Late Bergman: The Lived Experience of the Absence of God in Faithless and Saraband
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2016, Vol 7, Issue 12
Abstract
Acclaimed as one of the great filmmakers of the 20th century, Ingmar Bergman is for many an arch-modernist, whose work is characterized by a high degree of self-conscious artistry and by dark, even nihilistic themes. Film critics increasingly identify him as a kind of philosopher of the human condition, especially of the dislocations and misery of the modern human condition. However, Bergman’s films are not embodiments of philosophical theories, nor do they include explicit discussions of theory. Instead, he attends to the concrete lived experience of those who, on the one hand, suffer from doubt, dislocation, and self-hatred and, on the other, long for confession and communion. In the middle of his career, especially in his famous faith trilogy of the early 1960s, Bergman investigated the lived experience of the absence of God. It is commonly thought that after this period, the question of God disappeared. However, in his last two films, Faithless and Saraband, Bergman explores the lived experience of the absence of God. Indeed, he moves beyond a simple negation to explore the complex interplay of absence. He even illustrates the possibility of a kind of communion for which so many of his characters—early, middle and late—long.
Authors and Affiliations
http://europub. co. uk/admin
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25638
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7120147
- Views 280
- Downloads 6
Losing Touch: A Theology of Death for Michael Haneke’s Amour
This proposed theology of death for Michael Haneke’s Amour, a fraught but poignant piece of cinema, will employ Martin Heidegger’s existentialism to reframe the ethical structure of the film and apply a “lived theology...
Distal and Proximal Religiosity as Protective Factors for Adolescent and Emerging Adult Alcohol Use
Data from emerging adults (ages 18–29, N = 900) in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Study was used to examine the influence of childhood and emerging adult religiosity and religious-based decision-making, an...
The Case of Hirose Akira: The Ethical Predicament of a Japanese Buddhist Youth during World War II
The Japanese Buddhist clergy’s collaboration with the Japanese war machine during the Fifteen Year War (1931–1945) is notorious. Yet the struggles of ordinary lay Buddhist youths during World War II remain less publicize...
Francesco Petrarca and the Parameters of Historical Research
Although scholars in the first two generations of humanism wrote the histories drawing heavily on ancient Roman sources, Petrarca was the first humanist historian to focuses on the history of ancient Roma. Because he w...
Augustine’s Introduction to Political Philosophy: Teaching De Libero Arbitrio, Book I
Book I of Augustine’s work On Free Choice (De Libero Arbitrio) offers a helpful introduction to some of the most important themes of political philosophy. The paper makes a case for teaching this text in introductory c...