Peter's Film Viewing Journal (The Touch)

An attempt to write my random and initial thoughts for every film (of note) that I see, especially retrospective selections I have viewed on the big screen, with little editing and lots of brevity and focusing on thoughts/reaction, not criticism; taking the tone of "notes to self".

The Touch
1971
Directed By: Ingmar Bergman
Screened at MOMA, November 8th 2009

I am not a big Bergman fan. In fact, I tried to watch Wild Strawberries a little bit ago and couldn't get far at all. Not really sure what bugs me about him. But MOMA has this Film Preservation program every year where they screen the films that have been lucky enough to get restored or preserved that year. One of these films this year was The Touch, Directed by Ingmar Bergman from 1971, not a very well know Bergman selection at all. It stars Elliot Gould, for Heaven's sake.

You can see why this one didn't really rise out of the' obscure' status. Another somber adultery premise, with Bibi Andersson as a seemingly happy mother and wife and Gould as an eccentric archeologist with whom she has a strange, intense affair.

There were a tremendous amount of annoying people around me at this screening. Two old women behind me kept clicking their tongue against their teeth at the screen to create the universal sound for disapproval or shame. The woman next to me kept talking to herself, "Wow." or "Why is she doing that?", so often it was alarming. If I had been captured by this film, I would've given these freaks a piece of my mind, but the fact is I was finding it hard to get into this one. The camera was doing a lot of wacky things. Strange zooms, quick pans. The editing was also erratic and almost experimental. Not so sure what Bergman's other films from this period are like, but this one was strange.

I was really there for what followed, an hour long doc on the making of The Touch called, simply Ingmar Bergman. This was really great because it showed the director at work in long takes and up close. You really got an idea of how this man worked. There is a nice sequence where he tries to explain to Andersson why the pants that she is wearing are not going to work for the scene. It goes on in real time for, like 10 minutes. Maybe this would be boring to someone else, but it was fascinating to me. I can watch a great director at work for hours and hours. So it was very interesting to see an up close making-of doc right after seeing the film. On the way out a stranger just said to me out of the blue, "It feels like just worked on this movie for months, doesn't it?" I agreed.

-Peter Rinaldi