Original subtitles

Ingmar Bergman's first television series, Scenes From a Marriage,

was made 13 years ago.

In it, we meet Johan and Marianne,

who believe themselves to be a happy couple.

The leading roles are played by Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson.

They bare more and more of their souls in each episode,

both to themselves and to each other.

In unflinching close-ups, with everything extraneous peeled away,

Bergman moves in close on his actors.

The series met with international success

and struck a chord in relationships worldwide.

I wrote this very quickly and for the sheer fun of it.

When my wife Ingrid transcribed it, she said,

"This won't interest anyone. It's much too private."

And I agreed with her.

It was private both for me personally

and for the friends I had based it on.

But they never recognized themselves in it,

but then, to my immense surprise,

it seemed that everybody-

- Seemed to see themselves in it. - Yes, in one way or another.

Not only in Sweden, but throughout the world.

And that was a surprising discovery.

To this very day,

I still don't know the reason for that.

Well, it might be this:

It deals with people...

who are emotional illiterates.

They have no self-understanding.

They know nothing about themselves.

They live their lives.

They're educated and talented. They've read all the books.

They know everything. They're oriented in their surroundings.

They have all the resources.

But they can't handle the simplest of emotional ABCs.

They have no access to them, no education in them.

The funny thing is

that the girl, Marianne,

knows intuitively that something is wrong,

whileJohan, in male fashion,

hates to "speak up" or "have it out."

He believes that if you don't speak about something, it doesn't exist.

Perhaps there was something very elementary in this story

that people could relate to.

Then there were lots of people

who were upset because the children were left out of the story.

I could never respond to that,

except to say it would have been a different story.

This is this story,

and there are thousands of variations on this theme.

I wanted to tell a story

about people ignorant of their emotions and senses...

about how people lack insight

into the reactions of their inner soul,

both their own and those of others close to them.

But the fact that it went right to the hearts of so many people

must mean there are quite a few emotional illiterates out there.

Don't you think so?

Perhaps most of the audience would say,

"Look how crazy they're acting."

But in secret they might admit,

"I could imagine myself acting just as crazy."

I don't know.

It's so hard to analyze

people's attitudes.

I always try to avoid doing that.

It seems they're acting very much on their own,

as if you've lost control over them.

Marianne is developing in one direction and Johan in another,

and you seem neutral towards both.

We can't imagine what you think.

Maybe that's the point.

I'd like to think

that I started out with firm resolution,

but then these characters took over.

I was often very surprised at their way of reacting.

I remember one thing that surprised me immensely.

That was the sexual antagonism

that became so obvious.

One was under the impression that their tenderness and everything -

that their sexual relationship was okay.

But then suddenly they started fighting about sex,

which came as a surprise to me, and that was a very astonishing discovery.

But later on I realized

that people with heavy social demands on them,

with demanding social roles to play,

will, in the end, get back at each other on a sexual level, too.

At first -

I grew a bit tired of them

towards the end of the story.

When they meet again after many years, they've let go of all those demands.

Yet they're deeply bound to each other, even on a physical level.

Marianne writes in her diary

about how she was rewarded as a little girl

whenever she was obedient and pleasant,

but when she was assertive and misbehaved, things didn't go well.

Likewise, Johan tells about himself as a little boy.

It seems you think their difficulties as adults

have to do with the child that lives within them

and their childhood experiences.

Very much so.

I'm no professional psychiatrist. This is just my personal opinion.

But I think our childhood is more decisive

than people generally are willing to admit.

And what happens to us later

can either cast a shadow or shine a light

on what's already been created - or ruined -within us.

But whatever befalls our subconscious mind

before the age of two or three,

and during those incredibly sensitive years

approaching and during puberty,

until finally there's an outline of a human being, round the age of 20 -

it can often be very hard to revise and correct all this.

In the meantime, there's probably a lot of aggression stored up.

Aggression is a peculiar issue,

because in this country

we have a very peculiar relationship to aggression.

We are so terribly inhibited in that regard.

We're afraid of our anger.

All those wise counselors in the media and elsewhere

keep trying to tell us there's nothing wrong with being angry.

But I know from my own childhood,

and from that of my generation and those of even younger generations,

how terribly suppressed we were

when we expressed fury,

anger or rage.

Or even just bad temper.

So it's part of our upbringing.

Perhaps things have improved and become more sensible now. I don't know.

You lived in Germany for nine years. You speak about us, the Swedish nation.

If you compare it with the climate in Munich,

did you find that people were different in terms of their rage and aggression?

Well, let's just say we were 1,200 miles further south.

I'm terrified to speak of national characteristics,

but I think there is a basic feature

to our upbringing, something very Lutheran.

As we became "de-Christianized..."

we remembered the law but forgot the gospel.

You know, law and order

and sticking to the letter of the law is more important

than the whole issue of love,

which we manage to forget.

So how is it, then, that you're so close to your anger?

You're famous for your anger.

So they say.

Well, I think it's inherited.

I think that becoming

extremely angry and out of control on the job...

is unprofessional and shouldn't be allowed to happen.

It's just destructive and makes people anxious.

A person might throw what's known as "constructive tantrums,"

but there you've still got yourself under control.

It's a controlled, directed rage.

But the uncontrolled fury-

As Luther said, " There's no taking back a word once it's in flight."

That applies to any word you shouldn't have spoken.

These are dangerous matters.

You know, I used to be so quick-tempered,

mostly due to a profound lack of patience,

and, of course, fear and insecurity.

But as fear diminishes

and understanding increases, you don't need to get that angry.

Scenes From a Marriage is mostly about aggression and how to deal with it.

Johan and Marianne are at first taken aback

as true and genuine feelings come pouring out of them.

But once they permit themselves to get angry and react,

they learn something about themselves and each other.

At the time, the series sparked heated discussions about married life.

The show's ratings increased in proportion to the characters'aggressive outbursts.

Seeing the couple on television ignited something in many viewers

that affected them long after the series was over, for better or worse.

One thing that made me very happy

was that divorce statistics

in Denmark increased enormously.

This made me incredibly happy.

Why?

Well, maybe because people saw other people

actually discussing things with each other.

They may say dreadful things,

and you don't have to stand for that or take all the blame.

You can pull away. And so they did.

Maybe there were people who had had divorce on their minds for years,

and so they came to a decision.

Maybe everything got much better.

It's also said that after the last episode in Sweden,

appointments for family counseling doubled.

I find all that so amusing.

Now, after all these years, I don't know if it would have the same effect.

Our lives are changing so quickly.

Whatever was considered to be truth then,

what was important and urgent,

might feel old and stale today.

I can't be the judge of that. We'll see.

So you were glad that people took hold of their lives

in a way that helped them grow?

Yes. To my astonishment...

something that was incredibly private

and concerned a small circle of acquaintances

had become common property, and that was very satisfying.