Product Description

A flawless work (The New Yorker) from Oscar(r) winner* Ingmar Bergman, Shame probes the atrocities of warboth internal and externalas a young couple struggles to survive while the world around them crumbles into chaos. On a remote island far removed from a raging civil war, Jan and Eva (Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann) retreat to their apolitical fortress: a small vegetable farm. But their serene existence is shattered when soldiers violently invade their home. Now caught in the crosshairs of a brutal and inhuman conflict, Jan and Eva become survivors with only one concernto endure. *1970: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17365 in DVD
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Swedish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 103 minutes

Customer Reviews

Bergman's War Movie; And One Of His Very Best
One doesn't think of Ingmar Bergman as a director of action or thriller (genre) movies. But he directs the war sequences in "Shame" with stunning confidence. It seems he could have made many more big (even epic) movies if he had been so inclined. This film features Bergman veterans Von Sydow and Ullmann as ordinary people who are turned into refugees by a ferocious war in which they get caught. They lose everything, are harassed, beaten and exploited. Eventually the neurotic Von Sydow proves he will do anything to survive. Simone Weil once wrote "the great mystery of life is not suffering, but affliction." That is: suffering brings out the best in some people, others it turns into beasts. This movie asks that most painful question: what would you do in the same situation? The film presents a harrowing landscape of hell on earth that ends in a climax that will inevitably remind you of "Titanic", although Bergman did it first. It's more immediately accessible than many of Bergman's other movies because the anguish here takes external form, not just emotionally interior terror. A neglected masterpiece that should be seen at least as often as his other great works.

Living In Shame?
I don't care what people think of me after I make this statement. I don't care if people think I'm over dramatizing or if I sound pretentious. But, Ingmar Bergman, to me, is a cinematic genius! People offen ask me, why do you like Bergman? Aren't you a little too young to watch his films (I'm 18)? When asked these questions my answer is always the same. I watch Bergman's films because I simply love the way he shows the human condition. Unlike Hollywood filmmakers, I think his films are far more personal. He shows society at face values, our good sides and bad. As for me being too young. Well, do you have to be a certain age to have a love for the finer things?

Bergman's films almost if not always conjure important issues. His films make you think. And, they, to me anyway, always have characters that we can relate to. His films leave an emotional impact on his audience. Watching films like "Wild Strawberries", or "The Seventh Seal", "Through A Glass, Darkly", "Persona", and "Cries and Whispers" they are all able to connect with the viewer. We feel for these characters. I've offen joked around and have said that the two characters in "Strawberries" and "Seal" are me! And "Shame" is just as powerful as any other Bergman film. The images we see on screen, grip us. They are intense, but, not like the way cop movies are. They are intense in a realistic point of view. "Shame" directed and written by Bergman stars Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman as Jan and Eva Rosenberg, former violinist, who have not played in some time. I assume this is due to the civil war that is happening. They live on a farm, far away from society. And, according to Jan (Sydow) that is a good thing. He follows the rule of, the less you know the better. He and Eva (Ullman) are having their own personal problems in they relationship. She wants to have a baby, and he thinks they should wait. They have no money, and it clearly is not safe where they are living. They can hear bombs being dropped and the sound of guns being fired. If all of this wasn't enough they are later accused of being in trust I suppose you can say with the enemy. Once you hit this point of the film it is the second "act". They are now put to the test to find out exactly what kind of people they are. Are they just or not? After a suprise ending we see that they have a lot of secrets they now must keep to each other, so they must live in "Shame" due to their actions. The cinematography by Sven Nykvist is wonderful. I feel his work really adds to the film. I found this film very hard to find. I actually had to leave Chicago to buy it lol. I don't know if anyone else had the same problem or not, but if you do, it's really worth the search. Great movie for those who haven't seen a Bergman film yet ("Shame" on you! lol). Powerful, wonderful acting, great directing and photography. A Bergman masterpiece!

An Allegory of Love
The details of this film pass with the gritty realism almost of a documentary. Indeed of several documentaries: first about the intricacies of an ordinary marriage, then about the abrupt interruption of war, finally a descent into brutality, some might say insanity. In all three regards, the movie presents a powerful, because intimate, representation of the human condition. Who cannot picture their own relationship with their spouse at the beginning? Who can watch the middle section without thinking of Bosnia, or of Kosovo? Fortunately, most of us have been spared the film's denouement (if denouement is the appropriate term here).

It is from a structuralist perspective, however, that the film proves to be a truly remarkable work. It is clearly allegorical, and like all allegories it invites interpretation. It suggests many things, all conflictual: the struggle of art against political and social brutishness (the broken violin, the ruined hands, the smashing of a piano, etc.) It suggests the defeat of simplicity (with an overtone of 'simple piety') in the face of human complexity, and ultimately free will. Jan and Eva are not simple people, yet they attempt the simple life as an escape from war. The war - the human condition in extremis - catches up with them and takes them over through death, prostitution, revenge. The film's most poignant moment occurs as the aspiring mother, Eva, comes across a slaughtered infant, mourns the death of innocence, as it were.

There are many other allegorical levels at which this film plays, all of them valid interpretations.

Yet it is as an allegory of love that the film held greatest power for me. It's hardly an uplifting view of love, but then Bergman never shies from the harsher portrayals of humanity. The film is structured as a mirror turning upon itself. At the begining, Jan is weak, Eva acts. Jan has a dream, which reflects his inner turmoil and fear, Eva listens less than attentively as she tries to get them to meet an appointment with a ferry boat. When Jan does attempt to act (by fixing the radio, fixing the car, shooting a chicken) he fails miserably. She, on the other hand, strides out into a river to procure a fish from her neighbor, she cooks, she provides.

By the end of the film, it is Jan who is acting, Eva who follows. Jan takes revenge, Jan kills for boots, Jan bribes his way onto a boat, Jan steers. The greater Jan's power to act, the weaker and more dependent Eva becomes.

I am reminded of Sartre's reflections on human relationships (etres pour autrui) where intimacy is portrayed largely as a struggle between two beings for dominance.

What is most powerful about Bergman's allegory here is the context in which this struggle takes place. Eva's hegemony is one driven by the urge to nurture, provide and give. Her great desire is to have a child, to give and nourish life, an urge which she admits is instinctual. In Bergman's perverted mirror, Jan is transformed into action by the destructive forces of war. He takes life. At the end, wantonly. Eva's hegemony ends in the symbol of the dead child. Jan's in the unforgettable image of the dead floating soldiers.

Love, in Bergman's allegory then, becomes symbolically a struggle between life affirming forces and death. If the latter overcomes the former, neither prevails.