I recently watched an interview with
Ingmar Bergman about his film
Cries and Whispers. I found it fascinating and deeply moving as Bergman gives us a glimpse into his creative process. When the film was released, many of the original French critics for
Cahiers du Cinéma, like Jean-Luc Godard, mentioned the powerful affect of the director's use of colors, especially red and white. During the interview, Bergman said he had a vivid dream that was predominately in red. After several repetitions of the dream, he knew it was time to make a film.
At this point, I can't help straying to Herman Melville's novel,
Moby-Dick. I respectfully ask readers without interest in this topic to indulge me, or just skip it. There's a passage near the opening of
Moby-Dick where the protagonist, 'Ishmael,' has a powerful feeling that I can only describe as a mixture of depression and violent desperation. He knew from this feeling that it was time for him to go to sea. In psychological terms, going to sea represents a return to the unconscious. Jungian theory states that this inward journey is necessary for spiritual renewal and rebirth.
In a similar sense, Bergman's dream was a signal to begin creating by going inward to explore his dream's meaning. He needed to explore his unconscious mind for material that he could mould into art--no easy task. Another fascinating comment in the interview was Bergman's description of how the title came about. He was speaking to a friend about a beautiful piece of music by Mozart. He friend said it sounded like cries and whispers. Then, Bergman went into the close relationship between film and music. He even went so far as to assert that they're one and the same! I never heard a creative film director make such a bold, unorthodox statement. At that point, I realized that Bergman was a genius and probably a mystic.
I saw
Cries and Whispers at a movie theater when I was in my 20s. I found the movie to be so filled with pain, that I've been afraid to watch it again. A college professor friend of mine told me that he couldn't watch Bergman at all. He found him too depressing. I once read that the poet John Keats couldn't read Shakespeare's
King Lear a second time. It just caused him too much pain.
Perhaps I should watch
Cries and Whispers again. I feel like a completely different person from that 20 something young man.