As we mentioned last week, BAM’s retrospective of ’70s icon Elliott Gould finished up this week (entitled “Elliott Gould: Star For An Uptight Age“) and last night we went to go see “The Touch,” the first ever English language film directed by the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (the second and last one was the Hollywood attempt, “The Serpent’s Egg,” which many erroneously report as his only English film; he passed away last year at the age of 89;).
“The Touch” (1971) is notable for many reasons, the aforementioned first language film fact being the first of many reasons. First off, last night’s screening was a rare treat; the film is barely ever shown and is not available on DVD. The scratchy print was from Gould’s personal collection that he personally lent to the Brooklyn film theater and – in the beginning at least – the film was incredibly un-Bergman-esque (Gould was also the first non-Scandinavian actor to ever work with Bergman).
Practically a comedy at the outset, the story about a seemingly happy Swedish housewife who begins an adulterous affair with an American friend and acquaintance of her husband, was replete with uncharacteristic Bergman moves; moving handheld camera, whip pans, montage sequences to Swedish pop music, jarring cuts. It made us think, “What have you done with Ingmar Bergman and who have you put in his place?” Wes Anderson would have really appreciated that first 20-30 minutes (the film soon becomes a bleak, tragic and sorrowful love story and we breathed a sigh of relief, ha).
The film is obviously close to Gould’s heart and he talked proudly about his experience working with Bergman recently in a radio interview with WNYC. “My theater career was very undeveloped and actually Ingmar Bergman had [written] about me [saying] I was ‘tragic.’ Not for the work that we did together, but for not doing classical work in relation to my natural gifts. And he published this in an article [called], ‘Shakespeare, Ibsen, Strindberg and O’Neil,’ and I was quite flattered.”
But contradictorily, “The Touch” is also notable because it’s a film that Bergman hated and was incredibly embarrassed by.
“I feel ashamed of or detest [only] a few of my films for various reasons. ‘This Can’t Happen Here’ was the first one; I completed it accompanied by violent inner opposition. The other is ‘The Touch.’ Both mark the very bottom for me,” Bergman once said.
Bergman was tortured about the idea from the very concept and never felt comfortable with the project. In a diary entry he wrote, “I’ve finished the screenplay, although not without a fair amount of inner resistance. I baptized it ‘The Touch.’ As good a name as any other. Now I’m going to take time off until August 3, when we begin the preparations in earnest. I feel depressed and ill at ease. I’d be happy to drop this film.”
Perhaps it was because it was part comedy, part tragedy (or at least comic once Gould got his hands on it), or perhaps it was because of the mix of languages – apparently there were two version of the same film made though one no longer apparently exists. “The intention was to shoot ‘The Touch’ in both English and Swedish. In an original version that doesn’t seem to exist anymore, English was spoken by those who were English-speaking and Swedish by those who were Swedes. I believe that it possibly was slightly less unbearable than the totally English-language version, which was made at the request of the Americans,” Bergman once wrote.
Needless to say, Bergman anguished over the film.”The story I bungled so badly was based on something extremely personal to me: the secret life of someone who loves becomes gradually the only real life and the real life becomes an illusion.”
The film also co-stars the great Bibi Andersson and the inimitable Max Von Sydow (two of Bergman’s persistent repertory players) and Bergman further beat himself up for convincing/manipulating Andersson to take the part even thought she instinctively knew it didn’t suit her. “I felt I needed a loyal friend in this foreign production. Besides, Bibi has a good command of English,” Bergman said. “The fact that she became pregnant after having accepted the part threw a terrible monkey wrench into what seemed, on the surface at least, a matter-of-fact, methodical production set. ‘Cries and Whispers’ began to make its way forward during this depressing period.” (The film received a disastrous reception at the Berlin Film Festival that year and was excoriated by Swedish journalists in attendance).
Elliott Gould would like you to note: A Village Voice article written by the normally-on-point J. Hoberman earlier this year stating that at the time of working on “The Touch,” Gould had never seen an Ingmar Bergman film, is incorrect. “That’s not true. I kind of appreciated the [Voice] article. [The writer] had a take about my being Jewish and how unlikely it was for me to breakthrough in film. No, I had seen several of his films.”
Gould had his reservations too though. When he got to page 22 in the script – a scene of violent sex – he got a headache and felt doubts. “I immediately got a migraine. I didn’t think I could expose myself mentally and emotionally… but I couldn’t just dismiss him.” Gould had Bergman call him and their conversation convinced Gould he should take the part. “Little did I know how far I was willing to go,” he said with a chuckle.
