Summer Interlude
Encyclopedia
Summer Interlude is a 1951 Swedish film co-written and directed by Ingmar Bergman
.
she is unexpectedly sent the diary of her first love; a college-boy called Henrik (Malmsten) whom she met and fell in love with while visiting her Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Erland's house on a summer vacation thirteen years before. With the cancellation of the dress rehearsal until the evening Marie takes a boat across to the island where she conducted her relationship with Henrik and remembers their playful and carefree relationship.
Three days before the end of the summer when Henrik is to return to college and Marie to the theatre, Henrik falls and suffers injuries that result in his death after diving from a cliff face. Her Uncle Erland, not actually her relation but a friend and admirer of Marie's mother and now similarly smitten with Marie, takes her away for the winter and helps her to "put up a wall" to lessen the pain of losing her lover and effectively close her off emotionally. While visiting Erland's house she discovers that it was him who sent the diary to her at the theatre; he has had it ever since the day at the hospital when Henrik died from his injuries. She expresses regret and disgust that she ever allowed Erland to touch her, suggesting he took advantage of her grief and they had an affair following Henrik's death.
Following the evening dress rehearsal she talks with the ballet master, who recognises her single minded devotion to her dancing and understands her problems, and then her current lover, a journalist called David, who she appears to be in the process of breaking up with. Marie decides to let David read Henrik's diary and then open up to him about her past experiences to explain her conflicted feelings and emotional coldness. After he has left she removes her make up and as she does so regains some of her lost youth and innocence, smiling again and pulling faces in the mirror. The film concludes during the successful first performance where we see Marie meeting David, now more understanding of Marie's past, in the wings. She happily kisses him and returns to the stage to finish the ballet.
as a primary location. The animated sequence was made by Rune Andréasson
, who would later become well known in Sweden for the cartoon Bamse
.
); idyllic, youthful romance and the eventual loss of innocence (Summer with Monika
), a loss of faith in God (Winter Light
) as well as specific details fully expanded later; Henrik and Marie pick wild strawberries
together, and Henrik's dying Aunt plays chess with a priest who states he visits her to better know death, which prefiguring the famous chess match between a knight and Death himself in The Seventh Seal
. Visually there is also Bergman's frequently seen use of beautiful fluid black and white cinematography with slow cross fades.
Bergman said of his film in 1971, "I had always felt technically crippled—insecure with the crew, the cameras, the sound equipment—everything. Sometimes a film succeeded, but I never got what I wanted to get. But in Summer Interlude, I suddenly felt that I knew my profession." He wrote in the critical study Bergman on Bergman, "For me Summer Interlude is one of my most important films. Even though to an outsider it may seem terribly passé, for me it isn't. This was my first film in which I felt I was functioning independently, with a style of my own, making a film all my own, with a particular appearance of its own, which no one could ape. It was like no other film. It was all my own work. Suddenly I knew I was putting the camera on the right spot, getting the right results; that everything added up. For sentimental reasons, too, it was also fun making it."
"There are five or six films in the history of the cinema which one wants to review simply by saying, 'It is the most beautiful of films.' Because there can be no higher praise... I love Summer Interlude." Jean Luc Godard, Cahiers du Cinéma, (July 1958).
"Bergman found his style in this film, and it is regarded by cinema historians not only as his breakthrough but also as the beginning of 'a new, great epoch in Swedish films.' Many of the themes (whatever one thinks of them) that Bergman later expanded are here: the artists who have lost their identities, the faces that have become masks, the mirrors that reflect death at work. But this movie, with its rapturous yet ruined love affair, also has a lighter side: an elegiac grace and sweetness." Pauline Kael
"Outstanding—film making at its best." Variety
"This is the picture that established Ingmar Bergman's international reputation. Although it still deals with the theme of young love that dominated his earliest films, it contains the first inklings of the dramatic intensity and structural complexity that would characterise his more mature work ****." Radio Times
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
.
