![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-table-tears.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ingrid Bergman is a concert pianist who comes to visit her daughter (played by Liv Ullmann), who wants nothing more than for her distant and exacting mother to love her. Half the movie is a dance between them as Bergman goes from gracious guest to petulant diva on the turn of a dime, and Ullmann goes from groveling to defiant almost as quickly, but they’re still feeling each other out.<\/p>\n
It comes to a head in a late night verbal knockdown dragout that’s just about as grueling to watch as it must have been to experience, but that stands as an absolute tour de force for both these actors. The best thing (Ingmar) Bergman did in this situation was write the dialogue and then get the hell out of the way for Bergman and Ullmann to run with it, and they certainly do. For any daughter who’s ever fought with her mother (I have, but not nearly at this level, thank God), this is tough stuff, but real. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-Bergman-shock.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
It’ll be difficult, but I want to eventually watch it again, as the ending didn’t quite satisfy – but likely it’s not meant to, and a rewatch would confirm that. I’d been putting this one off because I had a feeling it would be pretty emotionally devastating, and it was, but I’m glad I was given a motivation to get on with it, and I’m glad I saw it. My mom and I also both play(ed) the piano, so the scene where Ullmann plays a piece she’s proud of for her mother, only to have her mother rip her technique apart was especially relatable (and I could see it coming a mile away, which made it even more heartbreaking).<\/p>\n
Stats and stuff…<\/h3>\n
1978, Sweden<\/em> I’m ranking all my Challenge films on Flickchart (as I do all the films I see), a movie-ranking website that asks you to choose your favorite between two movies until it builds a ranked list of your favorites. Just for fun, I will average out the rankings and keep a running tally of whose recommendations rank the highest. When you add a film to Flickchart, it pits it against films already on your chart to see where it should fall. Here’s how Autumn Sonata<\/em> entered my chart:<\/p>\n Autumn Sonata<\/b> > Sylvia Scarlett Final #780 out of 3765 (79%)<\/p>\n It is now my #5 Ingmar Bergman film, my #5 Ingrid Bergman film, my #2 Liv Ullmann film, my #35 Family Drama, my #6 Reunion Film, and my #3 film of 1978.<\/p>\n Autumn Sonata<\/em> was recommended by Bas van Stratum, a friend from the Flickcharters group on Facebook. Averaging together this #780 ranking with my #551 ranking of his other film, 8 Women<\/em>, gives Bas an average ranking of 665.<\/p>\n Finishing the Challenge out with a classic Bergman-Bergman film, the only one Ingmar and Ingrid ever made together, and it’s a doozy. There are Ingmar Bergman films I love to bits, but I often find him a tough nut to crack, his film striking me as a bit austere and aloof rather than the deeply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3027],"tags":[3286,143,1437],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-autumn-sonata-feat.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":560,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/rip-ingmar-bergman\/","url_meta":{"origin":36657,"position":0},"title":"R.I.P. Ingmar Bergman","author":"Jandy","date":"July 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Ingmar Bergman, one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers ever, died yesterday. I haven't seen a lot of Bergman films, and those I have tend to strand me between a sense that I may be watching something incredible and my realization that I'm not understanding half of it. Reading\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32554,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/blindspotting-2013-wild-strawberries-1957\/","url_meta":{"origin":36657,"position":1},"title":"Blindspotting 2013: Wild Strawberries (1957)","author":"Jandy","date":"March 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"There are so many Ingmar Bergman films I haven't seen (and most all of them are considered essentials by cinephiles) that there will likely be a Bergman film on every one of my Blindspot lists for years to come. Last year it was The Virgin Spring; this year I opted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Blind-Spots-Wild-Strawberries.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36384,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/challenge-week-38-fanny-and-alexander\/","url_meta":{"origin":36657,"position":2},"title":"Challenge Week 38: Fanny and Alexander","author":"Jandy","date":"October 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This is one of my least favorite kinds of posts to write, because it's so hard to write about beloved films from master filmmakers that I liked but didn't strongly connect to. It's one thing if I DISLIKE a film like this, because at least that's something to hang a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tf-feat-fannyalexander.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":704,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/class-connections\/","url_meta":{"origin":36657,"position":3},"title":"Class connections…","author":"Jandy","date":"October 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Two things I'm really grateful for at the moment. 1 - That I chose to do my short paper\/panel assignment on Ellen Douglas' Can't Quit You Baby, because of all the books we've read so far in Southern Lit, it's my favorite. Each one we read I like better than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1305,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/ebert-on-how-to-read-a-movie\/","url_meta":{"origin":36657,"position":4},"title":"Ebert on How to Read a Movie","author":"Jandy","date":"September 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've mentioned to many acquaintances my distaste for Roger Ebert's binary thumb system of film reviewing, and I often tend to have a knee-jerk reaction against his overall film ratings. On the other hand, his criticism (rather than his reviewing) is highly sound, readable, and I wish he'd do more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35739,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/challenge-week-13-europa-51\/","url_meta":{"origin":36657,"position":5},"title":"Challenge Week 13: Europa ’51","author":"Jandy","date":"April 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I would much rather wait to write about this one until I've had more time with it, and preferably another couple of watches. It's not particularly complicated, and yet it's about an awful lot - labor, sacrifice, political philosophy, spirituality, society, redemption, and most of all, love. Not romantic love,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/tf-feat-Europa51.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwritten and directed by Ingmar Bergman<\/em>
\nstarring Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Lena Nyman<\/em><\/p>\n
\nAutumn Sonata<\/b> > Batman (1989)
\nAutumn Sonata < Frozen<\/b> (2013)
\nAutumn Sonata < Get a Horse!<\/b>
\nAutumn Sonata<\/b> > It Might Get Loud
\nAutumn Sonata < Whale Rider<\/b>
\nAutumn Sonata<\/b> > Revolutionary Road
\nAutumn Sonata < No Service<\/b>
\nAutumn Sonata<\/b> > The Secret in Their Eyes
\nAutumn Sonata<\/b> > The Pirate
\nAutumn Sonata<\/b> > The Stratton Story<\/p>\nA Few More Screencaps<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-primp.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-ullman-at-piano.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-twoshot.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-ugly-cry.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-bergman-cry.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"