Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bergmans-hour-of-the-wolf-darren-aronofskys-mother-and-the-legend-of-the-tortured-artist-4414959.html
In a paper titled Bereavement and Creativity, published in October 2017 in Management Science, economists Kathryn Graddy (Brandeis University) and Carl Lieberman ( Princeton University) studied the effect of a loved one’s death on the creativity of 48 artists, ranging from Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Picasso to Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. They found that the well-entrenched legend of the “tortured artist” could be a myth. Cézanne was unable to paint for months after the death of his mother. Picasso’s La Gommeuse, painted during his Blue Period, believed to have resulted from a bout of depression following a friend’s suicide, sold for $67.45 million, while Garçon à la Pipe, his Rose Period work (from when he was happy in a new relationship), sold for far more ($104.2 million).
Cinema, however, has persisted with this myth, that artists create their best work when suffering emotional turmoil. (Can you name, off the top of your head, a film about a happy, well-adjusted writer or painter or sculptor? I couldn’t.) One reason is probably that the writhing of the soul makes for better drama. It could also be that filmmakers tend to project their own insecurities and inadequacies on their creations. Consider Johan Borg (Max von Sydow), the protagonist of Hour of the Wolf (1968), which resembles Darren Aronofsky’s mother! in many ways. (Aronofsky says as much in the clip above, though he keeps calling the film Time of the Wolf.) Both films are about a creator slowly losing his sanity, turning into the archetypal “tortured artist.” Both films begin with an isolated couple – the artist, his loving (and pregnant) wife – whose lives are gradually invaded by “vampires” (metaphorical in Aronofsky’s case, literal in Bergman’s). And so forth.
The difference, though, is that Aronofsky explained what his film meant. In an interview published in The Telegraph, his heroine, Jennifer Lawrence, said, “It depicts the rape and torment of Mother Earth… I represent Mother Earth, Javier [Bardem], whose character is a poet, represents a form of God, a creator; Michelle Pfeiffer is an Eve to Ed Harris’s Adam, there’s Cain and Abel and the setting sometimes resembles the Garden of Eden.” In contrast, see what Bergman’s heroine, Liv Ullman, said in The Search for Sanity (see link above), a featurette about the making of Hour of the Wolf: “[Ingmar] does not want to discuss the script. He does not want to tell you what he meant with it, and whatever. He says, ‘I have written the script,’ and he allows for us to understand whatever we want to understand from the script.”
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2018 Firstpost.
sanjana
April 2, 2018
http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/is-there-a-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness
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Anu Warrier
April 2, 2018
It’s interesting that he says that his demons are under his control when he films. What does he do with them when he’s not filming? Ingmar Bergman’s films have been frustrating for me as a viewer – I’m not very sure what I’ve watched, or whether my interpretation is the right one. (Or one of the right ones.) For me, The Seventh Seal is perhaps the Bergman film I liked the most. That’s the film I ‘got’ – I think.
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MANK
April 2, 2018
The tortured filmmaker is more an exception than a rule. francis coppola suffering his way through Apocalypse now or Martin Scorsese purifying himself through Raging Bull is lionised and discussed much more than the fact they both made equally great and perhaps even greater films when they were perfectly happy. Reminds me of Director David lean’s advice to young directors – before starting a new film, get a new women in your life. your film is going to be 75% better if not 100 percent (or something very similar) – Sir David followed this theory right up until his last (unfinished) film, even though he was an octogenarian by then
Anu, you didnt get Fanny and Alexander. i found that to be his most accessible (and perhaps his most autobiographical). its rather lengthy (there is an even lengthier TV version), but its his most visually opulent, emotionally moving and easily understandable film for me.
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Anu Warrier
April 2, 2018
MANK, I did watch Fanny and Alexander – the 188-minute version on the Criterion Collection, in fact. (I don’t think I could have sat through the 300+ minute TV version.) Yes, the film was visually opulent, the sound was fabulous and immersive, and the film itself wandered into the realms of fantasy and alternate realities quite well. Yet, I remember feeling disquieted after watching – it alternately drew me in and repulsed me – ‘like’ was not a word I would use for that film. Perhaps the fact that it affected me so much is a testimony to the power of the film? I don’t know. I found the existential dilemma in The Seventh Seal more to my liking.
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Jithin
April 2, 2018
@Mank
Have you seen both versions of Fanny and Alexander? Am confused which version I should see.
