Poor Paul Mazursky. Hounded for life by portraying a rape as a somewhat ambiguous, even comic manner in "Blume In Love" he felt guilty for life and even made the film "An Unmarried Women" as a sort of apology to his critics. In "Scenes From a Marriage" Bergman has his sniveling hero lock his wife in a room and beat her before signing divorce papers. And She, of course, loves him all the more. I've never heard anyone object to this this, and the film is generally hailed as a classic. Well, an international rep as a genius has it's privileges.
Generally a big Bergman fan, with a couple of his films among my very favorites, I was surpassed how repellent I found "Scenes From A Marriage." Men are worms, and women love them for it, would pretty much sum up things here. The picture would be more offensive, perhaps, if it were more credible. It is said Bergman wanted to "stay with the couple" but the Husband's utter disinterested in the children, and his wife's indifference to said, is either not believable or marks the couple as such coarse dunderheads that it's impossible to care about them.
Or, it makes it fashionable with the era's feminism, or male bashing if you like. Either way, the notion that this women works with couples going through the agony of divorce but is oddly indifferent to the suffering of those going through the process is another salvo Bergman aims at contemporary life, but another oddly vacuous one. There is an element of snobbery here, Bergman seems to view these people as empty middle class mediocrities with pretensions to Art they are unworthy of. No wonder Woody Allen loves this movie. In terms of executions, the movie is all you could as for-it's unsloppy Cassavettes. In terms of ideas, however, it's even lower than Cassavettes.
Generally a big Bergman fan, with a couple of his films among my very favorites, I was surpassed how repellent I found "Scenes From A Marriage." Men are worms, and women love them for it, would pretty much sum up things here. The picture would be more offensive, perhaps, if it were more credible. It is said Bergman wanted to "stay with the couple" but the Husband's utter disinterested in the children, and his wife's indifference to said, is either not believable or marks the couple as such coarse dunderheads that it's impossible to care about them.
Or, it makes it fashionable with the era's feminism, or male bashing if you like. Either way, the notion that this women works with couples going through the agony of divorce but is oddly indifferent to the suffering of those going through the process is another salvo Bergman aims at contemporary life, but another oddly vacuous one. There is an element of snobbery here, Bergman seems to view these people as empty middle class mediocrities with pretensions to Art they are unworthy of. No wonder Woody Allen loves this movie. In terms of executions, the movie is all you could as for-it's unsloppy Cassavettes. In terms of ideas, however, it's even lower than Cassavettes.