29. Ingrid Bergman in 'Anastasia' (1956)

  

Plot Intro

In 1917-18, the Russian people overthrew the oppressive and opulent Romanov royal family and eventually Bolshevik soldiers murdered the Tsar and Tsarina and their 5 children. Ten years later, rumours abound that the youngest daughter of the Romanovs, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, survived and is out there somewhere. A former White Russian General, Bounine (Yul Bryner) discovers a mysterious woman named Anna (Ingrid Bergman) who is just out of an asylum and has conflicting memories of her past. He decides to train her up in royal customs in the hope that both the public and European royalty, including Anastasia’s powerful grandmother the Empress Dowager (Helen Hayes) will be convinced that she is the Grand Duchess herself. If he does, he and his associates gain access to quite a substantial inheritance left by the late Tsar. If he doesn’t, he and his associates could end up in prison for fraud…

Doug says...

No, not that Anastasia (although you might be surprised - more on that later). It’s a mid ‘50s film inspired by Anna Anderson, the most famous of the Anastasia-wannabes. This was a rash of women coming forwards pretending they were survivors from the assassination of the Russian Romanovs, and Anderson was the one who seemed to get the furthest. DNA testing has now proved (long after death) that she was a phoney. 

The film takes more of a non-committal stance, refusing to say whether this Anna (Bergman) is real or not, although it leans more towards her being the genuine lost Anastasia. I think this is inevitable as a film about a crook taking on a lonely broken old grand duchess and succeeding would be much less entertaining. 

But what I thought was really interesting about this film is how much the animated 1997 film, also called Anastasia, borrows from it. It’s the same characters - the handsome schemer (Yul Brynner in the Dmitri role), Anna fresh out of the orphanage/asylum (our winner Ingrid in the Meg Ryan role) and while there’s no ghostly Rasputin, cute bat Bartok or Pooka the dog, scenes often play out in exactly the same way. At points I was recognising lines from it, just reworded in the ‘97 version, as if the writer was there with a thesaurus to change it up a bit. 

Bergman disappoints here, she provides a fairly simplistic and at times overdone performance. Particularly as a ‘mad lady’ at the beginning, she’s irritating and I doubt there was much research that went into it. She’s out-acted by Helen Hayes (in the Angela Lansbury role) as a sad and lonely Dowager Duchess - and interestingly this was Hayes’ return to cinema after an absence when Hayes’ daughter sadly died. 

But most impressive - and I cannot shout it loud enough - is Martitia Hunt. In the Bernadette Peters/Sophie role of the Dowager’s trusted lady-in-waiting, Hunt is magnificently funny, campy and quick-witted. She enlivens every scene she’s in and frankly by the end, I didn’t give a fig about Bergman or even Hayes - I wanted Martitia! Her presence lends the film a much-needed energy while never straying into pantomime. 

It’s particularly worth noting that Hunt is best known for a very different performance. Her iconic performance as Miss Havisham in the David Lean Great Expectations is still upheld as the most influential portrayal of that character - and the one that every actress is still yet to beat. Even heavyweights like Gillian Anderson and Helena Bonham Carter have fallen short of the malevolent, creepy and heartbreaking performance Martitia Hunt delivered - a world away from the light, gossipy and campy turn she gives us in this film. 

As a film, it’s fine - although I do think the ‘97 Anastasia delivered the same plot with more verve and polish. It’s another film that ends very abruptly (did film-writers just not know how to draw films to a close in this era??) and Bergman doesn’t particularly stand out, despite her Oscar win. This film belongs in fact to the two older actresses who sweep everyone else offstage - Helen Hayes and Martitia Hunt.

Highlight

Martitia Hunt, see above. Whether tapping an attractive man on the shoulder with a parasol or gesturing footmen to leave a room, she imbues everything with a delightful joie de vivre that lifts the whole film. 

