The Serpent's Egg Germany-US (1978): Drama 120 min, Rated R, Color, Available on videocassette Set in Berlin in 1923, this Ingmar Bergman film, made in English in Munich, is about a Jewish-American trapeze artist (David Carradine) and his sister-in-law (Liv Ullmann), who are entrapped by a mad doctor (Heinz Bennent)--a prophet who dreams of what the Nazis will accomplish in the 30s. The movie, which fills the screen with images of fear and blood, of head-splitting pain and death, and then throws in gothic political theories, is a crackpot tragedy. Everything is strained, insufficient, underfelt. Cinematography by Sven Nykvist. For a more extended discussion, see Pauline Kael's book When the Lights Go Down.
Set in Berlin in 1923, this Ingmar Bergman film, made in English in Munich, is about a Jewish-American trapeze artist (David Carradine) and his sister-in-law (Liv Ullmann), who are entrapped by a mad doctor (Heinz Bennent)--a prophet who dreams of what the Nazis will accomplish in the 30s. The movie, which fills the screen with images of fear and blood, of head-splitting pain and death, and then throws in gothic political theories, is a crackpot tragedy. Everything is strained, insufficient, underfelt. Cinematography by Sven Nykvist. For a more extended discussion, see Pauline Kael's book When the Lights Go Down.
I don't understand what "20-20 hindsight means." Isn't the attempt to understand history always done with 20-20 hindsight? Vincent Canby of the New York Times was also bewildered by the film but was hesitant to atack it outright because it was Bergman. He thought that there was a possibility that he didn't understand it. I don't have access to the Time's archives any more so I can't link to it. I don't know if Bergman's earlier films are available today; if they are perhaps you would like to moderate a discussion on them in autumn. Hey, Grandma Moses started late!
I don't any survivors from the Nazi period, but in Russia it isn't hard to find an old grandma who has girlish memories of the Stalin era, and it looked like nothing. In the boondocks, nothing but scarcity and boredom, and in Moscow, the Bolshoi and the Moscow Art Theatre still playing Chekhov.
I think Kael meant that Bergman used 20-20 hindsight to make everything a lot more obvious than it really was, and that's how I saw it, too. "Dodo" means "doodoo" in Hungarian.
"If I had created the city of my dreams, a city that does not exist and never has, and yet manifests itself acutely with smells and loud sounds, if I had created that city, not only would I have been moving in it with total freedom and an absolute sense of belonging but also, more important, I would have brought the audience with me into an alien but secretly familiar world. In The Serpent's Egg, however, I ventured into a Berlin that nobody recognized, not even I." -- Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern
The Nazis were elected to power on March 5th 1933, but Hitler did not gain absolute power until he succeeded in passing the Enabling act on March 23rd. Jewish leaders worldwide, in combination with powerful Jewish international financiers immediately launched a boycott of Germany with the express purpose of crippling its already precarious economy, such that the London Daily Express newspaper carried the headline Judea Declares War on Germany - Jews of all the world unite in action the following day (Friday March 24th 1933). This rendered Jews living in Germany 'aliens', and so there began state-sponsored antisemitic persecution which became progressively harsher so that, by 1938, Jews had been almost completely excluded from German social and political life.
As well as I can remember The Serpent's Egg, it actually shows a back-lit serpent's egg with the outline of all its adult shape already visible.
That's a line spoken by the mad doctor, not an image... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Vincent Canby of the New York Times was also bewildered by the film but was hesitant to atack it outright because it was Bergman. He thought that there was a possibility that he didn't understand it. I don't have access to the Time's archives any more so I can't link to it.
In this review he doesn't say he doesn't understand it, he 's very clear and damning; he was not so much "bewildered" by it, as very disappointed:
"The Serpent's Egg" is the darkest, most barren Bergman film since "Shame," and the windiest, most banal since "The Touch," ... It is Bergman's point that Abel and Manuela, in this week in which they attempt to survive in Berlin, witness the "nesting" of the serpent's egg, the embryo that 10 years later will hatch Hitler, the Nazis, the holocaust, World War II and all the evils we know eventually to have come forth. The audience, unfortunately, is way ahead of the movie's political forecast, which might not be fatal if Bergman's characters provided any particular insights, or interest. They don't. ... Mostly, "The Serpent's Egg" is a movie of beautifully photographed weather and handsome period sets and costumes that encase characters who remain as anonymous as the bodies in a morgue. It's dead. NYT
"The Serpent's Egg" is the darkest, most barren Bergman film since "Shame," and the windiest, most banal since "The Touch," ...
