伯格曼相信，一个好的电影艺术主题永远是关于人类的面孔。他在电视上看了安东尼奥尼的影片之后告诉我说，在一次采访期间，他突然意识到并不是安东尼奥尼所要讲述的吸引他，而是人物的面孔。我认为伯格曼这里所说的不是单纯的特写。他所思考的是关于面孔的研究，一种强烈的、直指人心的凝视。可以说面孔是他所有电影的核心，尽管如此，对于现在通常被人们称作“神之沉默三部曲”的《犹在镜中》（1961），《冬日之光》（1962）和《沉默》（1963）来说，面孔的呈现方式仍然是这些影片的力量所在。在传统的电影语言中，特写镜头作为其中一种讲述方式，常被用来突出一个重点：展现人物的反应，强调一种情绪。它们融入于某个剪切镜头的节奏中。但是在这三部曲当中，以及其他许多电影里面，伯格曼极力避免特写镜头的这一用途，他的人物都是单独或两两出现在镜头里面。他们没有特别的去看任何事物——或者可以说，他们在内视自我。伯格曼坚持将镜头聚焦在他的某个演员身上，例如在《犹在镜中》，哈里特·安德森的脸始终保持在前景的地位，而另一个角色则长时间的置于背景，以确保当安德森聚焦于虚无中某一处时的效果能合适的表现出来，同时保证她从不眨眼或做些多余的眼球活动。这样的镜头无疑有力的传达出了她对信仰呼唤之声的痴迷。伯格曼经常会使用我称之为“伯格曼式双人特写”的拍摄方法——一种为了形容他那简化的、表现强烈情感的做法而产生的说法。他将两张面孔非常密切的并置在屏幕上，但是人物从不看着对方。每个人都聚焦在屏幕外的某个未知处，每个人都看着不同的方向。他们是如此的靠近，却又是如此的孤立。这也是他电影艺术中最根本信念的视觉化表达：我们试图去接触彼此，却往往被我们内心的欲望所阻碍。为了制作这些镜头，伯格曼与他的御用摄影师斯文·尼科维斯特（如今被认为是最伟大的摄影艺术家之一）进行了无间的协同合作。尼科维斯特使我们认识到大多数电影只是简单的照亮那些面孔，然而他却用光指引我们走进它们。特别是随着电视时代的到来，电影使用了一种使得影像风格扁平化的照明方式。我们喜欢黑色电影的一个原因是它使用的拍摄角度、阴影和布光更加大胆。在一部伯格曼电影中，如果你暂停在其中一帧双人特写镜头上，你会发现尼科维斯特给每张脸以独立的光源；他用这些光线创造出一大片阴影，就如同一束黑暗射线被画在这些面孔之间，从而分隔了人物。你可以发现这种做法贯穿了整部《犹在镜中》，影片讲述了一个父亲，他的一对儿女以及女儿丈夫在一座远离尘世的瑞典孤岛度夏的故事，他们居住在一个破败的小屋里。影片开场显得平淡无奇：随着四个人从海水浴中出现，他们正讨论着由谁去准备晚餐和谁去撒网。紧接着更沉重的话题渐渐浮现，我们听到女儿凯伦（哈里特·安德森）的“病症”，病的名字一直没被提到，但显然是精神分裂。她已经接受治疗并且经历了一段时间的康复。她的丈夫马丁（马克斯·冯·叙多夫）尽管爱着她，却始终觉得无力帮助她。弟弟米纳斯在青春期的档口显得性欲萌动，同时非常了解他姐姐的身体状况。父亲大卫（古纳尔·布约恩施特兰德）则是一位备受尊敬的作家，刚刚从瑞士的旅居中回来，冷酷而不近人情。在第一天晚上，孩子们要为他们的父亲表演一出戏剧，主题是说明艺术之无用。它可被视为对父亲小说的影射。之后，米纳斯问凯伦她是否注意到父亲的表情，因为毫无疑问地这部戏让他感到不舒服。然后人物便开始分散，夫妻一起回去，其他两人也各自回房休息了，那是个典型的瑞典夏夜，燥热而漫长，而当黑暗初降，太阳已经再次升起。这个永恒不坠的白昼有着神秘的效果，似乎寓示着发生的每件事都不过是一场白日梦。凯伦从床上起身前往楼上，进入一个破败的房间。她看起来似乎处在一种催眠的状态，她把自己紧贴在墙上，在墙纸上勾画出一个轮廓。当她被发觉，她的第一反应像是被打扰了，但是立刻又振作起来并恢复正常。在影片的后面她告诉弟弟有个声音在呼唤她，在墙上打开了一扇门，门那边有一群人正在等待着某个东西，她认为那或许是上帝。再往后，影史上最著名的场景之一出现了：她说她看到了上帝，而它是一只蜘蛛。被单独留在她父亲的房间里后，她读了他的日记，里面他坦白自己对女儿的病症抱有强烈的好奇心，他提到那个病症是无法治愈的，并且承认自己渴望观察女儿的病情，以此获得写作素材。这深深的刺激了她，然而早前她还在嘲笑弟弟偷看色情杂志，米纳斯则指责她穿着太过暴露。现在她的兄弟在海滩上寻找她，发现她蜷缩在一艘被烧毁的破旧船骸中。此处有一处不同寻常的场景，导演充分利用灯光精心设计出一个双人特写镜头，突出了一种既亲密又疏远的人物关系。在这场戏的最后，显然有一组暗示姐弟乱伦的镜头，尽管伯格曼小心翼翼的避开了。影片中还有一些其他不愉快的场景，例如刚刚分开的凯伦和马丁，以及马丁和大卫之间的谈话。最终这些都被归结为凯伦的旧病复发。他们只得叫来救护，那是一架直升飞机，却被凯伦当作从天而降的蜘蛛。你可以暂停在这部影片的任何一个画面上，看看这些非凡的画面。没有一处是随意的。纵向的构图将画面中的人物分割成几个部分，斜线构图表现了人物的不和。这些人物在小屋周围的画面中走进走出，仿佛身处在一出戏剧里。导演利用独特的视觉效果突出表现了凯伦紊乱的精神病征，以及其他人物的心理冲突。我已深深的为这部影片精彩的制作细节所折服，尼科维斯特的摄影本质上是对人物的再创造，他看待人物的方式，对构图阴影的使用以及对人物情感的巧妙设置都决定了我们如何去感受人物。同样的电影如果是由另一位摄影师来拍摄，那可能就会显得浅薄，甚至蠢笨。当然，伯格曼自然会分享自己的想法。但是以这个方式拍摄而成的这部电影，仍然使我们惊讶于它所展现出来的强大的感染力。彼得·考伊（电影史学家，伯格曼电影研究权威）在CC标准DVD中一个短片里提到，沉默三部曲是伯格曼尝试卸下他的宗教信仰包袱的一种努力，因为他的父亲是一位严苛的路德教牧师，父亲的态度深刻的影响了他一生。在他的其他电影里面仍然存在许多这种宗教信仰，并且永远是关于死亡，负疚，罪恶，上帝以及魔鬼的。不过在这三部电影中，它关注的焦点在于强烈的痛苦。《犹在镜中》是沉默三部曲的第一部，之后紧接着便是《冬日之光》（讲述一个牧师身陷上帝沉默的绝望中的故事），以及最后的《沉默》（讲述两姐妹及其儿子滞留在一个陌生城市里，纠缠于陈年往事的仇恨之中。电影大部分时间都是无声的，或者至少是缺乏对话的。当男孩在旅馆的走廊徘徊时，他正幻想着自己能够取代两姐妹之间爆发的矛盾）。在所有这些电影中， 我们完全地被伯格曼深沉的关怀所打动，即人类犹如通过黑暗的镜子观察着这个世界，却无法感知其中的意义。《冬日之光》也在伟大的电影之列。原文：The great subject of the cinema, Ingmar Bergman believed, is the human face. He'd been watching Antonioni on television, he told me during an interview, and realized it wasn't what Antonioni said that absorbed him, but the man's face. Bergman was not thinking about anything as simple as a closeup, I believe. He was thinking about the study of the face, the intense gaze, the face as window to the soul. Faces are central to all of his films, but they are absolutely essential to the power of what has come to be called his Silence of God Trilogy: "Through a Glass Darkly" (1961), "Winter Light" (1962) and "The Silence" (1963).In the conventional language of cinema, a closeup is part of the grammar, used to make a point, show a reaction, emphasize an emotion. They fit into the rhythm of the cutting of a scene. But