Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #23: For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943

For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943

Director: Sam Wood
Writers: Dudley Nichols, from the novel by Ernest Hemingway
Cinematographer: Ray Rennahan
Produced by: Buddy G. DeSylva and Sam Wood for Paramount Pictures
Starring: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Katina Paxinou, Joseph Calleia, Arturo de Cordova, Vladimir Sokoloff

Why I chose it
Having recently viewed Ken Burns' documentary about Ernest Hemingway, I put this film on my short list when it was also included on Filmsite.org's list of best 1943 films. It won my Twitter poll by just a few votes.

'No-spoiler' plot overview 
American expatriate Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper) is fighting on the side of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. His commanding general assigns him to a dangerous mission to blow up a bridge strategic to the Fascists. To do this, he joins up with a group of guerilla fighters led by the squabbling couple Pilar (Katina Paxinou) and Pablo (Akim Tamiroff). Among them is a young woman Maria (Ingrid Bergman) recently rescued from being a political captive. Through a series of alliances, betrayals, and re-negotiations, the plan to demolish the bridge inches forward. In the meantime, Robert and Maria fall in love and pledge to join their souls for eternity. 

Production Background 
Production began soon after the book had become a sensation, and Hemingway, who earned $150,000 for the film rights, was actively involved in the planning process. He counted Gary Cooper among his friends, and modeled the character of Robert Gordon on the actor. It was easy then to cast Cooper in the film. Paramount struggled casting the two primary leading female roles, but eventually settled on Hemingway's pick Ingrid Bergman, who had coveted the role of Maria, and Greek stage actress Katina Paxinou as Pilar. 

There were some tricky issues for the Production Code Administration censors. First, on the political side, Paramount was nervous to be too explicit in naming the 'Fascists' as the enemy here, especially since they were the victors in Spain, and kept the two sides' identities a bit fuzzy. (The film was ultimately banned in Spain and only released there after Franco's death). The other big issues were the "sex" scene between Robert and Maria and the revelation that Maria had been gang-raped by her captors. In the film, it wasn't clear to what extent the physical relationship between the lovers progressed, although they did show the two in a partial shot with a sleeping bag, and it also included a bit of dialog about the rape.

The film garnered several Oscar nods for its actors, including Cooper and Bergman, but only Paxinou won as Best Supporting Actress in her first and only nomination.

Some other notable film-related events in 1943 (from Filmsite.org):

• 20th Century Fox began distributing three million pinups of leggy actress Betty Grable, in her famed white swimsuit photo (with her hands on her hips and an over-the-shoulder smile), mostly to GIs serving in armed forces overseas. She was declared their favorite pinup. 
• 50 year-old British actor Leslie Howard, famous for his role as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939), was killed when onboard a DC-3 plane that was shot down by German Luftwaffe fighters over the Bay of Biscay near Lisbon, Portugal (considered a war zone).
• The precursor of Italian neo-realism was Luchino Visconti's gritty Ossessione (1943, It.), the Italian director's first film. Loosely adapted from James M. Cain's pulp novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, it enraged fascist censors and inspired the term neo-realism. The movement would really take hold from the mid-40s to the mid-50s, with its main exponents being Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica.
• Supported by the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG), Olivia de Havilland filed a far-reaching lawsuit against her studio, Warner Bros, eventually winning in a 1945 ruling called the DeHavilland Law. It declared that a studio could not indefinitely extend a performer's contract. It imposed a 7 year limit on contracts for service unless the employee agreed to an extension beyond that term. The decision ultimately limited the oppressive contract-power of studios over their performers.
• Controversy was engendered when 54-year-old Charlie Chaplin wed 17-year-old Oona O'Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill (who cut ties with her and disowned her following the marriage). 

My Random Observations

• This is the first film in my 50 Years of Film in 50 Weeks series that I actively disliked. It plodded along for its nearly three hours running time; various European actors with different accents were made up with brownface to look gypsy or Spanish (all except Ingrid Bergman that is); and the romance was telegraphed and overwraught from the moment Bergman showed up on screen. I was desperate for the bridge to blow up already and end everyone's misery.

Akim Tamiroff (center), his band, and Gary Cooper (right)

• The rugged mountain scenery (filmed in California) was quite impressive at times -- which stands to reason as the great William Cameron Menzies was the production designer.

• When Ingrid Bergman cried out "Roberto!", I couldn't help but think about her marriage to Roberto Rossellini, then still a few years in the future.

  

  Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls

  
  
• Katina Paxinou was really my favorite actor in the film; she seemed to own the camera and her fellow actors. However, Paxinou's features and dark hair reminded me of Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West (all she needed was green face makeup and pointed hat).
  
  
  
• It's time I revisit the novel, which, as opposed to the film, is a true classic.

Where to Watch

The film can be streamed for a small free on many platforms.

Further Reading
Critic and writer James Agee's review here offers some of the reasons why I didn't like the film, but also praises some performances.

Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata (40th anniversary) and Liv Ullmann's character revelation

The renowned Swedish director Ingmar Bergman would have been 100 years old this year, and the only film he made with the other famous Bergman, actress Ingrid B., turned 40. The Coolidge Corner Theatre screened a 35 mm print of Autumn Sonata yesterday, but did their audience one better by welcoming the only surviving star, Liv Ullmann, to introduce the film and then answer questions during a live interview afterward.

Liv Ullmann recounts her experiences with Autumn Sonata
for Jared Brown, WGBH Executive Arts Editor
and a capacity crowd at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Sunday

I was a little cautious approaching this film, as my experience with Bergman's films has been minimal and not always joyful. I dozed a bit during a screening of The Seventh Seal at the TCM Film Festival in 2013, reacted with indifference to another film considered a masterpiece, Persona, about a year ago, but loved Wild Strawberries when I caught it on TCM. But after my experience yesterday, and encouraged by the discussion afterward with my local arthouse/classic film group, I felt moved to get to at least a couple additional films screening in the next few weeks as the joint Bergman 100th birthday retrospective at the Coolidge, the Harvard Film Archive, and the Brattle continues. 

Ullmann (left) and Bergman struggle to deal with decades-old
hurts and guilt in Autumn Sonata.

Autumn Sonata (in original Swedish--Höstsonaten) portrays a complicated, explosive mother-daughter relationship over a few days when after seven years, the mother, Charlotte, a concert-pianist (Ingrid Bergman) comes to stay with her daughter Eva (Ullmann), a seemingly naive, retiring wife of a local minister. Also in the house is Charlotte's invalid daughter Helena, who is confined to her bed and cannot communicate except for a few grunts and unintelligible words (exactly what is wrong with Helena is not fully explained). That all will not be well during the visit is hinted in the first scenes when Eva's husband Viktor (Halvar Björk) surreptitiously reacts with frustration when Eva announces her plans to host her mother. After warm and loving initial greetings, the relationship deteriorates as Eva exposes her anger over her mother's self-centeredness and neglect in favor of her career. The scenes in the middle of the movie are harrowing, as Bergman frames the two women's faces in opposition, and both actresses are called on to emote. The film ends on a somewhat hopeful note, although I sensed that those final scenes just previewed what would be a sad pattern of interaction between these two women for the remainder of their lives.

If the majority of scenes in close-up were emotionally loaded, occasionally Bergman set up the flashback scenes with the camera far back, with stillness and simplicity and lighting that looked like a some spare Scandinavian painting. Those moments provided a bit of visual relief even as they enhanced the narrative.

Screen capture of a scene late in Autumn Sonata

I also loved that the film created shifting sympathies for the two women -- it was obvious that Charlotte was attention-seeking and vain, but when Eva shifted from a victim to an aggressor, the film felt so timeless and real.  It posed questions about the validity of past memories, parents' accountability for the difficulties of their children, and the pros and cons of dredging up past hurts and using them as weapons when family relationships are simultaneously everlasting and fragile.  On the topic of her character's motivations, Liv Ullmann made a stunning admission yesterday -- within the last year she watched the film and was struck by the revelation that it might be possible that everything her character says in her hate-filled 'monologue' directed at her mother is a "lie". Before, she was convinced of the sincerity and veracity of her words, and played it that way. She said director and screenwriter Bergman never revealed one way or another the motivations of the characters, and, as an aside, this caused conflict between the two Bergmans since Ingrid had difficulty believing her character would utter some of her lines (she acquiesed eventually). 

Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman when they were
romantically involved.

At my movie discussion group's post-film conversation, we focused on Ullmann's revelation and what it said about how our perspective changes with time. Is Ullmann now seeing the two women's relationship through the lens of an older woman and mother, who despite being imperfect, tried to do her best by her children while juggling the demands of a career in the limelight? Is a daughter's bitterness related to feelings of inadequacy? Do memories of past hurts take on a disproportionate role in how we perceive our childhoods? Will a mother's guilt be magnified compared to other kinds of guilt? Some of us shared similar challenges in our own families, and the painful estrangements that sometimes resulted.  Bergman would likely have approved of our discussion, as according to Ullmann, he valued the importance of human connection and the need to prioritize relationships, themes that informed most of his films.

Coming back to her interview, Ullman shared a few other thoughts about making the film as well as her long career in the dramatic arts. On her relationship with Ingrid Bergman, Ullmann said, "I sat in quietness and admired her" when she clashed with director Bergman; in Ullmann's view, "you don't question the writer,"  and she felt sorry for Ingmar who was hurt at having his art questioned. When asked if she was most proud of her acting or directing career, she shared that her experience directing Cate Blanchett in a theatrical production of A Streetcar Named Desire was among her most rewarding. At the end of the afternoon, the audience rose to their feet to applaud Ullmann, and most likely grateful for the opportunity to share in this terrific cinematic experience.

Autumn Sonata is currently streaming, with extras, on Filmstruck.com.