To Joy

Ingmar Bergman's seventh film, To Joy, is actually a fairly bitter film, more often than not, in looking at the destructiveness of a marriage between two people who somehow got stuck with each other to fall in love. And yet there are some moments that are quite joyful, or at least in the terms that Bergman will allow from time to time, and they help ring this as less a total work of despair than an examination of 'average' people who can't stand not having more. Stig (Stig Olin) and Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson) meet as they're both musicians in an orchestra conducted by Sönderby (Victor Sjostrom).

She's the only woman in the orchestra, but it's not exactly that they have love at first sight in the slightest. Their connection grows following a party where Stig gets drunk and makes a depressing grandstanding fool of himself in front of friends, and somehow his downbeat manner is charming to Marta. Soon they grow closer, even fall in love perhaps, though their future marriage is complicated by Marta becoming pregnant. This scene, when she reveals it three months on to Stig, is the first real crack in the relationship. It only cracks more, with the occasional patch-up, and the question stands more or less- as Stig is looking back on the relationship following his wife and one of his child's deaths- is what could have come from all of this?

Bergman deals with his characters, at this stage in his career, in trying to just find the simple and really not very simple truths of what Stig and Marta are together and separate. For the first half it almost looks like Stig is a bit too two-dimensional, particularly for a Bergman film (and Olin doesn't play him extremely well, even if he does deliver the beats fairly well, perhaps in line with his own character's inadequacies). He can't seem to enjoy anything that he does because he always wants more, to be a supreme soloist, than to have what he already has gotten. Marta, on the other hand, after having several potential men before going with Stig, tries her best to cope with having two kids that she probably wasn't totally thrilled to have in the first place.

There's a great little scene where Sanderby recounts walking in on Stig and Marta after having some kind of odd tender moment (as well as later on after having a quarrel), without them noticing Sanderby walk in, and the expression still underneath their faces when he formally walks in. In typical Bergman fashion we see the disintegration of a relationship (quite a brutal argument in bed really, more of emotional violence than physical), even if the sort of 'patching-up' period towards the end is a little weaker than what's come before.

So on the one hand there is this aspect, the drama of two people having a constant push-and-pull tie that binds them through Stig's delusions of grandeur and self-pity and fear manifesting in other forms (notably into the arms of another woman) and Marta's own semi-helplessness, which is very good, if imperfect, as classic Bergman storytelling. On the other hand it's also one of the best examples of classical music being used as incidental music: there's not exact musical score like if we hear music accompanying the characters giving the emotional cues during an argument scene or when Sanderby offers advice or gets irritated at Stig, but rather the music of Sanderby's orchestra (and Sjostrom, I might add, is pitch-perfect in the role of the weathered and brilliant second-banana conductor) fills in the spaces at times of the emotional context.

Probably the most successful, and joyful, scene is when Stig finds out Marta has the baby, by running out quick during a rehearsal, the music going along as he's on the phone, then continuing as he sits back down, and as Sanderby asks quietly of one musician who asks another to another to Stig what happened, as the music plays on. This, plus the second greatest cinematic interpretation of Beethoven's 9th symphony 4th movement in a climax (the first being Clockwork Orange), make To Joy worth seeing all by itself, if only for Beethoven fans.

As one of the several films included on the recently released Eclipse DVD series, To Joy will appeal to fans of Bergman's knack at telling of characters in shattered, honest romance, and to those looking for some classical music bliss and have seen The Magic Flute or Autumn Sonata too many times.

When you set up shop and form a marriage, you need to acquire a rather large carriage, to shackle yourselves to, and fill it with you, just make sure you've got plenty of storage. Now your carriage will have many seals, but occasionally these become unpeeled, you'll both try and unpick, then resolutely re-stick, as you turn it into a big wheal. Far too often the damage is done, and the carriage just runs out of fun, so you fill it with distraction, which leads to inaction, the start of the end has begun. This all happened to Stig and to Marta, but they managed to find a big plaster, until one fateful day, something got in the way, with a carriage derailing disaster.

There are some things you can't foresee but they usually result because of a lack of vision.

This seems to be a deeply personal work for Bergman, and it's interesting that the backdrop to the story is classical music. We get extended sequences of an orchestra practicing or performing, and the music exudes a feeling of being grand, joyful, perfect, and immortal, whereas by contrast the lives of these characters are small, sad, flawed, and fleeting. It's hard to know how much of the story is Bergman flagellating himself for the failure of his second marriage and his inadequacies as a young artist, but regardless, I love the film for its raw honesty, and for showing the husband to be the childish, insecure, and selfish one in this couple's marriage. They both seem to seek authenticity and meaning early on in their relationship, and start off their marriage promising to be honest and kind to one another, but inevitably things deteriorate, the entropy of which is (in various forms) a recurring theme in Bergman's work.

