Ingmar Bergman, 1964
Again, like the church of 'Winter Light', we have the geometric opening shot, which one could mistake for a theatre venue. Bergman's style is much like 'Winter Light', for a completely different subject; though his shots are longer, he still doesn't go for mastershots, and has a lot of close work. The visuals are on occassion lovely, with a nice firework sequence being unexpected; it even looked a bit Greenaway-ish, planametric compositions and all.
The sets here comes a quite a suprise; a sort of deliberately vulgar classicism, not overly fiddly but home of neat sclupture and clear colours. This gives it a very particular flavour, combined with the Clousseau-esque (though maybe the coat is meant to be Hulot-esque) pranks of the critic.
This is clearly Bergman playful (as he can be), self-reflexive (direct adress, intertitles, various winks and nods, literally), with low culture bursting through. The serious centre of high culture remains, though seen from the lowlands, rather than Bergman's usual seriousness. The attitude remians the same though; sincere reverence.
Bergman clearly wanted to have a go at critics while not being accused of being po-faced. There is a high degree of charicature, though usually rescued from the brink by Bergman's intuitive sensibility of when things are really becoming too dismal.
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