Yesterday I watched Skammen for the first time, and today I woke up to the news Bergman had died. I feel no peculiar sadness after his death. His movies make me suffer so much, and will scream quiet despair for so long, his death remains but a minor incident. Skammen was way too bleak yesterday and I still haven’t been able to recover… but this misses the point. The fact is that the rare occasions I had thought of Bergman as someone alive walking this world it just felt… strange. Such art hovers so timeless I have always seen him as already one of the many other dusty-coffin fellows I admire.

Yet, shame. Yes. Shame. Bergman is so much of a high-brow thing, such a common name amongst anyone who has ever read one or two paragraphs of literature in his life and considers himself to be sufficiently cultured, I sometimes feel like it is too crowded a club for me to belong. Like opera or soap opera or Philip K. Dick, it didn't have the flare of idiosyncrasy, the very very long tail of the niche I wish to stand for. (Sometimes it is enough anyone saying "wow, man, I really liked that stuff you showed me" for it to be completely smashed and ruined for me.) That's why I say "shame". The thing is, Bergman is truly of that rarest of species: the unanimously good.

Why is he so good? Just look at one frame of it. Just ponder over a few lines of dialog. Just loose yourself in all that suffering. Not that hard to recognize greatness, eh?

On this movie in particular: here we have the many shames of a man caught in weakness after weakness. When external situations get out of control, war stepping into his and his wife's lives, his weakness finally flourishes into complete degradation. But aren't we all living the dreams of someone who, at waking, will feel ashamed? And what is this shame? Having the nerve to disappoint Liv Ulmann! Yes, and I say "Liv Ulmann" because if every sentient being was like Liv Ulmann, or maybe I would say His Holliness Liv Ulmann, we wouldn't have problems developing compassion towards them.

To end, unlike most Bergmans, in a high note, funny was the comment made by Arnaldo Jabor, after praising—rather eloquently I must recognize—Bergman's many artistic achievements: "Though of death too much, but still he laid all pretty Swedish actresses around... It was a good life." Right, Brazilian wisdom is the perfect cherry on top on any Swedish nightmare...