Story of movie From The Life Of The Marionettes :
From the Life of the Marionettes (German: Aus dem Leben der Marionetten) is a 1980 television film directed by Ingmar Bergman. The film was produced in West Germany with a German-language screenplay and soundtrack while Bergman was in "tax exile" from his native Sweden. It is filmed in black and white apart from two colour sequences at the beginning and end of the film.
| From the Life of the Marionettes | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Produced by | Konrad Wendlandt Horst Wendlandt Ingmar Bergman |
| Written by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Starring | Robert Atzorn Heinz Bennent Martin Benrath Toni Berger Christine Buchegger |
| Music by | Rolf A. Wilhelm |
| Cinematography | Sven Nykvist |
| Edited by | Petra von Oelffen |
Release date | 3 November 1980 (German TV) 7 November 1980 (German cinema) |
Running time | 101 minutes |
| Country | West Germany Sweden |
| Language | German |
Set in Munich, the film charts the disintegration of the relationship of Katarina and Peter Egermann, based on the unhappy couple of the same names briefly featured in Bergman's 1973 miniseries Scenes from a Marriage. In a reimagining of the characters, Peter and Katarina's unhappiness and unfaithfulness culminates in Peter's murder of a prostitute.
Screenplay
This article needs an improved plot summary. (July 2018) |
Peter Egermann visits and murders a prostitute named Ka, committing an act of necrophilia. The murder comes as a shock to Peter's friends who search for an explanation. Peter is married to Katarina; they have no children and an open marriage, and Katarina admits she fakes orgasms when with Peter.
As Katarina seeks other lovers, the emotionally repressed and despondent Peter descends into neuroses. At a Munich peep show, a homosexual friend Tim introduces him to Ka. Ka tells Peter her real name is Katarina, the same as his wife. He tearfully murders her before sodomising her dead body. He is incarcerated in a mental asylum.
- Robert Atzorn – Peter Egermann
- Heinz Bennent – Arthur Brenner
- Martin Benrath – Mogens Jensen
- Toni Berger – The Guard
- Christine Buchegger – Katarina Egermann
- Gaby Dohm – Secretary
- Erwin Faber
- Lola Müthel – Cordelia Egermann
- Ruth Olafs – Nurse
- Karl-Heinz Pelser – The Interrogator
- Rita Russek – Ka
- Walter Schmidinger – Tim
- Michel Wagner - The Bartender
Development
Ingmar Bergman wrote From the Life of the Marionettes after being arrested in Stockholm in 1976 and subsequently leaving for West Germany. He stated:
I found myself in a difficult situation, far away from my homeland where I did not want to return. I had already tried to express my pain and suffering in The Serpent's Egg, but without succeeding ... But in From the Life of the Marionettes I found a way, a form, a very definite and distinct form to which I could transfer my pain, my anguish and all my difficulties and reshape them into something concrete.
He based the lead characters after Peter and Katarina in his 1973 miniseries Scenes from a Marriage. Bergman's initial conception for the project was titled Love for No Lovers, but in the rewrite culminating in From the Life of the Marionettes Peter and Katarina were reimagined as a German couple distinct from the Swedish characters in Scenes from a Marriage. Bergman explained the final title:
I think we are all manipulated, more or less, and From the Life of the Marionettes is about the manipulation of human beings, by forces outside and beyond them — forces you cannot control, and you cannot define. The personalities of Pete and Katarina, who appear in the first episode of Scenes from a Marriage, have always fascinated me. In a way, they existed long before Johan and Marianne, so I wanted to tell more about them. This is their story.
In casting, the filmmakers recruited all actors from the Residenztheater.
Filming
The film was shot in the Bavaria Film Studios in Munich, and at Tobis Film Studios, beginning in October 1979. Bergman's regular cinematographer Sven Nykvist returned for the project. Nykvist and Bergman mainly shot in black-and-white, but at the insistence of television broadcaster ZDF, some colour was added and a red tint was given to the prologue for fear the black-and-white would lose viewers.
German composer Rolf A. Wilhelm wrote the score, making use of timpani and glass harmonicas.
The premiere took place in July 1980 at a minor festival in Oxford, with Tobis Film as the main distributor. The film was originally made for television and had its TV premiere on German ZDF on 3 November 1980; it went to German theatres on 6 November. It was subsequently released in Swedish theatres on 24 January 1981.
On 28 January 1981, From the Life of the Marionettes screened on SVT1. In 2018, Criterion announced a Blu-ray release in Region A for 20 November 2018, along with 38 other Bergman films, in the set Ingmar Bergman's Cinema.
According to author Birgitta Steene, Swedish critics were generally "respectful but not enthusiastic". Janet Maslin credited Bergman for a "forceful" work despite what she found to be "less articulate or analytical" characters, praised Nykvist's shots in dream sequences, and positively reviewed Christine Buchegger and Robert Atzorn's performances. David Denby wrote "I wish had dramatized more and explained a whole lot less". People staff criticized it as "banal" with "no suspense". In his Movie Guide, Leonard Maltin gave the film three and a half stars, describing it as "Powerful, provocative".
The film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of the year by the U.S. National Board of Review. It currently holds a 60% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 10 reviews.
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