What filmmaking techniques does Fanny and Alexander use?

CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Fanny and Alexander (1982): Tonal Bifurcation, Supernatural Realism, Circular Structure and Production Design as Psychological Space.

Who directed Fanny and Alexander?

Ingmar Bergman directed Fanny and Alexander, released in 1982. CineCode also covers The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), Persona (1966).

What films are similar to Fanny and Alexander?

Films that share techniques with Fanny and Alexander include The Apartment (1960), Brazil (1985), Synecdoche, New York (2008), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).

Drama

Fanny and Alexander

Ingmar Bergman, 1982

A large theater family in early 20th-century Uppsala celebrates Christmas. Then the children's world is shattered when their widowed mother remarries a cold, tyrannical bishop. This is Bergman's farewell film, and it is his most humane and his most complete.

3 Narrative 1 Cinematography

At a glance

Fanny and Alexander is a 1982 drama film directed by Ingmar Bergman. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (3 narrative and 1 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Apartment uses several of the same techniques.

Narrative

Tonal Bifurcation

Giving a film 2 very different tones, such as comedy and tragedy, often split into halves. Each makes the other hit harder, and the film never blends them into 1.

How this film uses it

The first half is a long celebration of life in a theater family, full of warmth, food, performance and love. The second half is a study of institutional cruelty and cold religious authority. Bergman doesn't ease you from one mood into the other. The celebration ends abruptly when Oscar dies, and soon the children are in the bishop's house. The contrast is what the film has to say. That is, these are 2 ways people can live with and treat each other.

Where to see it

Oscar's death at the end of the Christmas celebration and the move to the bishop's house. The break in mood is abrupt, and the loss feels like a physical amputation.

Narrative

Supernatural Realism

Dropping magical or miraculous events into an otherwise realistic world and playing them completely straight. The film never explains them or winks at you about them.

How this film uses it

Alexander sees his dead father. The bishop's ghost appears. The magic of Isak Jacobi's house works with no explanation. Bergman films all of this in the same matter-of-fact way as the theater family's daily life, and he never marks the supernatural as special. In this film's world, ghosts and miracles are simply part of what exists.

Where to see it

The appearance of Alexander's father. The ghost looks as real as every other character. Bergman gives the supernatural the same standing as everything realistic in the film.

Narrative

Circular Structure

Ending the film where it started, or with a scene that echoes the opening. The repeat shows what has changed, or suggests the cycle will keep going.

How this film uses it

The film opens and closes with Ekdahl family celebrations, a Christmas party and Nativity play at the start and a christening party at the end, so everything begins and ends in the world of the theater family. By circling back, Bergman makes his case. The theater family's values are the only serious answer to cruelty and death, and it would be wrong to dismiss them as escapism. The circle closes as the next generation begins.

Where to see it

The closing celebration. The family is gathered again for a christening, the newborns are celebrated and Uncle Gustav Adolf gives his speech about the little world. The film is back where it began.

Cinematography

Production Design as Psychological Space

Designing the sets to reflect what is going on inside a character. The place they live in tells you things about them that the dialogue doesn't.

How this film uses it

The Ekdahl house is warm, crammed with furniture and full of things to see and touch. The space shows you how the family feels about life. The bishop's house is bare, cold and laid out in strict lines, and it shows you his religion of self-denial and control. Production design means the sets and everything in them. It is Bergman's main way of telling you about the 2 worlds the children move between.

Where to see it

The bishop's house. It is bare and cold, and the space is a portrait of the mind of the man who lives in it.

Questions

Fanny and Alexander: quick answers

What filmmaking techniques does Fanny and Alexander use?: CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Fanny and Alexander (1982): Tonal Bifurcation, Supernatural Realism, Circular Structure and Production Design as Psychological Space.
Who directed Fanny and Alexander?: Ingmar Bergman directed Fanny and Alexander, released in 1982. CineCode also covers The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), Persona (1966).
What films are similar to Fanny and Alexander?: Films that share techniques with Fanny and Alexander include The Apartment (1960), Brazil (1985), Synecdoche, New York (2008), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).

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