Wild Strawberries (film)

Wild Strawberries
Original film poster
Directed by	Ingmar Bergman
Produced by	Allan Ekelund
Written by	Ingmar Bergman
Starring	Victor Sjöström Bibi Andersson Ingrid Thulin Gunnar Björnstrand
Music by	Erik Nordgren
Cinematography	Gunnar Fischer
Editing by	Oscar Rosander
Distributed by	AB Svensk Filmindustri
Release date(s)	Sweden: 26 December 1957 United States: 22 June 1959
Running time	91 minutes
Country	Sweden
Language	Swedish Latin

Wild Strawberries is a 1957 film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, about an old man recalling his past. The original Swedish title is Smultronstället, which literally means "the wild strawberry patch", but idiomatically means an underrated gem of a place (often with personal or sentimental value). The cast includes Victor Sjöström in his final screen performance, as well as Bergman regulars Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin and Gunnar Björnstrand. Max von Sydow also appears in a small role. Bergman wrote the screenplay while hospitalized.¹ Because it tackles difficult questions about life, and thought-provoking themes such as self-discovery and humanity's existence, the film is often considered to be one of Bergman's most emotional, one of his most optimistic, and one of his best.²

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Cast 3 Production 4 Awards and recognition 5 References 6 External links

Synopsis

Eberhard Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) is an elderly physician. His medical and scientific specialty was bacteriology according to the script. Before specializing he served as general practitioner in rural Sweden. He drives 400 miles, with his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) from Stockholm to Lund to receive the honorary degree Doctor Jubilaris 50 years after graduating from Lund University. During the trip, he is forced by nightmares, daydreams, his old age, and his impending death to reevaluate his life. He meets a variety of people on the road, from Sara, a female hitchhiker traveling with her fiancé and escort, to a quarreling married couple who remind Isak of his own life and unhappy marriage. He reminisces about his childhood in the seaside, his sweetheart Sara (played by Bibi Andersson, who also plays the other Sara). He is confronted by his loneliness and aloofness, recognizing these traits both in his ancient mother and in his middle age physician son, and gradually advances towards acceptance of himself, his past, his present, and his soon-to-occur death.³⁴⁵

Cast

Victor Sjöström as Professor Isak Borg Bibi Andersson as Sara Ingrid Thulin as Marianne Borg Gunnar Björnstrand as Evald Borg Jullan Kindahl as Agda Folke Sundquist as Anders Björn Bjelfvenstam as Viktor Naima Wifstrand as Isak's Mother Gunnel Broström as Berit Alman Gertrud Fridh as Karin Borg, Isak's wife            Sif Ruud as Aunt Olga Gunnar Sjöberg as Sten Alman

Max von Sydow as Henrik Åkerman Åke Fridell as Karin's lover Yngve Nordwall as Uncle Aron Per Sjöstrand as Sigfrid Borg Gio Petré as Sigbritt Borg Gunnel Lindblom as Charlotta Borg Maud Hansson as Angelica Borg Ann-Marie Wiman as Eva Åkerman Eva Norée as Anna Borg Lena Bergman as Kristina Borg, twin Monica Ehrling as Birgitta Borg, twin

Production

The shooting took place between 2 July 1957 and 27 August 1957.⁶ Bergman has described how he came up with the idea while driving from Stockholm to Dalarna, stopping in Uppsala where he had been born and raised, and driving by outside his grandmother's old house, when he suddenly began to think about how it would be if he could open the door and inside it would be just as it had been during his childhood. "So it struck me - what if you could make a film about this; that you just walk up in a realistic way and open a door, and then you walk into your childhood, and then you open another door and come back to reality, and then you make a turn around a street corner and arrive in some other period of your existence, and everything goes on, lives. That was actually the idea behind Wild Strawberries".⁷

Awards and recognition

The film won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 8th Berlin International Film Festival⁸, "Best Film" and "Best Actor" at the Mar del Plata Film Festival and won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film in 1960. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Original Screenplay.

The film is included on the Vatican Best Films List, recommended for its portrayal of a man's "interior journey from pangs of regret and anxiety to a refreshing sense of peace and reconciliation".⁹

The film also influenced Woody Allen’s 1988 drama Another Woman¹⁰. That film’s main character, Marion Post, is also accused by friends and relatives of being cold and unfeeling, which forces her to reexamine her life. Allen also borrows several tropes from Bergman’s film, such as having Post’s sister-in-law tell her that her brother, Paul, hates her, having a former student tell Post that her class changed her life, and Allen has Post confront the demons of her past via several dream sequences and flashbacks that reveal important information to a viewer, as in Wild Strawberries.

References

External links

• Wild Strawberries at the Internet Movie Database
• Wild Strawberries at the Swedish Film Database
• Wild Strawberries at Allmovie
• Criterion Collection essay by Peter Cowie

v • d • e The films of Ingmar Bergman 1940s Crisis (1946) • It Rains on Our Love (1946) • A Ship to India (1947) • Music in Darkness (1948) • Port of Call (1948) • Prison (1949) • Thirst (1949) 1950s To Joy (1950) • This Can't Happen Here (1950) • Summer Interlude (1951) • Secrets of Women (1952) • Summer with Monika (1953) • Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) • A Lesson in Love (1954) • Dreams (1955) • Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) • The Seventh Seal (1957) • Wild Strawberries (1957) • Brink of Life (1958) • The Magician (1958) 1960s The Virgin Spring (1960) • The Devil's Eye (1960) • Through a Glass Darkly (1961) • Winter Light (1962) • The Silence (1963) • All These Women (1964) • Persona (1966) • Hour of the Wolf (1968) • Shame (1968) • The Rite (1969) • The Passion of Anna (1969) 1970s Faro Document (1970) • The Touch (1971) • Cries and Whispers (1972) • Scenes from a Marriage (1973) • The Magic Flute (1975) • Face to Face (1976) • The Serpent's Egg (1977) • Autumn Sonata (1978) • Faro Document 1979 (1979) 1980s From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) • Fanny and Alexander (1982) • Karin's Face (1984) • 2000s Saraband (2003) TV plays Mr. Sleeman Is Coming (1957) • The Venetian (1958) • Rabies (1958) Storm Weather (1960) • A Dream Play (1963) • Don Juan (1965) • The Misanthrope (1974) • Hustruskolan (1983) • After the Rehearsal (1984) • De två saliga (1986) • Markisinnan de Sade (1992) • Backanterna (1993) • The Last Gasp (1995) • In the Presence of a Clown (1997) • The Image Makers (2000)

v • d • e Cinema of Sweden Films A-Z • Films by year: Pre 1930 • 1930s • 1940s • 1950s • 1960s • 1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s Actors • Directors • Cinematographers • Composers • Editors • Producers • Screenwriters

v • d • e Golden Bear winning films – 1951–1959 Four in a Jeep (1951) · ...Sans laisser d'adresse (1951) · In Beaver Valley (1951) · Justice Is Done (1951) · Cinderella (1951) · One Summer of Happiness (1952) · The Wages of Fear (1953) · Hobson's Choice (1954) · Die Ratten (1955) · Invitation to the Dance (1956) · 12 Angry Men (1957) · Wild Strawberries (1958) · Les Cousins (1959) Complete List · (1951–1959) · (1960–1979) · (1980–1999) · (2000–present)