The Silence (1963 film)
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| The Silence | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Produced by | Allan Ekelund |
| Written by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Starring | Ingrid Thulin Gunnel Lindblom Birger Malmsten Håkan Jahnberg Jörgen Lindström |
| Cinematography | Sven Nykvist |
| Release date(s) | September 23, 1963 |
| Running time | 96 min |
| Language | Swedish |
| IMDb profile | |
The Silence (originally titled Tystnaden) is a 1963 film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom.
[edit] Plot and Interpretation
Two sisters stop at a hotel in an unidentified European country on the brink of war or insurrection. The older, more cultured sister, Ester (Ingrid Thulin), who translates literature, is terminally ill, and her fear of death clouds her relationship with her younger, beautiful sister Anna (Gunnel Lindblom), who's depicted as the fleshly side of the spirit/flesh dichotomy. The younger sister neglects her son Johan (Jörgen Lindström) (a boy of 12 or so), who wanders the seemingly half-empty hotel.
In the film's most famous scene, Johan stares out of the window as a lone tank rolls down the street at night; Susan Sontag (in "Against Interpretation") considers the tank an all-too-obvious phallic symbol, but no such reductive interpretation seems required by the film.
According to critic Leo Braudy, Bergman intended the film as "a rendering of hell on earth — my hell."
Subtle clues (including the misspelled name of the town) appear to point to the country as being Finland.
The movie was very controversial in 1963, in that it depicted female masturbation and implied lesbianism and incest, as well as female nudity and (simulated) intercourse.
[edit] External links
- The Silence at the Internet Movie Database
- Criterion Collection essay by Leo Braudy
- Analysis of Bergman's film trilogy
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