Abstract
The Virgin Spring, released in 1960, depicts the rape and murder of Karin, daughter of Töre and Märeta, by wild goatherds, as she seeks to take the Virgin’s candles to Mass on the day of Christ’s sacrifice. The film was based on a Swedish thirteenth-century ballad, ‘The Daughter of Töre in Vange’, of which there were many previous versions in countries that spoke Romance languages. 1 Birgitta Steene points out that the version used in this film had a particularly Swedish identity because only in Sweden was the theme of Christian redemption added to the story. 2 Ingmar Bergman had been interested in the story since studying at university, and had even considered writing a ballet based on it, but finally worked with Ulla Isaksson’s film script. 3
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Notes
Steene, B. (1968) Ingmar Bergman, Boston: Twayne, p. 89.
The Swedish press response to The Virgin Spring is summarised by Steene in Steene, B. (2005). Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press on pp. 242–243.
Most famously, Bergman himself dismissed the film saying, for instance, that ‘he and Isaksson had influenced one another in the wrong way, and it was rather unfortunate’. Gado, F. (1986) The Passion of Ingmar Bergman, Durham: Duke University Press. Gado is quoting Bergman from Björkman, S., Manns, T., and Sims, J. (1973) Bergman on Bergman, English translation by Paul Britten Austin, New York: Simon and Schuster (originally published in Sweden in 1970).
MacNab, G. (2009) Ingmar Bergman : The Life and Films of the Last Great European Director, London; New York: I.B. Tauris, p. 109.
Wood, R. (1969) Ingmar Bergman, London: Studio Vista, pp. 100–105.
Hubner, L. (2007) The Films of Ingmar Bergman: Illusions of Light and Darkness, Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 62.
Braudy, L. and Cohen, M. (eds.) (1999) Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, Fifth edition. This edition includes Bordwell, D. ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice’, pp. 716–724 (originally published in Film Comment, Volume 4, no. 1, Fall, 1979), p. 718.
Gervais, M. (1999) Ingmar Bergman: Magician and Prophet, Montreal; London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, p. 68.
Steene, B. (1968) Ingmar Bergman, Boston: Twayne, p. 90.
Smith, M. (1995) Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 188.
Wollheim, R. (1987) Painting as an Art, London: Thames and Hudson, pp. 293–294.
Steene, B. (1968) Ingmar Bergman, Boston: Twayne, p. 93.
Klein, M (1934) ‘On Criminality’, in Klein, M. (1998) Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works 1921–1945, London: Vintage, first published in 1975 by The Hogarth Press, pp. 258–261; p. 260.
Donner, J. (1964) The Personal Vision of Ingmar Bergman, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, translated by Holger Lundbergh (originally published 1962), p. 198.
Livingston, P. (1982) Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Art, Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, p. 49.
Laine, T. (2007) Shame and Desire: Emotion, Intersubjectivity, Cinema, Brussels: Peter Lang, p. 17.
Aumont draws attention to this motif in Bergman’s work. For example, see Aumont, J. (2003) Ingmar Bergman ‘Mes films sont l’explication de mes images’, in Cahiers du Cinéma, p. 114.
Andreas Elpidorou, ‘Imagination in Non-Representational Painting’, in Webber (ed.), op. cit., pp. 15–30.
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© 2015 Dan Williams
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Williams, D. (2015). Revenge and Reparation in The Virgin Spring. In: Klein, Sartre and Imagination in the Films of Ingmar Bergman. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137471987_5
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