Lowlight

Oddly it’s Ingrid Bergman for me. She turns in an okay performance (certainly not award-worthy) but we’ve already seen her this project in Gaslight where she was phenomenal. This doesn’t live up to her past work.

Mark

6/10

Paul says...

This is neither the late-90s/early-00s pop star, nor is it the 1997 animated film that not so much revised history as churned it up in a blender and fed it to the pigs. But, watching the 1997 cartoon multiple times did at least give me an interest and an awareness of early-20th century Russian happenings, and this very much helps for this film.

It’s quite a wordy piece although it does a better job of adapting from stage to screen than lengthy, over-written works such as Long Day’s Journey Into Night or Streetcar Named Desire. Anastasia remains brisk and lively even when the characters are bombarding the audience with lengthy Russian names and references to obscure members of European royalty (some of which, it turns out, are completely made up!). It is also helped along by some extremely vivacious side characters. Doug has mentioned Martita Hunt but I also enjoyed Akim Tamiroff and Sacha Pitoeff as Yul Bryner’s squabbling sidekicks. Bryner himself oozes charisma and sexy unscrupulousness, while Helen Hayes (one of our earliest Oscar winners) skilfully delivers some sassy one-liners as the Dowager Empress. At one point, Martita Hunt is excitedly describing the Grand Ball downstairs, to which the Empress retorts, “Yes, I can smell the moth balls”. 

This means it is easy to understand what is happening and why, and a film that could have felt turgid and insipid is actually very pacy and watchable. But the downside is that character nuances and opportunities for some really powerful moments become lost in talking. The romance between Anna and Bounine is immensely unconvincing, especially bearing in mind how unpleasant he is to her (it’s very Henry Higgins/Eliza Doolittle) so their eventual elopement is mind-boggling and anticlimactic. Bounine’s background as an anti-communist White Russian isn’t really explored. The Empress briefly mentions his mistreatment in the army and we get the impression that, being the owner of a club in Paris, he is entrepreneurial but potentially still treated as a foreigner. But his exact motivations are muddled and unexplored. 

Also, I would have liked the Empress herself to have been a much more tragic figure. The Empress Maria Feodorovna outlived 4 of her 6 children, lived in total denial that her son, his wife and five of her grandchildren were murdered in cold blood in a basement (the youngest, Alexei, was 13 years old). She was ostracised from the country she once ruled and never returned. But the script characterises her as a prickly, spikey old biddy. It’s a good job that the role is in the hands of Helen Hayes who effortlessly combines gravitas with comic timing. See our blog post on her to find out about one of the longest and most successful careers in performing arts.

I agree with Doug also that this isn’t Bergman’s best example of work. She’s very good although a bit maudlin sometimes here, and she’s basically playing the characters she always played (downtrodden, vulnerable European women eventually finding strength in herself). Her first Oscar-winning performance in Gaslight is much more powerful. She would go on to win one more Oscar in her career- Best Supporting Actress for Murder on the Orient Express playing yet another downtrodden, vulnerable European woman eventually finding strength in herself.

Interestingly, Anastasia was Bergman’s big comeback after she was heavily lambasted for her extra-marital affair with director Roberto Rossellini, who was also married. She was even denounced in the US Senate! It seems most of the public vitriol comes from the fact that Bergman’s persona (through the characters she plays) was very moralistic and pure. If she was known for playing whores and murderers, perhaps it wouldn’t have been such a shock. She and Rossellini eventually separated, although they had one child- actress Isabella Rossellini. Bergman continued to have a strong acting career, but sadly died on her 67th birthday in 1982 after a battle with cancer. 

Anastasia may not be Bergman’s most powerful or memorable work, but it’s a colourful and fun piece and I was never bored. It’s perfect for a cold, rainy Sunday afternoon with plenty of blankets and hot drinks. You can enliven yourself afterwards by watching Meg Ryan battle Rasputin in the 1997 version. Don’t expect accurate history lessons from either film. 

Highlight

The scene when the Empress and Anna first meet is a great example of two titans of the classic Hollywood era (Bergman and Hayes) given space to just do what they do best for about 5 minutes.

