Serpent's Egg Ingmar Bergman Digital Life VHS

Serpent's Egg
starring: David Carradine, Liv Ullmann, Heinz Bennent, Isolde Barth, Toni Berger
directed by: Ingmar Bergman

Used Price: $0.99

Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786305214663
Format: Color, NTSC
ISBN: 6305214670
Label: Polygram/Usa Home Entertaiment
Manufacturer: Polygram/Usa Home Entertaiment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Polygram/Usa Home Entertaiment
Release Date: February 23, 1999
Running Time: 119 minutes
Sales Rank: 7971
Studio: Polygram/Usa Home Entertaiment
Theatrical Release Date: February 15, 1978

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Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Mediocre
When Ingmar Bergman was in self-imposed exile from Sweden, in the late 1970s, over a flap where he was accused by the Swedish government of tax evasion, he made several films abroad. One of them was The Serpent's Egg (Das Schlangenei-Örmens ägg), an English language film (his second- The Touch was the first) made in 1978, in West Berlin studios, for legendary film producer Dino de Laurentiis, who was reeling from the financial disaster that was his 1976 remake of King Kong. This film did nothing to change the producer's fortunes, as it is easily the worst Bergman film I've yet seen. This is a reputation that most other critics agree with, as well. That said, it is not realy a bad film- merely a muddled and poorly edited one, and by Hollywood's dim standards, especially considering this is a horror film, it is quite complex and superior to films in that genre that had mass appeal, such as the Hollywood fare of ... Read More

Rating:

- A thanatoxic culture
In his earlier years as a writer/director, Bergman often said he wished film making was an anonymous art. Although he later rejected the desire as "romantic," I appreciate his point. It's difficult to watch a Bergman film with fresh vision. One simply expects a Bergman movie to be of a certain type, and if one comes along that disappoints this expectation, it's all too tempting to dismiss it as a dog.

Disappointed expectations are, I think, a good part of what lies behind negative responses to "The Serpent's Egg." It's true that the film isn't one of Bergman's best. Even he and Liv Ullman admit as much. He thinks it was overdone--"on steroids," as he says--and Ullman thinks that the Bergman got overwhelmed by the Hollywood big money and attitude that produced it. It also doesn't help that David Carradine, who plays the lead role, has got to be one of the worst actors Hollywood has ever produced. ... Read More

Rating:

- Not Bergman's best, but not a bad film overall
This movie has a notorious reputation for being Bergman's 'worst film.' His collaborators have stated that he was overwhelmed by the demands of supervising a large crew; additionally, Bergman had never made a film on anything approaching a typical Hollywood budget. THE SERPENT'S EGG was supposed to be Bergman's break-through to the mainstream film market. Indeed, even though the film flopped in America, it made decent money in Europe, and became Bergman's largest grossing film of all time.

It's true, from the outset, that you can sense this isn't a typical Bergman movie. The emotional intimacy present in his previous films is gone. Bergman, who visualized things microscopically, was being asked to visualize macroscopically. The expansive vision of this film seems antithetical to the introspective Berman. His talent was most evident when he worked in small, manageable environments, focusing on individual ... Read More

Rating:

- Is It Really The Master's Mistake?

Fear, Loathing, and Despair in Berlin, November 1923

This film universally considered "the master's failure" but I don't agree with the statement. It is very different from the rest of Bergman's films I've seen but that does not make it failure for me. It is only Bergman's second film in English and it boasts an unusual for his films large budget (Dino De Laurentis was a producer) with enormous and elaborate sets. Bergman was able to recreate on the screen Germany (Berlin) of 1920th exactly how it was seen in the films of 1920th German directors - Fritz Lang's films come to mind first. Another film that The Serpent's Egg reminded me of was Bob Fosse's Cabaret - the theme of the Feast during the Time of Plague sounds very prominent in both films, and the cabaret's musical numbers in Bergman's film could've came from Fosse's. I was very impressed by Liv Ullmann's singing and dancing in the beginning of the ... Read More

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