in these three films, and many others, Bergman was not using his close shots that way. His characters are often alone, or in twos. They are not looking at anything in particular -- or, perhaps, they're looking inside themselves. He requires great concentration on the part of his actors, as in "Through a Glass Darkly," where Harriet Andersson's face is held in the foreground and another character in the background for a long span of time in which she focuses on a point in space somewhere to screen right, and never blinks, nor does an eyeball so much as move. The shot communicates the power of her obsession, with her belief that voices are calling to her. Frequently Bergman uses what I think of as "the basic Bergman two-shot," which is a reductive term for a strategy of great power. He places two faces on the screen, in very close physical juxtaposition, but the characters are not looking at each other. Each is focused on some unspecified point off-screen, each is looking in a different direction. They are so close, and yet so separated. It is the visual equivalent of the fundamental belief of his cinema: That we try to reach out to one another, but more often than not are held back by compulsions within ourselves.In framing these shots, Bergman works hand-in-hand with his cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, one of the greatest artists of his craft. Nykvist makes us realize that most movies simply illuminate faces, while he lights them. Especially since the advent of television, movies have used a lighting style that flattens the image and makes it all seem on one plane. One reason we like film noir is that it uses angles, shadows and strategic lighting more boldly. In a Bergman film, if you freeze a frame on one of his two-shots, you'll see that Nykvist has lighted each face separately, and often not from the same source; he uses the lights to create a band of shadow that is like a dark line drawn between the faces, separating them.You can see this happening all during "Through a Glass Darkly," which tells the story of a father, his daughter and son, and the daughter's husband, isolated on a remote Swedish island for a summer vacation. They're living in a run-down cottage. The opening scenes are deliberately banal, as they emerge from a dip in the sea and debate about who will fix dinner and who will put out the nets. But deeper currents emerge. We hear about the "sickness" of the daughter, Karin (Harriet Andersson). It is never named, but is clearly schizophrenia. She has been treated and is going through a period of recovery. Her husband, Martin (Max von Sydow), loves her but feels powerless to help her. Her brother, nicknamed Minus (Lars Passgard), is balanced at the entry to adolescent sexuality, and is very aware of the physical reality of his sister. The father, David (Gunnar Bjornstrand), is an author, highly regarded, who has just returned from a stay in Switzerland. He is cool and distant.During the course of the first evening, the children will put on a play for their father, which has as its subject the impotence of art. It can be seen as a veiled attack on his novels. Later, Minus asks Karin if she noticed how offended their father was. Not particularly. The characters separate, the married couple together, the other two in their rooms. It is a long Swedish summer night; when darkness falls, the sun is already rising again.This perpetual daylight has an eerie effect. Everything that happens is like a waking dream. Karin rises up