Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman

by Marilyn Johns Blackwell

Overview

A detailed feminist study of Bergman's most important films.

This book covers the whole of Bergman's production, but concentrates in particular on close analyses of five of his major films: Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, The Silence, Persona, and Cries and Whispers. In addition to bringing post-modernist theoretical strategies to bear on the films, it offers a clear, current, pluralist feminist perspective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571130945
Publisher:	Boydell & Brewer, Limited
Publication date:	05/22/1997
Series:	Studies in Scandinavian Literature and Culture
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

Editorial Reviews

Marilyn Johns Blackwell concentrates on about half a dozen of the forty-odd films, and applies an intense gaze to each of them. Ms. Blackwell herself often has better notions than the myriad other academics she cites. She is excellent on Bergman's voyeuristic technique in Smiles, on the Swede's 'troubling stereotype' of associating the upper classes with the spirit, and the lower classes with the flesh, and the underestimated use of silence throughout a film like The Seventh Seal.

THE SWEDISH BOOK REVIEW

"Marilyn Johns Blackwell concentrates on about half a dozen of the forty-odd films, and applies an intense gaze to each of them. Ms. Blackwell herself often has better notions than the myriad other academics she cites. She is excellent on Bergman's voyeuristic technique in Smiles, on the Swede's 'troubling stereotype' of associating the upper classes with the spirit, and the lower classes with the flesh, and the underestimated use of silence throughout a film like The Seventh Seal. THE SWEDISH BOOK REVIEW

From the Publisher

Argues that Bergman's films, while not avowedly feminist, warrant a reconsideration by feminist critics, that they are much more multivalent on gender issues than previously thought, and that the practice of this "elitist" filmmaker frequently coincides with feminist practice. Examines five of Bergman's most central films ("Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, The Silence, Persona", and "Cries and Whispers"), and several key motifs in his work. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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