Ingmar Bergman Winter Survival Series: The Virgin Spring (1960)
Join StoryShed for a five-film watch party through the winter of 2025
We start The Virgin Spring this month, and guess what…?
It’s a slasher movie! Who knew?
Time to dip into the next film of the Ingmar Bergman Winter Survival Series!
Why this, why now? Hells, bells, Bergman is forever. And winter often feels like it!
This series is going through the remainder of Winter 2025.
When we’re done—we’re done!
Final Thoughts on Winter Light: “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
Apparently, this is Ingmar Bergman’s favorite film. He staked out locations with his cinematographer Sven Nykvist and went all in the year being 1963. I was only a baby then!
I’ve watched this film twice now. It was difficult, because “suicide” and “guilt” and “religion” wow, it’s heavy. But that’s Bergman. He pushes it. I did the first viewing late December 2024, then just this past weekend went another round.
Man, heavy stuff. Guilt and regret—in the wintertime! Pile it on.
Just some brief thoughts and I’m ready for the (apparent) horrors of The Virgin Spring. The second viewing of Light did clear things up, I think.
Winter Light is a “contemporary” tale: it’s set in 1960s Sweden, in a country town, and opens in a country church. It’s November (hardly “winter” but it’s coming) and it’s Sunday and parishioners are gathering for the Sunday communion service, Pastor Tomas Ericsson presiding. At the church there’s an organist (who can’t wait to get to a spicier gig) and the sexton, Algot, who makes sure Pastor Tomas has everything he needs to run the service.
When we scan the faces of the congregation, we’re not quite sure who Bergman wants us to focus our attention on. On second viewing, I thought that was wise, since it adds intrigue: What is this story about? Who is the protagonist?
We soon learn the other parishioners (two older gentlemen, probably town merchants, who arrive, sing during the service, but don’t take communion, then leave) are part of the background to the story: Pastor Tomas (played by Bergman stalwart Gunnar Björnstrand) and his on-and-off relationship with the town schoolteacher Märta Lundberg (another Bergman regular, Ingrid Thulin). Surrounding their story is another couple, Jonas and Karin Persson, played by Max von Sydow and Gunnel Lindblom.
Once that is established, we have a nice little quartet ensemble piece, set in a Swedish country church in the early 1960s—modern life and world politics intruding in harsh and unforgiving ways.
Pastor Tomas is in crisis—we soon learn. Not only is he falling ill, Märta is demanding a response to a letter she wrote him while Jonas’ wife Karin asks Tomas to speak with her depressed husband. There’s a time delay while Karin promises Jonas will return to speak with the pastor and Märta has time to nurse her love interest and leave with the letter for him to read.
Tomas feels weaker, but is determined to meet with Jonas.
The core of the film is Tomas’ conversation with Jonas when he returns to the parsonage and admits he’s feeling suicidal over, well, nuclear annihilation from the Chinese. Pastor Tomas, feeling sicker by the moment, admits he sometimes lacks faith, but urges Jonas to carry on.
Bergman has a strange shot that I focused on a second time, “The Hand”…
If there’s anything I learn watching great film directors like Bergman, nothing is in the finished movie by accident. Bergman, I’ve noticed, works on a lot of levels, thematic, sensual, intellectual, almost spiritual at times. What do you think “The Hand” means? The will of a country parson? The hand of God? The randomness of human nature and its ability to disrupt the world? You tell me.
The other story equation is Märta and Tomas. She loves him and wants to care for him. He’s repelled by her (a skin condition with her hands was part of a long sequence where she reads her letter to him directly to the camera, of course breaking the fourth wall, which Bergman was to use many times later) and treats her appallingly, but knows he needs someone’s help. And he’s unsure that what he said to Jonas was the wise thing to do. He’s at all sixes and sevens.
I wish I could say I felt uplifted by Winter Light, but, aside from it being one of Bergman’s favorite films to produce, it’s as cold as the light pouring in through the deep parsonage windows.
Jonas kills himself with a shotgun, and Pastor Tomas has to deliver the news to Jonas’ pregnant wife Karin.
For myself, the fact Winter Light was produced in the 1960s, shortly after my birth, reveals to me a world we’re still living in—one that wrestles with faith and doubt, fractured relationships, isolation and distance from our neighbors and their worries and concerns—well, begs the question. Have things improved?
No, no they haven’t.
Up next! The Virgin Spring (1960) and the ground rules and best practices for the rest of the series…
Ground rules for the series
The film schedule below will not change, so you’re free to watch them any time and in any order you wish. I decided to start with Fanny and Alexander because it’s a favorite “holiday” film (though the pleasure of that is the blink of an eye given the rest of the narrative—a lot like life IMHO).
Since participants (free subscribers and followers welcome!) are all over the globe, the “Chat Deadline” listed below is actually the cut-off before we get rolling on the next film to watch and discuss. I will leave a three-hour window for that on the date posted, and participants will always be free to post comments on the particular chat thread for that film, or back here on the StoryShed newsletter site, with the newsletter post pertaining to the film.
I’ll eventually put up a mini-essay to jump start discussion, but in all honesty, I’m more interested and curious about your takes than my own. I never know what I think about things until I’ve written them down and changed my mind a couple dozen times. That’s just how I roll.
Here’s the schedule for the rest of the films in the series:
Fanny and Alexander(Chat deadline: December 31, 2024, 10am - 1pm CST)Winter Light(Chat Deadline: Sunday, January 5, 2025)The Virgin Spring (Chat Deadline: Saturday, January 25, 2025, 10am - 1pm CST)
Wild Strawberries (TBD, February 2025)
The Seventh Seal (TBD, March 2025)
Outside of that, feel free to comment below and we’ll move on to The Virgin Spring.
Best practices on Chat and commenting
I’m open to modifying for the greater enjoyment of everyone involved (if people want to do a Zoom chat, we can arrange it) but dropping comments and visiting the Substack Chat seem like the best way to go here, and not punitive to everyone’s time and attention.
If you enjoy movies and great storytelling, Bergman will not let you down.
Extra texture:
Actor Bill Hader on The Virgin Spring:
Great analysis, Michael! Embarrassed to admit I’ve yet to see this classic. 🙈 “If there’s anything I learn watching great film directors like Bergman, nothing is in the finished movie by accident.” - So true!
Virgin Spring. This Bergman film sticks with me more others. (Although A LOT of his movies have stuck with me!) I have the Criterion disc but I haven't watched it in at least a couple years. One thing that is somewhat unique is that it has a somewhat hopeful ending. (Not everything that Bergman did was dour!) The story is based on an old Swedish legend. It also has a difficult scene to watch. (You'll know which one.) I remember in an interview with Bergman in which he reveals that the actors had a tough time doing the scene. Just some random thoughts about, in my opinion, one of his better movies. And that's saying something.