from her bed and climbs the stairs to a shabby upper floor, and enters a room. She seems almost in a trance. She clings to the wall and traces out figures in the wallpaper. When she is found, she at first seems disturbed, but then cheers up and acts normally. Later she will tell her brother that voices called to her, that the wallpaper opened a door, that those on the other side were waiting for something, and that she thinks it might have been God. Still later, famously, she says she saw God, and he was a spider.Left alone in her father's room, she reads his journal, where he confesses his obsession with his daughter's illness, notes that it is "incurable," and confesses he is interested in how he could use it in his work. This deeply upsets her. Earlier she had teased her brother after catching him looking at a pinup magazine. He had accused her of wearing seductive clothes. Now her brother goes seeking her on the beach and finds her huddled inside the wreck of a burned-out boat. There is an extraordinary scene, making great use of meticulously lighted two-shots, emphasizing their closeness and their separation. At the end of the scene, there is an implication that an act of incest occurs, although Bergman is deliberately obscure.There have been other fraught scenes -- between Karin and Martin, for example, who she has drawn apart from physically. And between Martin and David. Finally all comes down to Karin having a relapse. An ambulance is called; it is a helicopter, which apparently she experiences as a spider descending from the sky.You can freeze almost any frame of this film and be looking at a striking still photograph. Nothing is done casually. Verticals are employed to partition characters into a limited part of the screen. Diagonals indicate discord. The characters move into and out of view around the cottage as if in a play. The visual orchestration underlines the disturbance of Karin's mental illness, and the no smaller turmoil within the minds of the others.I was impressed time and again by how painstakingly the film had been made. Nykvist's lighting is essentially another character. How he sees, how he shades, how he conceals, all sum up into how we are to feel about the characters. The same film photographed by another cinematographer might seem shallow, even silly. Certainly Bergman attracted his share of parody. But this film, shot this way, surprises us by how much power it builds.Peter Cowie, an expert on Bergman, appears in a short subject on the Criterion DVD and says the trilogy was Bergman's way of unloading the "baggage" of his religious upbringing; his father was a strict Lutheran minister. Bergman still has a great deal of that upbringing left over for his other films, which often deal with mortality, guilt, sin, God and demons. But in these three, there is a focus almost painfully intense."Through a Glass Darkly" would be followed by "Winter Light," about a minister who despairs of God's silence, and by "The Silence," about two sisters and the child of one, stranded in a strange town and haunted by old hatreds and wounds. Long stretches of that film are silent, or at least lacking in dialogue, as the boy prowls a hotel's corridors, making fantasies of his own to displace the disturbance being trapped between the two sisters. In all of these films, we're struck by Bergman's deep concern that humans see the world as through a glass, darkly, and are unable to perceive its meaning."Winter Light" is also in the Great Movies Collection.
