Sawdust and Tinsel

My goodness, wasn't Ingmar Bergman on fire during the 50's? While the story in Tinsel and Sawdust is less pleasant than some of his other films, focusing on the cruel side of love and the fates people are sometime locked into, he tells it beautifully, and again has a wonderful cast.

The common theme that Bergman explored through the late 50s and early 60s (God's silence) is actually only a motif in this movie instead of the central theme. Sawdust and Tinsel exists in a world where God is silent, but the movie is a bit more tactile.

The owner and ringmaster of a bankrupt, downtrodden circus visits his ex-wife when it stops in his home town. While away, his girlfriend, who rides a horse in the traveling show, has a sexual encounter with an actor in a local theater troupe.

The film I selected to watch second during #SeptemBergman was Sawdust and Tinsel. Just as Summer with Monika, Sawdust and Tinsel was released in 1953, and was the second Ingmar Bergman film Woody Allen was exposed to, so I've taken the lead from him as far as beginning this project.

Bergman can deflate you faster than a ten penny nail in a cheap tire. This is the story of people who have made decisions that have consequences way beyond their control.

That life is a circus that one cannot escape from is the overriding theme of Ingmar Bergman's 1953 film GYCKLARNAS AFTON ("The Evening of the Clowns", but released in the English-speaking world under the titles "Sawdust and Tinsel" and "The Naked Night"). As the film opens, a circus is on its way to a provincial Swedish town in the early 20th century.

It's undoubtedly true, as has been pointed out in a newsgroup review, that the characters in this film are not particularly likable. I have never been able to understand why that should necessarily work against a film's worth or effectiveness, though.

This is one of his earlier film productions. After have done this it did get bad critic and was no big hit at all in Sweden.