Ingmar Bergman Trilogy. Through a Glass Darkly / Såsom i en spegel (1961) [The Criterion Collection]

Director: Ingmar Bergman
Writers: Ingmar Bergman
Stars: Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow

While vacationing on a remote island retreat, a family finds its fragile ties tested when daughter Karin (an astonishing Harriet Andersson) discovers her father (Gunnar Björnstrand) has been using her schizophrenia for his own literary ends. As she drifts in and out of lucidity, Karin’s father, her husband (Max von Sydow), and her younger brother (Lars Passgård) are unable to prevent her descent into the abyss of mental illness. Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Through a Glass Darkly, the first work in Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy on faith and the loss of it, presents an unflinching vision of a family’s near disintegration and a tortured psyche further taunted by the intangibility of God’s presence.

Extras:
- On the Blu-ray: New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Introduction to the film by director Ingmar Bergman, recorded in 2003 (Blu-ray only)
- Interview from 2003 with film scholar Peter Cowie
- Interview from 2012 with actor Harriet Andersson (Blu-ray only)
- Audio interview from 1962 with actor Gunnar Björnstrand (Blu-ray only)
- Illustrated audio interview with cinematographer Sven Nykvist, recorded in 1981 (Blu-ray only)
- With the DVD: An essay by film scholar Peter Matthews
- Original U.S. theatrical trailer
- Alternate English-dubbed soundtrack



A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman:
n 1960, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman began work on three of his most powerful and representative films, eventually presented as a trilogy. Already a figure of international acclaim for such masterpieces as The Seventh Seal and The Magician, Bergman turned his back on the expressionism of his fifties work to focus on a series of chamber dramas exploring belief and alienation in the modern age. Collaborating with the distinguished cinematographer Sven Nykvist, and eliciting searing performances from his refined cast of regulars—Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Gunnel Lindblom, Ingrid Thulin, and Max Von Sydow among them—Bergman unleashed Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence in rapid succession, exposing moviegoers worldwide to a new level of intellectual and emotional intensity. Drawing on Bergman’s own upbringing and ongoing spiritual crises, the films of the trilogy examine the necessity of religion and question the promise of faith.




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