This unusual political drama by Ingmar Bergman was filmed at Bavaria Film Studios in Munich during the director's exile from Sweden after encountering problems with tax officials back home. THE SERPENT'S EGG, a big-budget German-American coproduction, was Bergman's second work in English after THE TOUCH and is set in 1920's .. Read more
| Starring | Liv Ullmann, David Carradine, Gert Frobe, Heinz Bennent |
|---|---|
| Director | Ingmar Bergman |
| Genres | Drama |
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This unusual political drama by Ingmar Bergman was filmed at Bavaria Film Studios in Munich during the director's exile from Sweden after encountering problems with tax officials back home. THE SERPENT'S EGG, a big-budget German-American coproduction, was Bergman's second work in English after THE TOUCH and is set in 1920's Berlin, shortly before Hitler's rise to power. Abel (David Carradine), a Jewish trapeze artist, and his late brother's wife, Manuela (Liv Ullmann), a cabaret performer and part-time prostitute, are forced to seek employment at a medical clinic run by Dr. Vergerus (Heinz Bennent), because other work is hard to come by in the poverty-stricken and inflation-prone city. But Abel and Manuela's financial problems are overshadowed by a gruesome discovery: The mad-scientist-like Vergerus is secretly conducting human experiments--foreshadowing the horrors of the concentration camps. Carradine was considered miscast by many critics who didn't know quite what to make of this film. Nightmarish and gripping, it depicts the political turmoil, ever-increasing Nazi brutality, and general moral decay of the time period in vivid, graphic images. Bergman has admitted to being a follower of Hitler's in his youth, and some have speculated that this film, deviating from the director's usual subject matter, represented an act of repentance of sorts.
| Starring | Liv Ullmann, David Carradine, Gert Frobe, Heinz Bennent, Glynn Turman, James Whitmore Jr., James Whitmore |
|---|---|
| Director | Ingmar Bergman |
| Studio | CASTLE HOME VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 59 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 08 Oct 2001 Production year: 1977 |
The critics have been very unkind to this film, attacking it for its noise, its depiction of pain and prejudice and its over-reliance on the portrait of Germany painted in Cabaret. Admittedly, this is one of Ingmar Bergman's lesser pictures — he wasn't used to working in English, his knowledge of the period was somewhat limited and he was still nursing the hurt caused by his brush with the Swedish inland revenue that had driven him into temporary exile. But, occasionally, this bold experiment in style throws up some striking images that capture the mix of decadence and danger that characterised life in the Weimar Republic.
Whether stimulated by his brush with the Swedish tax-man or his brief self-imposed exile in West Germany, Bergman's... read more on Time Out
Fear, Loathing, and Despair in Berlin, November 1923
This film universally considered 'the master's failure' but I don't agree with ...
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Fear, Loathing, and Despair in Berlin, November 1923
This film universally considered 'the master's failure' but I don't agree with ...
more