Lowlight

The ending has no climax at all. Anna and Bounine suddenly running off together isn’t the denouement that the film was building towards and it seems to suddenly stop. I was actually rooting for Anna to shack up with the handsome and, more importantly, stonkingly wealthy Prince she dances with. He’s a frigging Prince for god’s sake, Anna!

Mark

7/10

17. Ingrid Bergman in 'Gaslight' (1944)

 

Plot intro

A world-famous opera singer called Alice Alquist is mysteriously murdered in her opulent London home. Her young niece and ward, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is sent away to live in Italy. 10 years later she falls in love with and quickly marries piano player Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), and returns to her old London home to live together along with a near-deaf cook, Elizabeth (Barbara Everest) and a sassy young maid, Nancy (Angela Lansbury). But married life is not happy, as objects mysteriously start to go missing and Gregory repeatedly places the blame on Paula. He insists that she is too unwell for her to leave the house, and he forces her to become isolated and paranoid. She also hears mysterious noises in the upper floor of the house, which Gregory has inexplicably boarded off. Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotton), who seems to know Paula, may be the rescue she is looking for…

Doug says...

This was the first film in both the Best Picture and Best Actress projects we’re undertaking that I had to look up the plot summary halfway through in order to reassure myself that the ending would not be without any hope. It is a toe-curling, horrendous, accurate portrayal of an extraordinary type of abuse, and while the film and its performances are exceptional, it is unforgivable for its lack of punishment for the villain and his disgusting activities. 

Ingrid Bergman excels in this, showing us how a bright, cheerful young woman can be utterly destroyed by sustained psychological abuse. Her quick, unnerving uncertainty as her husband convinces her she loses things and forgets where other things are is horrid to watch, but even more so is the glassy-eyed, slow-speaking confused woman that he eventually brow-beats her into being.

It’s awful to watch, and at times I could hardly bear it, being a realistic and unfiltered view of how someone can come to mistrust reality. A scene when she is at a concert, enjoying music, only for her foul husband to make her believe she has stolen his watch, is horrendous. It’s made worse by the fact that we’ve seen him smile alone as he hatches his plan. He flirts with the servants in front of her (Angela Lansbury in one of her first roles) and then accuses her of being strange in front of them. He hides pictures and then tells her she’s done it. It is horrendous immoral cruelty and while it’s a good film, it is incredibly hard to sit through. 

Where this film trips up majorly though is in its conclusion. As Paula begins to realise what is going on, the film builds to a conclusion in which we need - quite simply - a fight. The maid Elizabeth seems to realise what’s going on too, and in a modern version of this, I think we would see a scene where Paula and Elizabeth combine forces to beat the living shit out of Gregory. The film needs it. Even just a moment where Paula punches him in the face would do. He has been so unequivocally evil and foul throughout, that we need to see him have some form of retribution. 

Good films provide satisfactory catharsis. It doesn’t have to be as brutal as a fight (although a fight often does the trick). Pan’s Labyrinth provides one of the best comeuppances for one of the nastiest villains, while Jean de Florettes waits four hours to deliver a sucker punch for its villain that leaves the viewer reeling for days after. Here, we get a bit where Paula rather lamely gaslights him back a bit and then he’s led off. No. We need to see him realise what he’s done/ die horribly / suffer in some way. He has done unthinkable things, and we do not get the catharsis we so desperately need. 

The performances are exceptional, and Bergman deserves her Oscar fully, with a subtle performance that captures how sustained abuse can break a person. It is at times unbearable to watch, and having sat through it, I can only hope we have some light-hearted comedies coming up in our next few films. 

Highlight 

Bergman’s controlled and realistic portrayal of a woman being broken is extraordinary. Also a pleasure as always to see a new favourite actress: Dame May Whitty (Suspicion, Mrs Miniver and The Lady Vanishes) in a small but lightly comedic role. 

