Face to Face (1976 film)
7.8 /10 1 Votes
80% Rotten Tomatoes Director Ingmar Bergman Initial DVD release August 30, 2011 Duration Country Sweden | 7.7/10 IMDb 3/4 Roger Ebert Genre Drama, Fantasy Music director Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Writer Ingmar Bergman Language Swedish | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Release date 5 April 1976 (1976-04-05) (United States)28 April 1976 (1976-04-28) (Sweden) Cast Liv Ullmann (Dr. Jenny Isaksson), Erland Josephson (Dr. Tomas Jacobi), Aino Taube (The Grandmother), Gunnar Björnstrand (The Grandfather), Sif Ruud (Elisabeth Wankel), Gösta Ekman (Mikael Strömberg)Similar Cries and Whispers, Autumn Sonata, Fanny and Alexander | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Face to Face (Swedish: Ansikte mot ansikte) is a 1976 Swedish psychological drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. It tells the story of a psychiatrist who is suffering from a mental illness. It stars Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson.
Contents
- Releases
- Plot
- Principal cast in credits order
- Rest of cast in alphabetical order
- Reception
- Awards
- References
It is also the film debut of Lena Olin.
Releases
The film was conceived and produced as a four-part mini-series on Swedish television with a running time of 177 minutes. The episodes were entitled:
- Uppbrottet (The Separation)
- Gränsen (The Border)
- Skymningslandet (The Twilight Land)
- Återkomsten (The Return)
It was edited down for theatrical releases for running times from 114 to 135 minutes. However, the theatrical version premiered first. The film was later screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival held in May, but was not entered into the main competition. The television version aired in Sweden over four weeks in May and June of that year, and has not been released for home media.
Plot
Dr. Jenny Isaksson (Liv Ullmann) is a psychiatrist married to another psychiatrist; both are successful in their jobs but slowly, agonizingly, Jenny succumbs to a breakdown. She is haunted by images and emotions from her past and eventually cannot function as a wife, doctor, or individual.
Principal cast (in credits order)
Rest of cast (in alphabetical order)
Reception
Aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 82% approval of Face to Face based on 11 reviews. Vincent Canby was highly favorable and wrote, "Mr. Bergman is more mysterious, more haunting, more contradictory than ever, though the style of the film has never been more precise, clear, levelheaded." Roger Ebert, while calling it "confused and sometimes overwrought", awarded it three out of four stars and lauded Ullmann's performance as "one of the greatest performances in an Ingmar Bergman film" up to that point.
Awards
Face to Face was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress (Ullmann) and Best Director (Bergman).
Ullmann was nominated by BAFTA in the Best Actress category.
She was also named Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, with the film winning Best Foreign Language Film at the latter.
It also was named by the Golden Globes as their Best Foreign Language Film of the year, with Ullmann also being nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama.
References
Face to Face (1976 film) WikipediaFace to Face (1976 film) IMDbFace to Face (1976 film) Rotten TomatoesFace to Face (1976 film) Roger EbertFace to Face (1976 film) themoviedb.org