Cries and Whispers [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Ingmar Bergman, Lars-Owe Carlberg Ingmar Bergman

Overview

Cries and Whispers stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Thulin as the sisters of dying cancer patient Harriet Andersson. Both sisters have already had brushes with death: Ullman has had an affair which prompted her husband's suicide, while Thulin has long wanted to do away with herself, at one point mutilating her own vagina out of self-hatred. As for Andersson, she has been in pain so long that she feels as though she's in the midst of death-in-life. With her two sisters wrapped up in their own problems, Harriet turns to her housekeeper Kari Sylwan for comfort; Sylwan has herself suffered the death of a child, and has developed a philosophical attitude towards impending doom. One of the most influential moments of the film -- when two of the sisters share the innermost thoughts that they'd kept from one another for so many years -- is filmed without benefit of dialogue, with the music of Chopin (enhanced by cinematographer Sven Nykvist's carefully selected camera angles) "speaking" for the ladies. While Cries and Whispers only won the Oscar for cinematography, the film did very well for itself in international awards contests.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/31/2015
UPC:	0715515142113
Original Release:	1972
Rating:	R
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:31:00
Sales rank:	14,110

Special Features

Introduction by director Ingmar Bergman from 2001 New interview with actor Harriet Andersson, conducted by historian Peter Cowie On Solace, a new video essay by filmmaker ::kogonada Behind-the-scenes footage with commentary by Cowie Ingmar Bergman: Reflection on Life, Death, and Love with Erland Josephson (2000), a fifty-two-minute interview with Bergman and his longtime collaborator Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Liv Ullmann	Maria,Maria's Daughter
Ingrid Thulin	Karin
Harriet Andersson	Agnes
Erland Josephson	Doctor
Anders Ek	Pastor
Georg Arlin	Fredrik,Fredrik
Henning Moritzen	Joakin
Kari Sylwan	Anna
Rosanna Mariano	Agnes as a Child
Lena Bergman	Maria as a Child,Spectator
Monika Priede	Karin as a Child
Greta Johansson	Undertaker
Kary Sylway	Actor
Lars-Owe Carlberg	Spectator
Inga Gill	Aunt Olga
Johann Sebastian Bach	Composer
Frédéric Chopin	Composer

Technical Credits

Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman	Producer,Screenwriter,Director
Lars-Owe Carlberg	Producer,Director

Editorial Reviews

Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers (Viskningar Och Rop) finds the director exploring many of the same themes as his landmark Persona (1966). A study of three sisters and the "tissue of lies" between them, the film once again measures the tremors caused by long-buried secrets, dreams, and resentments. Not one gesture rings false, particularly in the distant-but-sympathetic performance of Bergman's longtime collaborator (and companion) Liv Ullmann, cast against type as the acidic Maria. Though obviously influenced by Chekhov and Tolstoy, Bergman makes the material his own, disrupting the script's Gothic facade with shocking, distinctly modern feelings and incidents: despite the Freudian and Jungian interpretations that can be made of individual scenes, Cries never substitutes abstract theory for character development. Cinematographer Sven Nykvist keeps the proceedings from becoming an inert chamber play; his expressionistic use of color -- punctuated by the fades to red between sequences -- is unlike anything previously seen in Bergman's work. Cries and Whispers became one of the only foreign-language films ever nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture, and Bergman received his first nomination as Best Director, cementing (if tardily) his status as the leading foreign art-movie director.

All Movie Guide - Michael Hastings