Synopsis
Marie (Nilsson) is a successful but emotionally distant prima ballerina in her late twenties. During a problem-filled dress rehearsal day for a production of the ballet Swan LakeSwan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
she is unexpectedly sent the diary of her first love; a college-boy called Henrik (Malmsten) whom she met and fell in love with while visiting her Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Erland's house on a summer vacation thirteen years before. With the cancellation of the dress rehearsal until the evening Marie takes a boat across to the island where she conducted her relationship with Henrik and remembers their playful and carefree relationship.
Three days before the end of the summer when Henrik is to return to college and Marie to the theatre, Henrik falls and suffers injuries that result in his death after diving from a cliff face. Her Uncle Erland, not actually her relation but a friend and admirer of Marie's mother and now similarly smitten with Marie, takes her away for the winter and helps her to "put up a wall" to lessen the pain of losing her lover and effectively close her off emotionally. While visiting Erland's house she discovers that it was him who sent the diary to her at the theatre; he has had it ever since the day at the hospital when Henrik died from his injuries. She expresses regret and disgust that she ever allowed Erland to touch her, suggesting he took advantage of her grief and they had an affair following Henrik's death.
Following the evening dress rehearsal she talks with the ballet master, who recognises her single minded devotion to her dancing and understands her problems, and then her current lover, a journalist called David, who she appears to be in the process of breaking up with. Marie decides to let David read Henrik's diary and then open up to him about her past experiences to explain her conflicted feelings and emotional coldness. After he has left she removes her make up and as she does so regains some of her lost youth and innocence, smiling again and pulling faces in the mirror. The film concludes during the successful first performance where we see Marie meeting David, now more understanding of Marie's past, in the wings. She happily kisses him and returns to the stage to finish the ballet.
Cast
- Maj-Britt NilssonMaj-Britt NilssonMaj-Britt Nilsson was a Swedish movie actress of the 1940s and 1950s.Nilsson was born in Stockholm and trained at the drama school of the Royal Dramatic Theater there...
– Marie - Birger MalmstenBirger MalmstenBirger Malmsten was a Swedish actor. He had many roles in Ingmar Bergman's movies.-Selected filmography:*It Rains on Our Love *A Ship to India *Music in Darkness *Eva...
– Henrik - Alf KjellinAlf KjellinAlf Kjellin was a Swedish film actor and director, who also appeared on some television shows.He was well established as a film actor when he occasionally took on roles in television shows. For example in 1965 he prominently guest-starred as Stalag Luft Kommandant Col...
– David Nyström - Annalisa EricsonAnnalisa EricsonAnnalisa Ericson was a Swedish actress best known for her roles in 58 Swedish movies between 1930 and 1991....
– Kaj, Ballet Dancer - Georg FunkquistGeorg FunkquistGeorg Funkquist was a Swedish film actor. He was born in Uppsala, Sweden and died in Stockholm.-Selected filmography:* Hem från Babylon * Kvinnan bakom allt * Summer Interlude...
– Uncle Erland - Stig OlinStig OlinStig Olin was a Swedish actor, theatre director, songwriter and singer. Father of actress Lena Olin and Swedish singer Mats Olin...
– Ballet Master - Mimi PollakMimi PollakMaria Helena "Mimi" Pollak was a Swedish actress and theatre director.- Mini biography :Maria Helena Pollak was born in Hammarö, Värmland to Austrian-Jewish parents and was trained in the performing arts at the prestigious Dramatens elevskola in Stockholm 1922-24.Pollak worked in the 1920s and...
– Mrs. Calwagen, Henrik's aunt - Renée BjörlingRenée BjörlingRenée Björling was a Swedish film actress. She was born in Lovö, Sweden and died in Täby.-Selected filmography:* Summer Interlude * Summer with Monika * A Lesson in Love * Dreams...
– Aunt Elisabeth - Gunnar Olsson – The Priest
Production
The film was shot between 3 April and 18 June 1950 with DalaröDalarö
Dalarö is a locality situated in Haninge Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 1,190 inhabitants in 2005.It is situated south-east of Stockholm and is part of Metropolitan Stockholm and serves as a recreational summer spot for Stockholmers...
as a primary location. The animated sequence was made by Rune Andréasson
Rune Andréasson
Rune Herbert Emanuel Andréasson was a Swedish comic creator.Andréasson has created children's comics since 1944, mainly for the Swedish market, but his works have been published in several European nations...