Lowlight

I want to see Gregory being beaten up, spat on and defenestrated. Where is the catharsis? 

Mark 

8/10

Paul says...

After a few weeks of actresses whose names have slightly faded away over the decades, we return to one with icon-status again. Ingrid Bergman achieved immense fame in her life and career, with the American Film Institute listing her as the fourth greatest actress of all time (surpassed only by Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Audrey Hepburn). In terms of Academy Awards, she was nominated for Best Actress six times and won twice, and even nabbed a Best Supporting Actress in the '70s too. She won a Bafta, 4 Golden Globes, the very first Tony Award for Best Actress (jointly with fellow Oscar-winner Helen Hayes) and a multitude of other awards all around the world.

Born and raised in Sweden to Swedish and German parents, Ingrid’s mother died when she was just 2 and her father died when she was 13, putting her into the care of her aunt and uncle. Her father had already put her in training for opera singing, but she eventually attended a theatre school in Sweden but dropped out after one year when she was already getting roles in Swedish films. She was noticed by film producer David O. Selznick who brought her to Hollywood to star in an American remake of her first movie, Intermezzo, in 1939. Other Hollywood figures had misgivings about her because she didn’t speak English and her German-ness led to a feeling of distrust around her at the time. But Intermezzo was a huge hit and Selznick, an influential voice in the industry, complimented Bergman’s humility, conscientiousness and hard work.

The early '40s saw Ingrid star in some of her most iconic movies, including Casablanca (she later complained that Casablanca would often overshadow her other movies which she described as “more important”), and For Whom the Bell Tolls, which garnered her first Best Actress Oscar nomination. 

Gaslight was her second nomination, and her first win, and her performance is often considered one of the greatest Best Actress performances of all time, and one of Ingrid’s best. I truly agree. Her acting here arguably surpasses that in Casablanca, for which she wasn’t nominated. The scene at the piano concert, in which her evil husband convinces her that she has stolen his watch, is probably what won her the award. Ingrid displays a woman who thought she could enjoy a night out without worry or incident and then her hopes come crashing down around her. She desperately tries to keep control but the sobs and tears burst out of her uncontrollably. You really feel her pain and humiliation and your hatred for her abusive spouse becomes unbearable by this point. Bergman is careful not to overplay it- she focuses more on Paula’s nervousness, her fear of upsetting her husband and her constant confusion. There is a sense that, even when she is at her lowest, there is a voice in her head telling her that something else is happening here, but she has no evidence.

It helps the movie that Ingrid is accompanied by a range of outstanding co-stars. Charles Boyer as her husband is far more than just a pantomime villain- he is the epitome of manipulation and connivance and you both hate him and fear him throughout most of the story. He was also nominated for Best Actor but lost out to Bing Crosby. Angela Lansbury, in her very first movie role at the tender age of 19, is having a great time and garnered a Best Supporting Actress nomination for this. Obviously, this was the start of a very, very, VERY long career. 

Gaslight is a marvellous work, but it may be triggering for anyone who has suffered from abusive relationships. I’m not being facetious, this is a genuine warning. It has a suitable injection of melodrama, as we spend much of the film discovering who murdered Paula’s aunt and why, why Gregory has boarded up the attic, and why Paula sees the gaslights changing for no apparent reason. But it’s a credit to the movie that the depiction of the psychological abuse Paula is subjected to is incredibly real. This form of abuse (which is now called “gaslighting” because of the original 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton on which the film is based) still happens today, in which someone manipulates another into doubting their own sanity. The signs and symptoms (murder mystery aside) are quite accurate, and anyone who has been a victim of it or any other form of abuse may wish to approach this film with caution as it could be upsetting. I’ve never suffered from it myself but Paula’s plight was deeply affecting to the point where I was nearly screaming at the screen for her to get out of the house.

