Autumn Sonata
| Autumn Sonata | |
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US theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Written by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Starring |
Ingrid Bergman Liv Ullmann Lena Nyman Halvar Björk |
| Music by | Frédéric Chopin |
| Cinematography | Sven Nykvist |
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Production
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| Distributed by | New World Pictures (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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99 minutes |
| Country |
West Germany Sweden |
| Language | Swedish |
Autumn Sonata (Swedish: Höstsonaten, German: Herbstsonate) is a 1978 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann and Lena Nyman. The movie tells the story of a celebrated classical pianist who is confronted by her neglected daughter. It was Ingrid Bergman's last performance in a major theatrical feature film. Autumn Sonata was Ingmar Bergman's last film made for the cinema; all his films from this point, even those which received theatrical release, were television productions.
Eva (Liv Ullmann), wife of the village pastor, invites her mother Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) for a visit to her village. She has not seen her for over seven years. Her mother is a world-renowned pianist, somewhat eccentric, aging, and has survived several husbands. Eva is not as talented as the mother (despite the fact that she has written two books, and has a passing ability at playing the piano). Eva's main concern is to be the mistress of her home, wife, mother and loving sister. It is gradually learned through her dialogue with her mother that her life has had a large number of unfortunate setbacks: a husband (Halvar Björk) she respects, but does not really have affection for, their son drowned when only 4 years old, and Charlotte never appears to have loved Eva as a mother normally loves a daughter. As part of her day-to-day life, Eva takes care of her disabled and paralyzed sister Helena (Lena Nyman), whom she has taken out of the hospital into her own home; she appears to be the only person who can understand her sister's limited speech ability.
The presence of her younger paralyzed daughter in Eva's house is shocking to the aging mother. She makes a gift of her own wrist watch to her younger paralyzed daughter, and listens to Eva playing Prelude No. 2 in A minor by Chopin. She immediately re-performs the same prelude after Eva finishes in her own preferred interpretation of the music. Before going to bed, Charlotte decides to make a gift of her own car to her daughter. She plans to take a flight home, and buy a new car for herself, as a measure of her altruism. At night, Charlotte wakes up from a nightmare: it seems that Eva is choking her. She gets up, goes into the living room and sees Eva there also awake and not sleeping.
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Wikipedia