It’s an odd duck film, with weird and seemingly mis-matched tones, but it is a rarity and there’s never a dull moment – not something you can say about all of Bergman’s, sometimes glacially paced, films. It’s also quite moving and emotionally brutal too. “The Touch” was also one of Bergman’s first films in color and has an amazing auburn glow courtesy of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who would win his first Oscar the following year with Bergman’s “Cries & Whispers.” If you have the means, we recommend (it is so choice). If you live in New York and missed the Elliott Gould retrospective, kick yourself now.
the touch is better the second day. has definitely stayed with me.
What I found so interesting, when you juxtapose a majority of the films in the retrospective…was just how out of his element Gould was in this picture.
For the three films with Altman, and I suppose in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" and "Busting", Gould played it loose, the comedy came from him naturally, I think he even referred to himself when he was at BAM for "The Long Goodbye" as a "jazz actor", a perfect way to describe his alley-cat-like style.
I think when "The Touch" begins, they’re a few instances of this “jazz” style, but when it shifts, and it certainly does, it’s too jarring for the audience to allow us to follow the picture any further. The fault shouldn’t all be placed on Gould, there are weird tonal shifts throughout, but one can’t help but notice just how ill-fitted he is for this role. The swing it requires in character and attitude, up to that point, they’re was no indication in his work Gould was ready for.
Having been a huge fan of Elliot for a long time now, I am glad I finally get to see this film and understand where he was coming from when he spoke about how affecting “The Touch” was for him, both in his career and life.
Nice post dude, srsly. Great points (and yes, jazz style in ‘Goodbye,’ perf!)
IL TOUCH DI BIBI ANDERSSON
di V.S.Gaudio
"La ricerca aleatoria di altri frammenti semantici permette al poeta di rinvenire un altro elemento eclatante in questa specularità con Bibi Anderson : il fatto che nel 1971, anno di nascita della ragazza di Göteborg, Bibi Andersson giri con Bergman negli Usa il film The Touch[o: Beroringen], che noi conosciamo nella versione di “L’adultera”, che, in questa ricostruzione semantica, non solo ricostruisce parte della forma segreta dell’Altro, ma fotografa, nella sua immediatezza sintagmatica, la circostanza, la contestualizzazione scenografica dei sensi, in cui l’altro ha detenuto in un sol istante tutto ciò che non ci sarà mai dato di sapere: “Touch” è tatto, tocco, colpetto, dettaglio, contatto, sfumatura; come “to touch” è toccare e “touch off” fare esplodere, provocare, schizzare, e così è lo svedese “Beroringen” .
E’ questo dettaglio dunque che fa abbinare Bibi Andersson alla ragazza di Göteborg: questo tocco, questa densità del toccare, questa qualità frattale, somatognostica, si potrebbe dire, del touch off; che, regola della seduzione, è segreto in questa artificialità terrificante, perché circoscritta, e ancor più folgorante, evidente, per come fa irruzione, sotto forma di un segno, di un gesto, di una forma, allora sul treno, e di una parola, di un titolo di un film, che connette dati, incisi sintagmatici della sequenza, punti temporali, adesso che il poeta cerca di definire in questo tempo in cui l’analemma esponenziale passa al meridiano quella alterità sovrana e fatale della ragazza di Göteborg."(da: V.S.Gaudio, La ragazza di Goteborg, copyright 2006;vedi anche:V.S.Gaudio, Il fantasma che allunga le gambe verso il poeta, in "www.lunarionuovo.it"n.30, gennaio 2009).
“The Touch” by Ingmar Bergman (1971) is a film about how the very experience of personal love can heal emotional trauma. Lover as a psychotherapist is not an easy role – in passionate love there is not enough distance for disinterested observation and understanding. But Karin (Bibi Andersson) is able to do the impossible – she transforms the very area of love between two into a magic point of sharing wisdom through her enduring and inexhaustible vulnerability. Her love toward her younger partner in existential encounter is a model of psychological wholeness – it includes romantic, sexual, motherly, purely emotional and intellectual aspects in tune with one another. Bergman demonstrates that sometimes separation of lovers is a victory of love, not a defeat. “The Touch” is Bergman’s “Hiroshima Mon Amour” – another film about personal love as psychotherapy.
After finishing watching this film you again and again return to the meaning of the characters’ actions and emotions and the film’s visual symbolism, and understand more about their personalities and human life as an incredibly rich and beautiful philosophical drama. Please, visit http://www.actingpitpolitics to read articles about Bergman’s “Through Glass Darkly” (with analysis of shots from the film), and also analysis of films by Godard, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Alain Tanner, Resnais, Pasolini, Cavani, Bertolucci and Fassbinder.
BY Victor Enyutin