Viskningar och rop (1972)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Ingmar Bergman

Writer:

Ingmar Bergman (writer)

Release Date:

5 March 1973 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A haunting and shattering film experience.

Plot:

When a woman dying of cancer in turn-of-the century Sweden is visited by her two sisters, long repressed feelings between the siblings rise to the surface.

Plot Keywords:

Turn Of The Century | Mansion | Dying | Cancer | Love

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 19 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Harriet Andersson	...	Agnes
Kari Sylwan	...	Anna
Ingrid Thulin	...	Karin
Liv Ullmann	...	Maria (and her mother)
Anders Ek	...	Isak, the priest
Inga Gill	...	Story teller
Erland Josephson	...	David, the doctor
Henning Moritzen	...	Joakim, Maria's husband
Georg Årlin	...	Fredrik, Karin's husband
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ingrid Bergman	...	Spectator (as Ingrid von Rosen)
Lena Bergman	...	Maria as a child
Lars-Owe Carlberg	...	Spectator
Malin Gjörup	...	Anna's daughter
Greta Johansson	...	Undertaker
Karin Johansson	...	Undertaker
Ann-Christin Lobråten	...	Spectator
Börje Lundh	...	Spectator
Rossana Mariano	...	Agnes as a child
Monika Priede	...	Karin as a child
Linn Ullmann	...	Maria's daughter

Also Known As:

Cries and Whispers (USA)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

Sweden

Language:

Swedish

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:15 | Australia:M | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | Singapore:M18 | UK:18 (re-rating) (1998) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Taxinge-Näsby estate, Mariefred, Södermanlands län, Sweden

Company:

Cinematograph AB

Trivia:

Bergman, who produced the film with his own money, could not find an American distributor as they felt it was too uncommercial. Roger Corman, who had just left American-International Pictures to set up his own New World releasing company, was in the market for a prestige picture to give his new operation some class.

Quotes:

David: Come over here Maria. Look at yourself in the mirror. You are beautiful... but you have changed. These days you cast rapid, calculating, sidelong glances. You're gaze used to be direct, open, and without any disguise. Your mouth is an expression of discontent and hunger. It used only to be soft. Your complexion has become pallid, you use make-up. Your fine, broad forehead now has four creases above each eyebrow...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Zingo (1998)

Soundtrack:

Suite No. 5 for solo Cello in C Minor, 4th mvt 'Sarabande'

Sad, cold, profoundly desperate

To see Liv Ullmann, whose nature is so warm and natural, play a role in which her warmth is superficial and fraudulent, is a little offsetting; yet, great actress that she is, she pulls it off, so that if I had never seen her before, I would believe she was that way.

"Cries and Whispers," much ballyhooed, I recall, when it appeared, seems too psychoanalytically intense today; dark and mysterious, beautifully filmed in an intense red-yes, very striking against the northern cold, but somehow not entirely convincing. The people are cynically presented as tortured animals caring only for themselves, without a scrap of genuine feeling for others. Anna, the maid, is the exception, so that she may serve as a foil for the rest of them.

Harriet Andersson gives a striking performance as Agnes who is dying of cancer. I have seen what she portrays, and can tell you she expressed it in all its horror and hopelessness. Ullmann plays Maria, one of her sisters who touches others easily, but without real feeling, so that the touches mean nothing. For those who grew up cinematically during the seventies, she was a great, expressive, sensual, flawless star of the screen, one of Ingmar Bergman's jewels. Bergman himself of course was already a legend by the time this film was made, a great master who did what he wanted and what he felt, yet never lost sight of the audience. What he seems to be saying here is we are desperate creatures living a cold and ultimately empty existence. The ending clip seems an after thought that seeks our redemption, but it arrives too little too late. We are lost.