Scenes from a Marriage (TV version)
The next days (or weeks) are rather clear. I rewatched “Ukigusa” yesterday (everything I said about how it’s superior to the silent version does hold true!) and will spending my time on the DVDs we recently purchased. We also saw Teshigahara’s short films which came in the box – they were so lovely. Having learned that he ended up taking over his father’s ikebana school, it really makes me want to get into it too. Having already written about “Ukigusa monogatari”, the TV version of “Scenes from a Marriage” is the only film amongst the purchases I have not yet seen.
To be honest, it was three episodes in that I finally realized I have not seen the TV version before. This is especially ironic because each episode has these amusing credits with a landscape shot of the Faroe Islands, and I thought I just forgot about them. The truth was that I have obviously never seen them before. That it took me so long to realize I was watching a different (and, in fact, longer) version of the same film essentially means that the condensed version indeed contained practically everything the movie needed. The character of Eva is rather unnecessary, the confrontation with the mother is as well; being largely restricted to the interaction between Johan and Marianne, the theatrical version seemed to contain everything I found memorable about the film.
Nevertheless, there is something nice about seeing the TV version. If you think of every part of the film as an episode and allow yourself a little time between them (i.e. watch one or two parts a day), it feels more like you are watching a slice of life, with plain everyday problems slowly unfolding, almost alongside your real life. Luckily the pacing is not any slower, but we get much more of these little everyday details. The structure of the film also seems much clearer as each episode does make rather big jumps in time.
The biggest difference between watching the movie the first and the second time is the emotional impact the film made on me, which goes hand in hand with my changed impression of the relationship dynamic. Concerning the first aspect, emotional impact, it’s not actually the impact was any less strong than last time. It is just different. Watching the film the first time left me utterly devastated and made me begin to doubt whether any relationship can possibly be happy. The way marriages, or relationships in general, are portrayed in this film suggests that they must be inherently unhappy, that it is impossible to be together in the traditional sense by construction. Maybe this is actually true, but personally I don’t believe it (anymore). Having been taken off the burden of the main struggle in the film allowed me to see this couple from a different perspective and perceive them as characters instead of a Schnitzler-like template for relationships in general. I probably am also seeing more details now. Unlike the first time, I think that the end of the film is strangely comforting, that it is beautiful how this couple maintained their strong feelings for each other over all those years. When Johan claimed that they loved each other in their own way, I used to think “Oh really? How can you say that after getting a divorce and marrying someone else?” Perhaps it is due to seeing the longer version that I now believe whatever they share must be some sort of love, and that they share an unbreakable bond despite having boring sex and being a bad match by any logical criterion.
Furthermore, I am also less partial to Marianne now. Back then, it was easy to blame Johan for everything – he was the one who made no attempts at improving their relationship, he was the one who left for someone else and then came back begging in the most pathetic way possible. But there always are two in a relationship, and I find “Scenes of a Marriage” more balanced nowadays. Of course Liv Ullmann is one heck of a woman and is largely the victim in the story, but she too ignored her husband’s unhappiness quite actively, and thank God she ended up coming out on top, with a better life than this husband has ever been able to give ot her. The only weakness of the film remains the same – Johan’s extreme misogyny and Marianne’s meekness are just so cliché, but maybe a healthy dose of cliché is necessary to make characters human.
Pip says the film feels extremely realistic, yet the heightened drama would never be like that in real life. While I used to think that the film was painfully true, I now mostly subscribe to Pip’s statement. Life is indeed a little more boring than that, though I still think that most of what the film says is indeed true – it’s just that in real life nobody has the balls say it.