ByStephen Pollard, Stephen Pollard
Ah, Bergman. The great purveyor of tedious films (The Times)
August 1, 2007 24:001 min read
ByStephen Pollard, Stephen Pollard
I have a piece in today's Times on Ingmar Bergman. Here's an extract:
Bergman is one of a large category of “important artists” whose defining quality is an almost total absence of public acclamation or popularity. Every art form has its equivalent – think James Joyce or Sir Harrison Birtwistle – but cinema is exceptional in its preponderance of such “important artists”. The latest is Lars von Trier, a maker of terminally dull films that are, nonetheless, lauded by cineastes (they have their own word, signifying that they’re a cut above bog-standard moviegoers).
It’s tempting to think that Bergman’s films were treated with such awe by critics because he was Swedish and the Swedes are, you know, deep. Like the Danish von Trier. So even if they’re yawnathons, they should be revered because they must mean something important.
But it’s not as simple as that. Even if Ingmar Bergman had been born plain old Terence Davies from Liverpool, cineastes would have been as likely to sing his praises. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you . . . Terence Davies, a Liverpudlian whose mind-numbingly dull accounts of his childhood in Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992) have led to him being revered as “one of the most original British film-makers of the late 20th century” (as the British Film Institute puts it).
It goes on that Davies’s uniqueness lies in the way he conveys “the fragmented nature of memory and the partial knowledge of his young protagonist. Instead of using a smooth narrative, we receive a succession of loosely connected episodes, with no dominant story line.” So nothing happens in no particular order. But it’s important art because it’s dark, worthy and dull.
Feel free to call me a philistine in the comments section, but sticks and stones and all that...
Perhaps it would more fun if you'd like to suggest other 'important artists' who are, in your view, overrated.