Rating: 
Summary: Much Ado About Nothing
Review: Scenes from a Marriage is one of those movies that deserves an award (in addition to the ones it has already accumulated) for its status as one of the most overrated films in cinema history. Contrasted with Bergman's highest achievements (e.g., Persona, Cries and Whispers, Through a Glass Darkly, et al), Scenes seems surprisingly lifeless, unengaging, and meandering. I won't dance around the central criticism any longer than is necessary... This film is just simply a plodding bore.Emerging out of the 1970's tradition of living room dramas, in which the dreary psychologies of emotionally down and out middle class marriages are viewed under a (merciless) microscope, Scenes from a Marriage offers a reasonably icy (read, Bergmanesque) couple approaching the end of their marriage. Normally, this might be interesting, especially considering the fact that the female half of this couple is played by Liv Ullmann, Bergman regular and remarkable actress, but the characters are especially unsympathetic. After the nth "intimate" discussion/argument between husband and wife, the audience is left wondering why it cares about this self-absorbed duo of victimizer (husband) and only-too-willing victim (wife). Perhaps the ensuing decades have tempered the reaction to these two preposterously angst-filled egos, but I cannot help thinking after one hour (of this THREE hour cinematic spat), "You two solve this on your own, and leave me out of it." Discussion and argument after discussion and argument are, to say the least, the bread and butter of this film, and that might have been enough sustenance for someone not enamoured of car chases and bathroom humor (a la Hollywood) IF the characters had not been so sterile and uninvolving. As a postscript, I should point out that I am not venting my dislike for Ingmar Bergman's career as a whole through the review of this particular film. It is the ONLY Bergman film I have both seen and disliked (i.e., really, really hated).
Rating: 
Summary: An honest, probing look at the lives of two people in love
Review: Scenes From a Marriage presents a seemingly happily married couple heading toward crises. Their once simple life is thrown into shaos when the husband finds another woman. Through seperation, emotional torture, and future marriages their love for each other somehow survives with a deeper understanding of its power.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling drama with a brilliant performance by Liv Ullmann
Review: This begins slowly as a stage play might and continues as an "interview" seen on television and then suddenly springs like a trap and we are immersed in a compelling drama about people with longings and frustrations often felt but seldom expressed. As Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) watch their friends expose the sordid details of their failed marriage, they are quietly smug that they are different; especially it is Marianne who is proper and conventional, always alert to the necessities of propriety, and is so happy that their marriage, while not perfect, will last. And so it appears. And then we have the scene in which Johan tells her that he is in love with a younger woman. Her response is incredible tolerant and "understanding." She is generous and sad instead of wildly jealous. After a bit we see that this is a STRATEGY by Marianne. She is desperately trying to save her marriage. Even though she is faced with Johan's dull, almost absurdist indifference, she asks if she might help him pack his bags. This is a woman at thirty-five, when everything that means anything to her is suddenly threatened, and this is how she responds, with genius. Or, some might say, with madness. Marianne's tolerance of his behavior is stunning while Johan's insufferable arrogance and "worldly" understanding of himself makes us want to scream. Will her strategy work? What Bergman does that keeps us engrossed for the 170 minutes this film runs (edited from a six-part production made for Swedish TV) is he tells the truth. It's a Bergman truth, but it is a truth so beyond the contrivances and superficialities of most movies that we are fascinated. In this we experience the deep, unsentimental fascination for people that Bergman is famous for. In Liv Ullmann he found an actress (like his previous star protege, Bibi Andersson, who has a small part in this production), who could express that passion so that it could be felt by others. In the cinema that I most admire there is an intense collaboration between director and actor that is expressed in the performance. We see this in the work of Krzysztof Kieslowski and James Mangold and to a lesser extent in the work of Roman Polanski, Benoît Jacquot and Andre Techine, who first directed Juliette Binoche. But with Bergman there is a wider expression to include the experience of pathos and tragedy. The revelation of the woman in the fullest extent of her being is what Bergman strives for, and therefore we find in Bergman the kind of psychology characteristic of Shakespeare or Ibsen, in which the characters are fully fleshed and expressive of a wide range of human experience. I was pleased to see the photos of Liv Ullmann as a child and then as a little girl and then as a teen and then as a young woman worked into the film. She is so beautiful and wholesome in a distinct way, like no other actress, and yet I knew her in the ninth grade in the person of a girl with the same red hair and the same pink, freckled skin--or so I imagine...
Rating:
Summary: Amazing! One of Bergman's greatest: way ahead of its time!
