文章基本信息

标题：Call Me Ishmael
本地全文：下载
作者：Robin Wood
期刊名称：Movie: a Journal of Film Criticism
电子版ISSN：2047-1661
出版年度：2011
期号：2
出版社：University of Warwick
摘要：Bergman's statement that Fanny and Alexanderwill be his last film is doubtless to be understood more rhetorically than literally: he has already completed another. Admittedly he specified that it would be his last theatrical film, and the new one, After the Rehearsal, was made for Swedish televi-sion – but so was Fanny and Alexanderin its original, longer form and the new film has already been bought for theatrical distribution outside Sweden: the distinctions blur. The declaration, however, remains useful in drawing atten-tion to Fanny and Alexander's particular nature: that of an artistic testament and summation, the kind of work any filmmaker might wish his 'last film' to be. It is also the most generally accessible film Bergman has made for many years, perhaps since Wild Strawberriesand it is in striking contrast to the immediately preceding From the Life of the Marionettes. Yet its accessibility and deserved popularity with both critics and public do not necessarily guarantee that it has been fully understood; I am struck by the fact that the majority of reviews have ignored or been very vague about precisely those aspects of the film that seem to me most interesting, aspects centred on Ishmael. Our critics either don't know what to make of Ishmael, or don't want to make anything of him (her). A long article on the film by William Wolf in the June Film Comment, for example, can offer no more than 'The rescued Alexander … meets Isak's mysterious nephew Ishmael, who introduces him to the su-pernatural' (which, by the way, Alexander has already en-countered on several occasions) 'with memerizing talk of magical powers'. Actually, Ishmael's most significant com-munication to Alexander is that he is supposed to be very dangerous, which is why he is kept locked up; we may de-duce that our critics find him very dangerous too. I shall return to Ishmael, who seems to me the culmination, not only of this film, but of all Bergman's work to date