I agree with Doug, however, that the film’s ending is a major disappointment. The toe-curling suspense is raised higher and higher with Hitchcockian delicacy as the film progresses and there are constant promises of some kind of physical showdown between the goodies and the baddies. But the climax is unfulfilling. I think the film makers may have underestimated just how involved their audience would be, and just how much we would despise Gregory. Perhaps they wanted a climax that was more realistic. But Paula’s big “gotcha” speech to an arrested Gregory doesn’t have the cathartic oomph I was looking for. A prime example of how it’s done is Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. The final denouement sees the hero and villain fist-fighting on a carousel that’s spinning madly out of control. On its own, the scene is insane. But Hitchcock has twisted audience’s stomachs so much through the film’s two hours that it’s exactly what the audience needs to relieve the tension. I suppose thrillers need to work like orgasms in that respect - Hitchcock certainly understood that.

But all in all, Gaslight is, for me, the best movie of the Best Actress winners so far. Yes, probably better even than Gone With the Wind. It’s tense and emotional and mysterious, and its depictions of abuse have stood the test of time. 

Post-Gaslight, Ingrid’s career continued strong with three collaborations with Hitchcock himself, the most famous being 1946’s Notorious. Then, in 1949, she collaborated with Italian director Roberto Rossellini. The affair between the two of them became one of Hollywood’s greatest scandals, and nearly spelled the end of Bergman’s career.

And with that intense cliffhanger, we will put a pause on Bergman. We will return to her when we reach her second Best Actress win in 1956 in Anastasia. Next time we will be writing about another silver screen icon, albeit a much more histrionic one.  

Highlight

The scene at the piano concert as mentioned above. Have you ever been so upset that you’ve just collapsed in tears without any control? That’s Bergman right there.

Lowlight

Like Doug, the ending, especially the final 10 minutes or so, does not provide the climax that the film promises.

Mark

9/10

16. Casablanca (1943)

Casablanca Plot Intro

Casablanca, Morocco, the early ’40s. With France occupied and most of Europe in uproar, refugees from all over flock to Casablanca where they use wits, bribery and luck to gain exit visas for a new, free life in America. Within this chaos is Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a bar owner who wants to keep his head down and stay out of dangerous politics. But his life is changed when an old flame of his, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), arrives in Casablanca with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). Laszlo is wanted by the Nazis so the couple are desperate to leave- and Rick becomes their only salvation. With old feelings between Rick and Ilsa re-emerging, however, Rick must now make a choice. Will he help his beloved Ilsa to leave his life forever, or keep her within the suppressive confines of Casablanca?

Paul says...

Casablanca is not just a popular film. It has that enviable “icon” status that is shared with Gone With the Wind. The American Film Institute names it as the third greatest film of all time, surpassed only by Citizen Kane and The Godfather. It’s part of movie royalty, with lines and scenes that have been satirised, imitated and referenced by The Simpsons, Family Guy, Red Dwarf and even, to name an obscure reference, one of the Discworld computer games. In other words, Casablanca is a Big Deal.

But, on my first viewing when I was in my mid-teens, I found it dull and confusing. I spotted all the famous lines which, like the shower scene in Psycho, are so expected that they’ve lost their power. I developed a disliking for Humphrey Bogart who pretty much plays the same detached, moody loner in all the other films I’ve seen of him, I was disappointed by how small-scale the film is (it’s mostly set in Rick’s cafe) and I found the final climactic 20 minutes too convoluted to follow (a lot happens in a short space of time).

But this repeated viewing gave me a more positive perspective, having now learnt more about the war, about unlikeable, complex characters in fiction, and gained an appreciation for films of this era. It’s refreshingly dark. How Green Was My Valley was sweet, homely and domestic. Mrs Miniver was inspiring and rose-tinted. But Casablanca is unafraid to show the corruption and unpleasantness of humanity. I loved all the side-characters who are desperately trying to escape or survive in their own way (such as a French floozy named Yvonne, and a young Bulgarian couple who have run out of money) and I liked speculating about where they were from and where they would end up. 