Review: This Criterion edition is an absolute must-have for any fan of Ingmar Bergman's work. I have seen the 3-hour film version several times before, and felt it was superb, as most of Bergman's films are, but it faded for me in comparison with my favorites, "Persona", "Cries and Whispers", "The Silence", "Shame" and "Through a Glass Darkly". The 5-hour TV version, however, presented here for the first time in the US, is a revelation to me. It is startlingly contemporary. It is like seeing the film fresh, for the first time. I am struck by the naturalness of the acting of Bjornstrand and Ullman, giving astonishing performances, both in terms of nuance and intensity. At times, one forgets that they are acting, they so inhabit their gruelling roles. Liv Ullman is particularly great here, and photographed with luminous intensity by Nykvist, the master cinematographer. This is a woman who has her world shattered, and who responds to her changed circumstances in realistic stages: denial, anger, grief, rage, and finally acceptance. Also, I am struck by the way this particular film is the unacknowledged "grandfather" of independent contemporary film technique. A recent article in the New York Times on Dogme astonished me by the failure to even acknowledge Bergman's influence. Liv Ullman is spot-on in the interview when she notes that "Scenes from a Marriage" was Dogme filmaking 30 years ahead of Dogme, and that the often hand-held camera here moves with precision, versus the shallow, self-indulgent scattershot mess that is so tedious in the films of the Dogme filmmakers. In the five-hour TV version, one sees the film as it truly is, a groundbreaking, thoroughly engrossing masterpiece. Finally, it reminds us of how little we ask from our own TV movies in the US. This is a riveting, compelling, lacerating work, made with compassion and with a strong humanist understanding. Bergman didn't come to this spareness and austerity out some philisophical point of view, like Dogme has with its "manifesto". Instead, "Scenes from a Marriage" arrives at its technique out of Bergman's desire to get as close as he can with his camera to the faces, emotions, and flawed humanity of his characters. It was a process he began with "Persona" and which opens further in "The Passion", and which here is expanded out and relentlessly focused, like a pure, blue, Scandanavian flame.
Rating:
Summary: a radically emotional film experience.
Review: This DVD set includes both versions of Ingmar Bergman's minimalist epic SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE; the 3 hours cut for theatrical release, and the original 6 episodes (Mr.Bergman calls them "scenes") over 5 hours-TV series, in a beautifully restored High-Def master.
The film was shot in 16mm which is grainier than a 35mm film, and this High-Def transfer even represents the peculiar material textuality of the grain structure of a photographic film stock. Some DVD aficionados might object to this un-digital look, but that actually makes the film more soft, warm, and human. It actually looks better than 35mm release prints of the 3 hours version.
I first started to watch the TV series around midnight, thinking maybe I will watch just the first episode and go to bed, and would continue to watch one episode every night. What happened? I kept watching until 5 in the morning, and was so excited I didn't feel like going to bed so also watched the supplements. The next evening I watched the 3 hours theatrical cut, finishing it with a burning desire of going back to the TV series.
With the consistent strength of his works, as well as his high reputation lasting for the last fifty years, it is hard to realize that Ingmar Bergman is actually a very flexible filmmaker, whose career is marked with constant transformations of style and subject matter. But comparing his greatest films such as SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, MONIKA, THE SEVENTH SEAL, THE SILENCE, PERSONA, CRIES AND WHISPERS, AUTUMN SONATA and FANNY AND ALEXANDER, one should be surprised with the wide variety of his dramatic body of works which is constantly renewing itself.
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE is a radical film.
With Drier's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and Roberto Rossellini's VOYAGE IN ITALY, it is probably the most radically purest adventure in film history: What is the essence of cinema after all? These films seems to be saying, "it's the actors and their faces".
There are several key films among Bergman's works that mark drastic transformations of the filmmaker, and SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE probably represents the most important one. It is also, while being the most popular work in his career (legends say that during its original TV broadcast, the streets were deserted in Scandinavian cities), it is also the most radical example of Bergman's creative challenges as well as the purest example of his fundamental attitude towards filmmaking: his abstinent concentration in observing how human emotions express themselves. The most important element in a Berman film is always the actors; their body and especially their faces.
In most parts you only see the two actors: Erland Josephson and Liv Ulman. Because it was a very low budget project originally made for television, there's nothing spectacular or photogenic in the modest production design which is kept in a minimalist simplicity. It was modestly shot in 16mm 1:1.33 aspect ratio, with a deliberately muted color palette. These are ordinary people living surrounded with un-extraordinary interiors and wearing every-day clothes, like most of us.
The story that spans over ten years has no apparent plot point except maybe Johan the husband (Josephson) confessing to Marianne (Ulman) that he was having an affair: still a banal one comparing to most ex-marital affairs in movies that usually develops into fits of jalousie, murder, and so on. Marianne simply becomes devastated, as most wives probably would do. The most "dramatic" thing she does is...screaming on the phone.