, who would later become well known in Sweden for the cartoon Bamse
Bamse
Bamse – Världens starkaste björn is a Swedish cartoon created by Rune Andréasson. The highly popular children's cartoon first emerged as a series of television short films as well as a weekly half page Sunday strip in 1966, before being published periodically in its own comic magazine since...
.
Themes and commentary
Many of Bergman's stylistic and conceptual themes were established in this early work, including the elegiac setting of summer (Smiles of a Summer NightSmiles of a Summer Night
Smiles of a Summer Night a.k.a. Smiles on a Summer Night is a 1955 Swedish comedy film directed by Ingmar Bergman. It was the first of Bergman's films to bring the director international success, due to its exposure at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival...
); idyllic, youthful romance and the eventual loss of innocence (Summer with Monika
Summer with Monika
Summer with Monika is a 1953 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. It sparked controversy abroad for its frank depiction of nudity, and along with the film One Summer of Happiness from the year before, directed by Arne Mattsson, it started the reputation of Sweden as a sexually liberated...
), a loss of faith in God (Winter Light
Winter Light
Winter Light is a 1962 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Bergman regulars Gunnar Björnstrand, Ingrid Thulin and Max von Sydow. The film follows Tomas Ericsson , pastor of a small rural Swedish church, as he deals with existential crisis and his...
) as well as specific details fully expanded later; Henrik and Marie pick wild strawberries
Wild Strawberries (film)
Wild Strawberries is a 1957 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, about an old man recalling his past. The original Swedish title is Smultronstället, which literally means "the wild strawberry patch", but idiomatically means an underrated gem of a place...
together, and Henrik's dying Aunt plays chess with a priest who states he visits her to better know death, which prefiguring the famous chess match between a knight and Death himself in The Seventh Seal
The Seventh Seal
The Seventh Seal is a 1957 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death , who has come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play...
. Visually there is also Bergman's frequently seen use of beautiful fluid black and white cinematography with slow cross fades.
Bergman said of his film in 1971, "I had always felt technically crippled—insecure with the crew, the cameras, the sound equipment—everything. Sometimes a film succeeded, but I never got what I wanted to get. But in Summer Interlude, I suddenly felt that I knew my profession." He wrote in the critical study Bergman on Bergman, "For me Summer Interlude is one of my most important films. Even though to an outsider it may seem terribly passé, for me it isn't. This was my first film in which I felt I was functioning independently, with a style of my own, making a film all my own, with a particular appearance of its own, which no one could ape. It was like no other film. It was all my own work. Suddenly I knew I was putting the camera on the right spot, getting the right results; that everything added up. For sentimental reasons, too, it was also fun making it."
Critical response
"Ingmar Bergman's method of making film is miraculous.... He belongs to a handful here and there in the world who are now discovering the future articulation of film, and the result can be revolutionary." Stig Almqvist, Filmjournalen (1951)."There are five or six films in the history of the cinema which one wants to review simply by saying, 'It is the most beautiful of films.' Because there can be no higher praise... I love Summer Interlude." Jean Luc Godard, Cahiers du Cinéma, (July 1958).
"Bergman found his style in this film, and it is regarded by cinema historians not only as his breakthrough but also as the beginning of 'a new, great epoch in Swedish films.' Many of the themes (whatever one thinks of them) that Bergman later expanded are here: the artists who have lost their identities, the faces that have become masks, the mirrors that reflect death at work. But this movie, with its rapturous yet ruined love affair, also has a lighter side: an elegiac grace and sweetness." Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
"Outstanding—film making at its best." Variety
"This is the picture that established Ingmar Bergman's international reputation. Although it still deals with the theme of young love that dominated his earliest films, it contains the first inklings of the dramatic intensity and structural complexity that would characterise his more mature work ****." Radio Times