I don’t think he means that it has specific moments of direct correlation, but more in that how beautifully Kurosawa is able to simultaneously honor and honor his Japanese context. This quote reflects the quintessential Bergman in how his relationship to his context was more conflicted. Later in life he came around and enjoyed this film again for the same reasons he began to hate it. The only consistent thing about Bergman in regards to how he felt about his films is that he never felt the same about them all the time. He also even came to like The Serpent’s Egg after screening it again for the first time in 20 years. Mostly it was because it is one of the most unintentionally autobiographical.
accidental double post. Sorry
It does recall Kurosawa, but there is nothing bad about that, and in fact I rank this up with the very best work of Ingmar, certainly top 5, maybe even top 3.
This is one of the few Bergman films that take place before time of the automobile and electricity, and it takes place in a very rural area. The landscape and the dirt floors of the house remind one of the structures in seven samurai and hidden fortress, and the woods of Rashomon and hidden fortress, while Max Von Sydow does remind us a bit of a Toshiro Mifune in his performance, and that great chair that he sits in reminds one of something in Throne of Blood.
But I think you have to really think hard to put this stuff together, and I have no problem at all with it, and like I said its one of Bergman’s best movies.
I wish I could contribute to this, I haven’t seen The Virgin Spring. I rewatched Throne of Blood today with the alternate subtitles — fascinating, a much more poetic and intellectual sense of the dialogue. Plus, the castle is called Forest Castle, not Spider’s Web Castle. Knowing no Japanese I can’t tell which translation is more accurate (that’s why I’m drawn mainly to French and German films, I know my way around the language and culture there and it helps), but the alternate subtitles made it seem less of an action film and more literary.
I personally like The Virgin Spring better but i like Rashomon too.
I personally like The Virgin Spring better but i like Rashomon too.
I think Jason has nailed it re the parallels in the look of some of Kuroswa’s historical films, especially Rashomon, and Virgin Spring. I had not thought of this before, but it definitely works. Both have a similar look and feel. We can compare it also to Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu, too, in terms of look and atmosphere. Much as I admire Virgin Spring, it is not a personal favourite Bergman because I think he slants the movie too much along a certain track, where we have to see the death of Karin as ‘miraculously’ redeemed in the coming to life of the spring. Too much heavy handed use of symbolism here – not as subtle as Bergman would soon get in his later films. Yet, it remains a stark and haunting tale, nonetheless, with definite parallels to Japanese films of the same general period that had a historical basis.
Its the rustic nature of the setting. The wooden structure and dirt floors of the dwellings, and the downright manliness of the father(not too often seen in Bergman-especailly not in such a positive light). Also, the disgusting, uncivilized trio who attack the poor girl also recall the peasants of a Kurosawa film-the dirty and ignorant savages.
Bob makes another good point, also, in Ugetsu and Sansho as well. Those films as well as the Virgin Spring, are neo-realist films set in the woods, with spiritual and surreal underpinnings-almost like a fairytale or folk tale-exactly what Virgin Spring was based upon, as was Ugetsu…and if I recall, Sansho as well.
stewart SFA Adams
“Now I want tom make it plain that The Virgin Spring must be regarded as an aberration. It’s touristic, a lousy imitation of Kurosawa. At that time my admiration for the Japanese cinema was at its height. I was almost a samurai myself!”
- Ingmar Bergman in Bergman on Bergman, 1970
One example I see is in the shot of the raped woman, also the cover of the DVD, is like one of that of the woman rashomon. Both are being seen as like angels by the men who rape them in the shot.