But that minimalistic modesty doesn't prevent SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE from being extremely intriguing, exciting, sometimes funny, and keeping the audience's emotion and interest always closely hooked. The simple visual design opens the door to appreciate the subtle yet profound emotional human expressions that we probably won't realize if it were in a superficially dramatic settings. You just cannot stop watching it, being constantly amazed with the wide variety of faces Ulman and Josephson transforms themselves into, and gripped with the depth of feelings that they express through that.
This film has an almost hypnotic effect. From the first episode you start living with Johan and Marianne.
Perhaps if you are a man you'd start identifying with Johan and his suffocating feelings after 10 years of seemingly happy marriage with his seemingly perfect wife--as I did myself. Then you will be surprised at, after the divorce, the transformation of Marianne becoming more and more alive and attractive. At certain point you'll feel miserable with him. If you were a woman you'll start seeing their story from Marianne's point of view.
But the film itself never takes side. If the audience will see it from Johan's point of view, they will eventually have to recognize his failures and defaults and limitations. If the audience will see it identifying themselves to Marianne, they will have to see how stuck she is, trapped in her own ideas.
Nevertheless, it is not a depressing pessimistic film like Berman's pre 1970's films. Once you truly accept that nobody is perfect, the last episode will reveal that this minimalistic epic of a married life is actually Bergman's celebration on relationship, and that mysterious feeling we call love.
Just a warning: I have to confess that when I first saw SCENES OF A MARRIAGE as a teenager, with only very few experience in life and especially in relationships compared to now... well, I was totally bored, didn't get the film at all. There are nudities in the film but none of them were about sex. Johan and Marianne were not attractive at all and seemed to me just stupid. So some films requires the maturity of the audience's part to be really appreciated. Don't judge Bergman if you are still under 28! Buy this DVD but save it until you'd feel you are getting matured.
In 2004, Mr. Bergman went back to the couple Johan and Marianne, after 30 years of their separation: SARABAND. Now they have grand children. I hope this long-waited return of Bergman to filmmaking will also be soon availabe on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Brutality (A TRUE depiction of Marriage)
Review: This film is incredible. It is, however, a brutal one to watch (the intense arguments are too intense to watch at times, there is so much PAIN in this film). Its basic plot, as ridiculous as this sounds, is "husband and wife argue, then make up, then argue, then make up, then argue, then make up, and so on and so forth" or "husband and wife love eachother, then hate eachother, then love eachother, then hate eachother, then love eachother, etc." Yet in this back and forth plot, progress is made all the time. A couple who seemed SO perfect in the film's famous and brilliantly forboding opening interview sequence, begin to realize that they cannot go through life being a perfect married couple and still love eachother in the process. The incredibly well rounded characters we know at the beginning of the film, Johan and Marianne, are NOT the same characters we know at the end. The incredibly cocky and self-assured ("it would be too much to say that im bright, handsome, and sexy") Johan becomes the incredibly weak and humble Johan as the the film progresses, while the woman Marianne, who believed that she was put on this earth to be a good wife and mother, nothing more, becomes the confident Marianne, who realizes it is not at all a sin to have your own personality. In essence, the film chronicles the immense change of two people as they become farther from eachother. Basically, the point of the film, in my view anyway, is to show that Marianne and Johan love eachother SO MUCH that marriage only restricts this love. They get along BEAUTIFULLY (they really do, unlike while they were married, when they just SAID that they get along tremendously) in the last Scene, when they are finally divorced and remarried to different people. Bergman's point surely was to show that marriage can be a bad idea. Two people who love eachother a great deal just do not work well together when married. Love becomes second to the other obligations that come with marriage. Too much time is spent discussing finance, the children, work, and looking like the happy married couple than time spent actually loving one another. Indeed Bergman laugably blamed the film for an increase in divorce rates. It seems wrong, but he may well be right. Marriage is bad for love. There were some things I enjoyed a great deal about the film. Firstly, the dialogue. It was brilliant, as one would expect from Bergman. Witty, clever, and powerful words (the film is based around conversations) prevail. Secondly, much has been said of Sven Nykvist's camera work, and I must agree it is wonderful. His camera captures so much emotion from the actors, he often keeps his camera fixed on Liv Ullman's face as she, for example, hears of her husband's infidelity. reaction is more important in Scenes from a Marriage than action is. Thirdly, the ACTING was nothing short of astonishing. Bergman regular Liv Ullman's performance is the performance of a lifetime. There is a scene where she is in bed with her husband, who had just told her about his desire to leave her for another woman, Paula. As he says "I've always hated you, for several years, I've HATED you", Ullman's reaction is INTENSE. It's as if every word he says is like a knife that sticks in her side. It's a