I also gained more understanding of the three major players in the central love triangle. Laszlo is the conventional hero- handsome, righteous, bellicose and courageous. Rick is the polar opposite- cynical, acerbic, ostensibly indifferent but loyal to his friends. And I identified much more with Ilsa, who is torn between two men she adores for different reasons, but must choose one to run away with. Should she choose the rebel or the survivor? Whom would YOU choose? 

What marks Casablanca down for me is that I was nowhere near as emotionally captivated as I was with the Welsh miners or Scarlett O’Hara in previous films. There are the classic, oft-repeated lines, but the film is also dotted with lines like, “Is that cannon fire, or is it my heart pounding?”, which would make the writers of Dynasty wince. I was interested to see how the main characters fare, and in the motivations and loyalties of some of the more ambiguous characters (Claude Raines’ measured performance as Captain Renault is an excellent example of untrustworthy meets likeable). But interesting is not enough for 10 out of 10- I want to be devastated and inspired but I was neither of those things.

For me, Casablanca is a fascinating insight into a side of the war that is often unexplored, and I enjoyed the way in which so many characters and storylines are tightly held together under a small-scale setting, but it’s not powerful enough for me to place it in my list of favourites.

Highlight

The famous Marseillaise scene, in which the entire cafe out-sing a group of German commanders. Imagine watching THAT in 1943 after a wearying 4 years of warfare.

Lowlight

The scenes between Bogart and Bergman alone sometimes drag. I found them full of saccharine dialogue that didn’t advance the story.

Mark

7/10 (up from a 4/10 when I last watched it) 

Doug says...

My mother loves this film. She quotes the lines, hums the tunes and does wistful sighs when you talk about Humphrey Bogart. So when I first sat down to watch it with her a few years ago, I expected great things, and was fairly disappointed. I found it dull, dragging, and very much like a patchwork of great lines all stitched together. However, since then I have grown up a fair bit, have gained a knowledge of the context of this film, and was prepared to re-approach it with a more adult perspective. 

It is somewhat surprising then to say that my opinion of this film has actually sunk further still. Plot-wise, very little happens. Character-wise, very little happens. And all of the female characters - particularly Ingrid Bergman - have nothing to do whatsoever. Bergman’s character has absolutely no agency bar protecting her big strong revolutionary husband. Bogart’s character does very little until the very end - and I’m particularly biased against the ‘masculine’ style of acting we’re seeing a lot in this period (namely just saying your lines while looking like you’ve had full-face botox). It’s just a bit dull. 

In fact I found it comparable to a far greater film - Cabaret - which has the similar situation of a lot of people trying to carry on as normal - going to bars and clubs - while secretly trying to escape the Nazi threat of the time. Cabaret likewise has a moment where people singing overpower the situation - only it’s more subversive as the young handsome Nazis sing Tomorrow Belongs To Me and everyone begins to reluctantly, fervently, join in. But Cabaret has characters you care about and feels more real. This on the other hand ends up feeling a bit half-finished. There’s no great story, there’s some atmosphere but nothing is really done with it. 

What’s surprising about this film is that the screenplay is generally considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, ever written. Whereas I feel it’s a piece very much of its time, and gathering dust rapidly. I can imagine that, being produced in the heart of WWII, it would have resonated with the watching audience far more and inspired them. The lines themselves could be great - but they’re all delivered at rattle-fast pace and without any deeper thought, so that they have only gathered importance and sincerity with the repetition and spoofs on other shows. Coming back to the source, I was left rather uninspired. 

   

Highlight

The line ‘we’ll always have Paris’ is useful when saying goodbye to friends for the weekend, so I’m very grateful it was written, even if it was delivered with somewhat-underwhelming gusto. 

Lowlight

It’s a slow film with potentially great lines, that doesn’t deliver the goods. Also Ingrid Bergman has such a lack of any personality or action here that she could be successfully replaced with a hatstand, and the film wouldn’t differ. 

Mark

3.5/10