It is Bergman's point that Abel and Manuela, in this week in which they attempt to survive in Berlin, witness the "nesting" of the serpent's egg, the embryo that 10 years later will hatch Hitler, the Nazis, the holocaust, World War II and all the evils we know eventually to have come forth.
The audience, unfortunately, is way ahead of the movie's political forecast, which might not be fatal if Bergman's characters provided any particular insights, or interest. They don't. ...
Mostly, "The Serpent's Egg" is a movie of beautifully photographed weather and handsome period sets and costumes that encase characters who remain as anonymous as the bodies in a morgue. It's dead.
NYT
I have to say I agree with Canby, and Roger Ebert:
Bergman strains for impact, giving us scenes obviously meant to be forewarnings of the Nazi genocide, the death camps, and their witch doctors. He looks emptiness in the face, and it outstares him. He hurls himself at this material, using excesses of style and content we've never seen from him before, but the subject defeats him. Maybe that's what he's admitting at the end, when the narrator remarks that the Carradine character "escaped from his police escort on the way to the train station, disappeared, and was never seen or heard from again." A frustrating ending for a sterile film. Ebert
Bergman strains for impact, giving us scenes obviously meant to be forewarnings of the Nazi genocide, the death camps, and their witch doctors. He looks emptiness in the face, and it outstares him. He hurls himself at this material, using excesses of style and content we've never seen from him before, but the subject defeats him. Maybe that's what he's admitting at the end, when the narrator remarks that the Carradine character "escaped from his police escort on the way to the train station, disappeared, and was never seen or heard from again." A frustrating ending for a sterile film.
Ebert
The majority of critics listed on Rotten tomatoes also panned it - it got 18% approval.
Despite reservations, having read some negative things about the film when you first suggested it, I dutifully bought the DVD and hoped there might be redeeming things in it. There weren't, it was generally tedious, melodramatic at times and had nothing new or interesting to say about the period. Very sad, since films like 7th Seal and Wild Strawberries are amongst my favourite films. This egg is decidedly off :-)
Fortunately I viewed it first, so I now have the pleasure (and relief) of viewing Cabaret again. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
Full url: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F01E3DF1E3EE632A25754C2A9679C946990D6CF Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
But, most telling, I would have thought, is that Bergman himself thinks it was a failure, but he values the experience of making it as a "learning experience":
It didn't hit me until much later - The Serpent's Egg was a substantial failure. I made myself immune to the rather tepid reaction from the critics. I remained optimistic, refusing to see the film what it was. After the film release, my life began to calm down; then I painfully realized the serious extent of my failure. Still, I do not regret for a moment making The Serpent's Egg; it was a healthy learning experience. Ingmar Bergman in Images http://www.ingmarbergman.se/page.asp?guid=9985262E-C8C2-4851-92F2-4CFDE0D11CFB
It didn't hit me until much later - The Serpent's Egg was a substantial failure. I made myself immune to the rather tepid reaction from the critics. I remained optimistic, refusing to see the film what it was. After the film release, my life began to calm down; then I painfully realized the serious extent of my failure. Still, I do not regret for a moment making The Serpent's Egg; it was a healthy learning experience.
Ingmar Bergman in Images
http://www.ingmarbergman.se/page.asp?guid=9985262E-C8C2-4851-92F2-4CFDE0D11CFB
http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/serpents_egg/?sortby=source&critic=columns
and Bergman's own view - do you think he was wrong that it was a failure ? Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
do you think he was wrong that it was a failure ?
Of course I think he was wrong. that's the whole point of this diary. Hey, Grandma Moses started late!
But of course this isn't science - one cant' prove it's mistaken; if you got something from it, good for you. But in considering its general quality, it seems wise to take into account the film-maker's own opinion, if not the opinions of the majority of film critics. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
