in intensity and manner and stabilized or paled or disappeared. Love, touching, and kissing and perplexity and tears. The four women in Cries and Whispers: Kari Sylwan, Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin. I have a behind-the-scenes photograph taken during the filming; they are sitting in a row on a low couch, all clad in black, and solemn; Harriet is made up and dressed as a corpse. Suddenly they begin to bob up and down on the couch. It has strong springs, and all four of them bob up and down, bump into each other, and laugh. What an assembly of female experience and what great professional accomplishment.

  Gunnar Björnstrand regarded me with a darkly narrowed look, his mouth smiling sarcastically; we were two samurai in wild combat, a fight-to-the-end warrior’s story. Then he fell ill and had difficulty memorizing his lines; he suffered a catastrophic opening night at a private theater, and, to top it off, he was panned by a couple of fastidious drama critics in Stockholm. I wanted very much for him to be part of my last film since we had worked together throughout my career. (Our collaboration began in 1946 when he played Mr. Purman in It Rains on Our Love.) So I wrote a part especially for Gunnar, moderately adjusted to his handicap. He played the head of the theater in Fanny and Alexander, business manager, director, and Père Noble in one person. The theatrical group in the film performs Twelfth Night. Gunnar plays the clown. At the end he sits on a small ladder with a lighted candle on his balding head and a red umbrella opened in his hand. He sings: “For the rain it raineth every day.” It rains, and everything is beautiful and touching, and done in the good taste of Gunnar Björnstrand. All day long, the cameraman making our documentary kept his camera unremittingly aimed at Gunnar. Nobody, not even I, knew that he was immortalizing this remarkable day at the South Theater.

  Gunnar had a difficult time. He had trouble with his memory and his coordination. There were endless retakes, but neither he nor I had the faintest intention of giving up. He fought heroically with his handicap and his failing memory; he fought and did not give in for a moment. Finally all of the clown was on reel. The triumph was complete.

  In the documentary about the filming of Fanny and Alexander — a documentary that runs a little over two hours — the central position is Gunnar Björnstrand’s struggle and triumph. I had edited the footage down from a considerable amount of material, thousands and thousands of feet, into a film within the film, about twenty minutes long.

  To be on the safe side, I asked Gunnar and his wife to approve the sequence on him. They said they were satisfied. I was happy; I felt that I had built a monument to a great actor’s last victory, not just any kind of victory but a victory at the highest artistic level. Later on, Gunnar’s widow retracted her approval and demanded that the part with the song of the clown be taken out. Regretfully, I saw myself forced to comply with her request. But we kept the negative. Gunnar Björnstrand’s greatest triumph as an actor shall not perish.

  When it comes to the director’s choices and the genesis of a new theatrical production, the actors’ influence can be even more important. Jarl Kulle’s King Lear, Peter Stormare as Hamlet, Bibi Andersson portraying the Legend. I am sitting opposite Gertrud Fridh in the green-painted canteen at the Malmö theater. We linger over old memories. We have worked together for so many years, first in Gothenburg, then in Stockholm and Malmö. We gossip and talk nonsense. The winter of southern Sweden can be seen through the large, dirty windows facing the Theater Park, a stingy, bluish shimmer; the ceiling lights have already been turned on. Gertrud’s face is illuminated twice — by the cold light from outside and by the warm lights above; her voice is tired but purrs on intensely; her gray-green eyes shine with a special luster. Suddenly I think: There she sits, my Célimène! Gertrud is perfect for Célimène in The Misanthrope. Next year I plan to direct The Misanthrope, and you have to play Célimène, you do want to, don’t you, Gertrud? Oh yes, she would like to, but right at this moment she is not completely sure of who Célimène is, and what kind of a figure is the Misanthrope? Yet Ingmar looks happy and eager, so I don’t have the heart to express any doubt. Yes, Gertrud Fridh, the fire, the welding flame that burns h
er so terribly and so frighteningly. Hedda Gabler, the big tragic tone, the humor, the cruel playfulness. Yes!

  When I directed A Dream Play a few years ago, the smallbut crucial role of the dancer was played by a young actress, Pernilla Östergren. She had just played a cheery nursemaid who walks with a limp in Fanny and Alexander. Now we were rehearsing A Dream Play. I watched Pernilla, her strength, her eagerness, and her straightforwardness (even when she did something wrong, it was good). It struck me suddenly that finally, after many years of waiting, the Royal Dramatic Theater had a new Nora! I grabbed hold of her after rehearsal and told her that in three years or at the most four, she would play Nora.

  Gunnar Björnstrand in A Lesson in Love, Sawdust and Tinsel, The Seventh Seal, Smiles of a Summer Night, The Magician, and The Ritual. His last triumph: Fanny and Alexander.

  The theater is carried by the strength of its actors. Directors and art directors can do whatever they want; they can sabotage themselves, the actors, and even the playwrights. When the actors are strong, that’s when the theater thrives. I remember a production of Three Sisters that had been analyzed and rehearsed to death, ground down to snuff by an old, disillusioned European director. The diligent actors submissively walked around like sleepwalkers, bored stiff. A queen dressed in black rose above this grayness, uncompromising and furiously alive: Agneta Ekmanner.