I loved the shot on the boy at the end, it's powerful, but in the overall scene, I would have preferred an even more somber sequence amidst that soaring music. (It's hard to believe I'm saying I would have preferred something being more somber in a Bergman film, so I hope that's not saying more about me than I'm saying about the film, hehe) Anyway, it was wonderful to see legendary director Victor Sjöström as the cranky orchestra conductor, just as he'd appear later for Bergman in 'Wild Strawberries,' and look for Bergman himself in a cameo in the doctor's office.

A few quotes: Bergman seemingly through Stig (Stig Eriksson): "I'll tell you the secret of real art. It's created when you're unhappy. I prefer being unhappy. God knows it's the state I usually find myself in."

And maybe Bergman through Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson): "There's so much misery, laziness, and indifference, in body and in mind. In the end you don't believe in anything. You think that's just how it is. That's the whole meaning. (Stig: There doesn't have to be a meaning.) Yes there does. If there isn't, you make you one up. Otherwise you can't go on living."

And lastly this one, Bergman on music in 1960: "I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence. Ever since childhood, music has been my great source of recreation and stimulation, and I often experience a film or play musically."

Stig and Marta are two young musicians playing together in a Swedish orchestra. They meet, they fall in love and they get married. If this synopsis leaves you expecting a romantic film, you'll be disappointed to find out a rough, realistic, yet very sentimental piece of art.

In this film, Bergman uses a quite interesting storytelling method that works really effectively. Although the way their marriage ends is revealed to us in the opening sequence making the rest of the film a flashback (a technique with which Bergman is already familiar with), when the movie reaches its final scene, one can't help but be extremely moved by the way things end up.

Once again, the performances are great and it is clear that these actors open up their own private world for all of us to see, and they can do that simply because they feel comfortable with a director like Bergman. They know they are in safe hands. Victor Sjostrom definitely steals the show (and Bergman will work with him again in Wild Strawberries), but it is the face of Maj-Britt Nilsson (Marta) that will remain in your mind for a long time.

Already in these early films of his, the Swedish master shows his love for close-ups. He likes to diminish the distance between the audience and the actors, especially their faces, sharing the belief that not only their eyes, but also the texture of their skin can reveal to us a whole lot of things about the characters. After all, close ups are one of the great advantages of cinema that have ultimately become one of the most characteristic building blocks of this art form, and Bergman working simultaneously in the theatre, is very much aware of that. Although the extreme close ups are easier to notice and admire, Bergman has also a great arsenal of shots and camera movements that so easily uses in this film. The shots of the orchestra performing either from high above or through the musicians, shows a camera that can move constantly but also in a discreet and, one could say, abstract way. He also proves to be very capable with mise-en-scene, as deep-focus long takes are used in several scenes.

The use of music is also notable, as you will definitely see for yourselves in the remarkable montage sequence in the ending. Classical music is of course common in the director's filmography, but it follows certain stages that are worth mentioning. In his first period, in which "To Joy" is definitely included, Bergman uses pieces performed by large orchestras, grandiose in a way. And it's certainly no coincidence that in these films, a great number of characters are used for narrative purposes (surely Stig are Marta are in the foreground, but there's also the conductor, Sonderby, the mistress and her old husband, Marcel and a few others). But from early 60's on, begins a period in which Bergman uses music of a smaller scale (especially string quartets) and in these films very few characters are introduced to us and, very often, in an isolated place (e.g. Through a Glass Darkly, Silence, Persona).

If you watch carefully this film, you will see many signs of what Ingmar Bergman is going to evolve to. His dramatic approach in human relationships and his effort to capture those moments between two heartbeats, between two lovers. But also his realistic point of view, especially when it comes to marriage (as Scenes From a Marriage a good 20 years after will confirm). A very good film.

Ingmar Bergman has rapidly become one of my favourite and most admired directors. He did go on to better things than To Joy and his other early films, but a lot of promise can be seen here. The characters are not as dimensional or compelling in their realism, like in the best of Bergman's films, Marta can be seen as too perfect and Stig is not an easy person to like at all. However, the acting is very good. Stig Olin and Maj-Brit Nilsson give strong performances but Victor Sjostrom gives the best performance. As ever with Bergman, To Joy is superbly directed, while the script is thoughtful and the film itself is beautifully shot. The story is intriguing and paced well, and there are some good themes that are well done they were written even more compellingly in Bergman's later films. The music is amazing and utilised beautifully. Overall, one of the better Bergman films if not among his better overall ones. 8/10 Bethany Cox