Sometimes you act like a forgotten character from some stupid old film.
Saraband, probably the last film from the legendary Ingmar Bergman, re-unites us with Johan and Marianne, whose divorce we watched unfold 30 years ago in 1973’s Scenes from a Marriage. The film plays out in the form of ten extended two-handed dialogues. Bergman is able to wring an amazing amount of drama out of this deceptively simple structure.
I love you in my selfish way. And I think you love me in your fussy, pestering way.
If I may grossly over-simplify the Ingmar Bergman worldview: we’re born, we die and in between, we treat each other like shit. The legendary Swedish filmmaker is a sheer master at pointing a camera at people and wringing buckets of genuine, truthful misery from them.
Scenes from a Marriage is a three-hour distillation of a six-part mini-series he did for Swedish television. Depsite its significant length and the fact that most of the film is comprised of extended dialogues between two people, the film holds your attention in an iron grip.
Then one day I hear “Reach for it, mister.” I spun around, and there I was standing face to face with a six year old kid. Well, I just laid down my guns and walked away. Little bastard shot me in the ass.
Musicals use their plot as a connector between songs. Porn films used plot, back when they had one, to connect the sex scenes. Similarly, Mel Brooks‘ Blazing Saddles uses what plot it has as a framework upon which to hang a non-stop barrage of sight-gags, puns and just plain jokes, most of them very funny.
This is not Brooks’ best film. That honor belongs either to The Producers or Young Frankenstein. Blazing Saddles is, however, his most fearless. This is nothing he won’t do to get a laugh. Bodily functions, sex, race and gay stereotypes are all fair game. Brooks’ secret is that he doesn’t have a mean-spirited bone in his body. Only the genuinely stupid can be offended by this kind of film because, in the end, they are only people who are held up for scorn.
