Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Review by Shannon Scott Stebbins
“To Joy”, Ingmar Bergman’s eighth film, was released in 1949. And it’s an emotional ringer.
Death, physical abuse, alcoholism, and emotional torture all have places at the table. The brochure for this film would be pretty simple: Welcome to Sweden. Sweeping concertos. Boy meets girl. Ambition and emotional intimacy don’t mix. The oven blows up. Wife dies. Thank you for coming.
The film doesn’t waste any time. Stig comes home to find that his wife, Marta, has been killed from an oven explosion. The films then rewinds to the beginning of their courtship. While many films might struggle to recapture the impact of such news, Bergman is just getting started. He likes to dig deep and ignite loneliness, despair and torment in his lead characters. So it might come in handy to watch “To Joy” with a therapist.
After rehearsing for an upcoming concert, the curmudgeon conductor introduces two violinists new the orchestra. We meet Stig Eriksson, played by Stig Olin, and Marta, who is referred to as, “a woman in the orchestra, sort of silly and against nature, but she is reasonably talented.” The odds are stacked against Marta Olsson, played by Maj-Britt Nilsson. “To Joy” is a study of the human condition: flaws, struggle, and mortality. Bergman postulates how men and women try to co-exist despite different ideals.
Stig wants to become a celebrated soloist, travel the world and indulge in his own greatness. He is mean, rude and introverted, just the catch for the sweet, lovely Marta. They have known each other through the musicians’ circuit. She invites him to her birthday party, to which he expresses zero interest. She offers him $10 to come. He demands $20 so he can get a new haircut, agreeing to use $1.50 for a birthday gift.
As for tormented, egocentric artists, attending a birthday party with loads of people, laughter and music is about as enticing as it would be for a schizophrenic to ride coach on plane full of clowns and air marshals. Stig is no exception. He quietly medicates his soul with glasses of liquor while partygoers roam the scene with enthusiastic fervor. After being sloshed just enough, Stig decides to make his “Brando” moment. He fires truth and judgment down on the attendees, most of whom are his peers, lashing their musical intentions and highlighting their ineptitude. Not a bad greeting by the new guy in the pit.
The emotions are louder than the Beethoven that plays throughout this film. Stig and Marta end up getting married and having children and living in the Swedish countryside. Stig can’t stand himself and yet loves himself so much. As Marta points out, Stig acquires a mistress to appease his genius. At one point he beats her and apologizes as blood oozes down her lip. Stig could use a 12-step program.
Bergman began his career rewriting scripts. The script of “To joy” is dense, yet soft. When the ornery conductor reluctantly agrees to let Stig debut as a soloist, he leans in and characterizes, “you haven’t discovered that music is a goal, not a means.” There is no lecturing or grandstanding in this film, but there is an exploration of truth. Clearly influenced by Kafka, Dostoyevsky and existentialism, Bergman does not waste space in his films, rather fills them with vibrating, boiling protagonists who must search for their own meaning. Bergman expects the same from his audience. “To Joy” drags on. Not in a bad way. Bergman insists that his audience earn their way to the climax, if any. This movie is ninety-nine minutes long but feels like a three-hour epic.
The beauty of the ending is not how Stig reconciles the death of his wife, but how he manages to exist with what he was given. His son pulls up a chair and watches his father rehearse with the symphony. The end.