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Jithin
April 2, 2018
@Anu Warrier
Try Wild Strawberries. I think you will like it.
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Ratish Ravindran
April 3, 2018
I think in India the term “Tortured Artist” finds resonance with Directors like Guru Dutt and Mahesh Bhatt. Guru Dutt mirrored some of his mental turmoil in his films like Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool etc whereas Mahesh Bhatt took inspiration from his personal struggles to create memorable films like Arth, Zakhm etc.
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Anu Warrier
April 3, 2018
Jithin,I went through a period when I watched every single Bergman film I could find. Wild Strawberries was one of them. And I did like it – in fact, I bought the Criterion Collection DVD. But Bergman frustrates me as a viewer. 🙂
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sanjana
April 3, 2018
He made films for himself than for an audience.
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Sreehari Nair
April 3, 2018
// Reminds me of Director David lean’s advice to young directors – before starting a new film, get a new women in your life. your film is going to be 75% better if not 100 percent (or something very similar) //
That was Picasso’s cure. Which is why when dealing with someone like Picasso, “Tortured Artist” becomes a throwaway term, a floating jargon without any real roots. For instance, Picasso’s style changed every time a new woman entered his life. And then, as that relationship became less and less interesting, his art became a way to show how hideous that woman seemed to him. In doing this, Picasso may have disturbed the model of a perfect lover, nonetheless, he presented to us another degree of truth; an extreme truth but also an intensely felt truth. And art, I think, is better for it.
I am always interested in observing the lineaments of great artists specifically to understand how much they are prone to injuring those around them in the single-minded pursuit of their art. And this is because, for these artists, what they’re doing for humankind is often of far greater significance, than what they are doing to one person.
Which is the token, perhaps, by which we should judge Bertolucci’s handling of Maria Schneider; or Bergman’s constant interest in playing his ex-girlfriends against his current muse; or Dorothy Parker’s bitching; or Patricia Highsmith’s misogynistic streaks.
And it’s because it does not take into account this morally fuzzy territory in which artists operate that this current clean-up movement feels to me not very well-proportioned. It’s an uprising by intellectual consensus; a revolution for the dentists!
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Jithin
April 3, 2018
Anu, if that’s the case, then Bergman isn’t for you. Better not to torture yourself with stuff you can’t relate to.
I had watched only 6 of his films and liked them all except one(ironically, the one I disliked is Seventh Seal). When I say I liked the films, it doesn’t mean all of them were a happy viewing experience for me. Those were deeply intense films and some of them were kind of a torture, say for example ‘Silence'(which is among the best films I have seen). But my frustration wasn’t towards the film Silence or Mr.Bergman. The frustration I had to endure came from the tone of the film, the frustrations and sufferings of the characters. The only way to fully resonate with a film like Silence is to feel tortured and agonized. And I am glad I felt that way.
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MANK
April 3, 2018
Jithin, no i have seen only the theatrical version and i liked it very much so i am rather concerned about spoiling the experience by watching the longer version which i believe is almost 7 hrs long. Its better that you watch the theatrical version, because thats what is designed as a movie, the other one i hear is more designed like a tv series.
I am dubious about these longer versions. The Last Emperor is a solid movie at 2. 45. its TV version almost 4 hrs long doesnt add anything to it
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Jithin
April 3, 2018
MANK, thanks a lot for replying.
I just now googled about Fanny and Alexander and got to know that the 3 hr theatrical release was the chopped down version of the longer original film. I had thought that Bergman made the theatrical version separately based on the longer version. But it doesn’t seem so. The original 312 minutes version was cut down to 188 minutes in order to screen it in theatres. At least that’s what Wikipedia says.
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Anu Warrier
April 3, 2018
Jithin, perhaps I like torturing myself. 🙂
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MANK
April 3, 2018
The issue with Bergman films are the same as with any great art film. they are all cold formal experiments . they don’t give you easy access points they dont go courting the viewer , instead, expect the viewer to come courting.Telling a story is not the primary motive . its more about evoking a feeling or providing a pure cinematic experience. The audience is as much a participant in the creation of these films as much as the maker.which means you cannot watch a Bergman or Fellini or an Adoor film without mentally preparing for it. you cannot just drift into it like we do a more commercial film
A film like Raiders of the lost Ark can be watched and enjoyed by anybody at any time, whether you are young or old, educated or illiterate, because the emphasis is purely on hyperkinetic fun. Both the subject matter and the cinematic techniques used in the film are driven primarily for this purpose alone. i saw it for the first time as a kid and liked it a lot and i see it today and still love it. Well not The Virgin Spring or Elipathayam. When i was younger , i used to dread the films of Adoor and their ilk.But then came a stage in my life where i could connect with them and wondered whether these were the same films that i hated so intensely. So relating with these films depend on a lot of factors .
