Sawdust and Tinsel - Criterion Collection

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Ingmar Bergman presents the battle of the sexes as a ramshackle grotesque carnival in this one of the late master's most vivid early works. The story of the twisted relationship between a turn-of-the-century traveling circus owner (Ake Gronberg) and his performer girlfriend (Harriet Andersson) Sawdust and Tinsel features dreamlike detours and twisted psychosexual power play that presage the director's Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal works that would soon change the landscape of art cinema forever. System Requirements:Running Time; 92 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 715515026628

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This early film by Ingmar Bergman, made before his international hits Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal, was vilified by critics when it first came out (one referring to it as "a piece of vomit"), but with time has earned a reputation as one of the master filmmaker's first important works. Sawdust and Tinsel touches on many of Bergman's standard themes--vanishing love, godless existences, the redemptive power of theater--in its telling of a disillusioned circus owner (Åke Grönberg) and his young mistress (Harriet Andersson of Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly) as they set up for yet another performance in a small town. Both contemplate leaving the circus and each other, as Grönberg pays a visit to his now-independent wife (an exceptional Annika Tretow), and Andersson allows herself to be seduced by a local actor (Hasse Ekman), only to find herself used and humiliated. One can see traces of the melancholy Smiles of a Summer Night in the romantic roundelays that start out bright and end up bitter--the constructs may be farcical at times, but the emotions are raw and heartfelt. And stylistically, from the first frame the film evokes strong similarities to The Seventh Seal; in fact, this film marks the first collaboration of Bergman and his legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Despite some awkward dialogue and a static pace, Sawdust and Tinsel shows a young, assured Bergman finding his way to the themes and techniques that would define his later films. A must-see for Bergman aficionados. --Mark Englehart