Bion in Film Theory and Analysis by Ambrósio Garcia Carla

Author:Ambrósio Garcia, Carla
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317274520
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Gesture and space of retreat as caesura

Through a Glass Darkly begins with three short consecutive shots of the sky reflected on the dark surface of undulating water. This trinity of shots could be seen to introduce the film’s religious theme, as well as announce the course of the film’s narrative, and establish its formal structuring principle. The contrast between the light of the sun and the darkness of the clouds becomes sharper as the sequence progresses, and this dramatic development delineates the tragic course that the narrative will take. The division of this sequence into three separate fragments resonates with the way the film is structured: the film’s decisive moments are tripartite sequences of interrelated, but separate, events, which lead the narrative to its culminating point. One of these sequences of decisive moments is marked by the deep sound of the island’s foghorn, heard repeatedly on three occasions; and the other, of the three crucial events that determine Karin’s separation from her family, is immediately followed by non-diegetic music: excluding the opening credits, the opening notes of Bach’s sarabande for cello are inserted three times in the soundtrack.

The religious theme implicit in this introductory sequence alludes to the biblical passage from which the film’s title is taken, as the water appears as a reflective surface.8 The glass or mirror of the title and its original context have not been disregarded in studies of the film. Peter Cowie writes that ‘In Through a Glass Darkly, Bergman subjects his characters to the most ruthless scrutiny. Each one is forced to study himself and his attitudes as reflected in the others’ (1963, p. 116). Gado pursues a similar idea: ‘In the course of twenty-four hours, the characters progress from self-delusion to self-recognition, a process in which each character first sees himself as he is seen by others and then sees in others a mirror of himself’ (p. 267). In my interpretation, the images of water in the beginning of the film function as a metaphor for the film’s formal structure: as the water can show the textures of the movement of its surface, its stillness reflect the sky above, and its transparency reveal what lies under it, each of the crucial moments of the film can be seen as present events in which traces of the past and the future can be found. Bion provides the following image of the caesura: ‘There is a contact through this permeable membrane in both directions; the caesura is a transparent mirror’ (1980, p. 108). A transparent mirror like still water, but also a membrane if the water surface is turbulent.

The last in the sequence of those initial images of water, which is still accompanied by Bach’s music, dissolves into a shot of the four characters, who are in high spirits, emerging from the sea where they were bathing. Soon after, while David and Martin go off on a boat to set the fishing nets, Karin and Minus walk to the farm to get some milk. Karin stops suddenly and asks her brother whether he just heard the sound of a cuckoo.

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