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Rahul
April 3, 2018
I think Scenes from a marriage(TV version) is accessible enough. My favorites are Persona and Cries and Whispers. I had the good fortune to see Persona on the big screen. Immersive experience of the big screen is very much a factor in the enjoyment of these movies.
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Jithin
April 3, 2018
@Anu Warrier
That’s great👍 Whenever you are under the grips of worldly vices like serenity and sanity, please take out one Bergman movie from your rich criterion collection DVDs, and immerse yourself in some wonderful misery. Happy torturing😊
@MANK
Same here. I also used to feel the same dread as a kid about guys like Adoor and Aravindan. Back then it was a pain watching all those classics telecasted on the good old Doordarshan.
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Anu Warrier
April 4, 2018
@Jithin – Ah, but you assume I am serene and sane. 🙂
I would actually have a lot more Criterion Collection DVDs if it weren’t for the fact that they are so bloody expensive. 😦
Also, the one film I desperately want is still not available – Le Grand Chemin.
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Jithin
April 4, 2018
@Anu Warrier
That’s what we expect when we meet somebody for the first time. Sanity is pretty much taken for granted.
But still you would be having your moments of sanity and serenity. If you feel such moments are unbearably boring, then you can take the Bergman route and have some fun.
Hope the film is soon available. BTW I haven’t heard the name. Reminds me how ignorant I am about films around the world.
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Anu Warrier
April 4, 2018
Jithin 🙂 Will do.
If you do get your hands on Le Grand Chemin (or The Grand Highway) do watch – it’s one of the best ‘coming of age’ films I have seen. Please, please do not watch the Hollywood remake of the same.
Reminds me how ignorant I am about films around the world.
It also depends on opportunity and ease of access. Perhaps, today, it’s easier. I depended on Doordarshan (even for good regional films) and film festivals for which I would scrounge and save to get tickets. Now I live in the US, so they are more accessible.
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brangan
April 5, 2018
“When Andrei Tarkovsky made films of a symbolically furious anguish, it seemed to make perfect sense; he lived and worked in the Soviet Union, where anguish was the grossest domestic product —and where the abstrusely symbolic realm was the one openly covert way of expressing it. But Bergman lived and worked in Sweden—Sweden!—and still found a way to be miserable…” 🙂
And this is a great line about the “distancing” effect of art cinema.
“Yet the sense of artifice—of action that’s grafted onto naturalistic settings and situations solely for the purpose of the ideas that it unfolds and the images that it yields—challenges the sensibilities of viewers accustomed to an unambiguous measure of reality or of fantasy.”
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/ingmar-bergman-and-the-risk-of-ridicule
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sanjana
April 5, 2018
Difference is too much freedom in Sweden and too little freedom in Russia.
They say an idle man’s mind is a devil’s workshop.It wanders aimlessly into fantasy worlds.
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Jithin
April 5, 2018
Anu, sure will watch it if I get an opportunity. And rest assured I will watch the original one, not the Hollywood remake. Either way I have to read subtitles(English in Hollywood movies is as unfamiliar to me as French), so no point watching the English version. Also I generally prefer watching the original.
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Rahul
April 5, 2018
Enjoyed this article
https://filmschoolrejects.com/a-guide-to-properly-hating-old-movies-bbc53597217c/
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Madan
April 7, 2018
@ Rahul: Nice article indeed, very funny that readymade format. The Buzzfeed article on Tom Hanks mentioned in the article was also very interesting.
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Anu Warrier
April 7, 2018
@Rahul, thoroughly enjoyed that article, and have the same attitude as the writer towards writers of hit pieces, even if there are several cinematic ‘classics’ that do not appeal to me (Mother India is a shining example.) View the film in the times and context in which it was made, and if you can’t, at least acknowledge your own bias. So I really enjoyed the block template that the author provided so helpfully. 🙂
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