The best interviews are conducted eye-to-eye, but Nyrerod seems so awed to be in Bergman’s presence that the old man runs roughshod over her, and consequently the whole film suffers from a lack of structural discipline and intellectual rigor. What would have worked better, filmically, is actually asking penetrating questions about the films and then tying them to the man’s personal life. But, in this, Nyrerod seems almost in congenital genuflection to Bergman. She never seems interested in actually holding Bergman accountable for his views nor actions. Not that she needed to be Torquemada, but she need not have been a lapdog either. As for the DVD? I wish Criterion had included all three hours in the DVD package, thus differentiating it from the special features disk on the re-release of The Seventh Seal. One hopes they would have been more linear, coherent, and incisive. Then, again, if the individual hours were edited to the same degree as the shorter film, then perhaps including only it was the reason the company released it as so.
Having stated all this about the ‘feature’ presentation in the package, let me now give kudos to the company for including Cowie’s incisive video essay (composed of photographs and film clips) on Bergman’s career. Cowie has done a number of commentaries on other Criterion titles and is a mostly hit or miss commentarian, but this essay is superb. Cowie does not hit every single film in the Bergman canon, but he gets all of the important films, and gives short but pointed insights into them. The fact that the essay is only about a half hour long is a help because it would have been quite easy for Cowie to veer off into a pet peeve or obsession. Instead, the essay plays out as a pitch perfect primer into all things Bergmanian — or, at least all things cinematically Bergmanian. The only other extra in the package is an insert essay by Nyrerod, but it’s not really an essay, merely a brief encomium. The actual film is shown in a 1.77:1 aspect ratio.
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