The Silence of God
This is a very, very strange coincidence. The very day that I check "The God Delusion" out of the library, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni both died within hours of one another. I am not going to grieve, for the death of an old man is not a tragedy. Bergman was 89 and Antonioni was 94, and both of them had magnificently full creative lives.
At the risk of philistinism, I have to admit that on the whole, Antonioni left me cold. I admired Blow Up and L'Avventura without loving them. I suspect that the fault is probably with me, and that later in life, I'll return to Antonioni and find what was hiding from me in the depths of his films.
Bergman though...I was not surprised to hear that he had passed, but a chill stole over my heart regardless. The last time I felt such a keen loss as a movie nut was when Akira Kurosawa died. Bergman has fallen out of fashion lately. But to look back with an unprejudiced eye, his inventiveness, his productivity, his seemingly limitless capacity for probing the tenderest parts of the human condition again and again (and again) over his long, long life...
I discovered Bergman at a rather crucial moment as a college student. At my university, a few religion classes were required. I was having real issues with the problem of Theodicy. That was when I first saw the Seventh Seal. It was like a bolt of lightning had pierced me. Here was the metaphorical made tangible. Bergman had figured out that you could talk about the BIG issues on film and make it not only interesting but gripping and ultimately, totally uplifiting. I've learned from the films of Bergman over the years that in times of utter desparation, when I cry out to god, I am answered by silence.
But there is wisdom in listening carefully to silence. Something wondrous exists in the quiet spaces between the cacophony of our hopes and fears, our desires and agonies, our rages and our ecstasies. We spend our short lives in terror of the triumph of death. If only we could listen to the silence of god instead, we would hear something of infinitely greater value.
There is a tempest of life raging around us contiuously, in the babble of a brook and the shriek of birds at dawn. In the creak of old trees and in the cracking of the earth during a frost. In the susurrus of insects and the rustle of whitetail creeping through the wood at twilight.
A hawk, descending to the surface of the water, the glint of scales under the surface.
The dry sound of wind on leaves.
The song of crickets.
Footsteps into the distance.
At the risk of philistinism, I have to admit that on the whole, Antonioni left me cold. I admired Blow Up and L'Avventura without loving them. I suspect that the fault is probably with me, and that later in life, I'll return to Antonioni and find what was hiding from me in the depths of his films.
Bergman though...I was not surprised to hear that he had passed, but a chill stole over my heart regardless. The last time I felt such a keen loss as a movie nut was when Akira Kurosawa died. Bergman has fallen out of fashion lately. But to look back with an unprejudiced eye, his inventiveness, his productivity, his seemingly limitless capacity for probing the tenderest parts of the human condition again and again (and again) over his long, long life...
I discovered Bergman at a rather crucial moment as a college student. At my university, a few religion classes were required. I was having real issues with the problem of Theodicy. That was when I first saw the Seventh Seal. It was like a bolt of lightning had pierced me. Here was the metaphorical made tangible. Bergman had figured out that you could talk about the BIG issues on film and make it not only interesting but gripping and ultimately, totally uplifiting. I've learned from the films of Bergman over the years that in times of utter desparation, when I cry out to god, I am answered by silence.
But there is wisdom in listening carefully to silence. Something wondrous exists in the quiet spaces between the cacophony of our hopes and fears, our desires and agonies, our rages and our ecstasies. We spend our short lives in terror of the triumph of death. If only we could listen to the silence of god instead, we would hear something of infinitely greater value.
There is a tempest of life raging around us contiuously, in the babble of a brook and the shriek of birds at dawn. In the creak of old trees and in the cracking of the earth during a frost. In the susurrus of insects and the rustle of whitetail creeping through the wood at twilight.
A hawk, descending to the surface of the water, the glint of scales under the surface.
The dry sound of wind on leaves.
The song of crickets.
Footsteps into the distance.