thing that comes on all too suddenly, a man who she thought loved her sits there saying it was a lie all along. She carries the performance beautifully. Erland Josephson is also VERY good in an obviously more difficult role. He plays a man who loses his self confidence, and he plays it well. Lastly, I loved Bergman's use of forshadowing. On your initial viewing, Johan's addmitance about Paula comes off as extremely shocking, however, if you go back, everything really forshadows the end of their marriage. We know something's up from the very beginning. There is this sense of tension and uncomfortableness, its as if, at times, they dont even love one another, they are just playing the parts of the perfect husband and wife. This is my favorite Bergman film of those which I have seen thusfar (others are Persona, Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, Hour of the Wolf, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and the Silence.) It is a very realistic approach to the concept of marriage, and shows the fact that married life is not all as good as it seems. This film will leave you breathless, if not lifeless. I recommend the SERIES rather than the film, there is even more intensity, and more characters and character developement. Arguments become intense. ONE WORD, and i am not joking, can strike your heart like a sword, just as it does to the characters in the film. It's always that one last thing someone said that they shouldn't have. It is INTENSE. I cannot reccomend this DVD enough! BANG UP JOB CRITERION!!!!!!!!! I love the inclusion of Both the series and the film, particularly the series, and the extras, though small in numbers, are GREAT in quality. The three interviews included arre very informative, and i could ask for nothing more. The insert booklet is very nice and very attractive, as is the entire package. The entire package, down to the menus, was very nicely designed. the menus are animated and fit the mood of the film very well. The image, though it could not be helped (it was shot for television), is kind of bad, So......... FILM: 10 STARS/ 10 STARS
DVD: 9 STARS/ 10 STARS One of the greatest films of ALL TIME, certainly one of my favorites, and one of Criterion's best releases hands down. BRILLIANT FILIM!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: The loneliness's cold !
Review: This is a painful and devastating portrait about a marriage immersed in a profound affective , emotive and existential crisis; in such state of disintegration there will be much more even.
Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson are superb throughout this intimate and merciless story.And despite the movie runs far the two hours and a half, you will not realize a bit due the spelling and absorbing dramatic structure.
A perfect gem of a five stars filmmaker. One of the ten giants directors in any age.
A mature, outstanding and major film.
Rating: 
Summary: a tale of marriage, divorce, remarriage, and adultery
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition.
"Scenes from a Marriage" known in Sweden as "Scener ur ett äktenskap" aired as a TV miniseries in Sweden and was shown internationally in a cut theatrical version. The Criterion DVD has both versions.
The story follows a man, Johann, his wife, Marianne, and their two children. Their childen are only seen at the very beginning of the feature but are mentioned throughout. The man and his wife are have guests over for dinner. The two guests are having marital problems which make the couple realize their own. Johann subsequently has an affair and leaves his wife. After the divorce is finalized Johann marries the woman he had an affair with. I don't want to mention more as it would be a spoiler.
I found it to show poor taste in attitudes toward marriage. it also leaves unanswered questions. Why did the couple not seek marriage counseling?
The film changed attitudes toward marriage in real life also. The film's producers mentioned that after the series aired that the divorce rate in Sweden increased significantly.
I think this series was an insult to marriage and protrays it in a light manner. I consider adultery and abuse to be the only reasonable grounds for divorce and I consider adultery and abuse to be a sin. Though the divorce in initiated because of an adulterous affair, it was the husband who initiated the divorce and had the affair.
The feature is released on a special edition 3 disc set.
Disc one contains episodes 1-3 of the series and an interview with Ingmar Bergman
Disc two contains episodes 4-6 of the series and an interview with Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson.
Disc three contains the theatrical version of the series and an interview with Peter Cowie who compares the TV and theatrical versions.
Fans of Ingmar Bergman's films will like this as will fans of soap operas.
Rating:
Summary: One of Bergman's best
Review: What a treat for the DVD world! This DVD include teh original 5-hour presentaion of Scenes from a Marriage and the original US version AND an interview with Ingmar Bergman! And it is worth every penny. Some might say that the film is too long. However, you must possess patience when watching one of Ingamr Bergman's films for he uses what is commonly unknown in the world of cinema today: pace. He makes time for the develpoment of his characters, he ensures that we see the changes that they go through, but what makes him a master of his craft is his ability to make his films viable and interesting every step of the way. The same is true for Scenes from a Marriage. He shows the disintergration of a marriage and the consequences it has on these two people. His characters are fragile and courageous, reasonable and irrational, but most importantly, they are human. Scenes from a Marraige is a great example of Ingmar Bergman's skill at work.
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