What is the last movie you saw? and rate it.

[YesNo]

I think Minus tried to kiss his sister, Karin, but she rejected the kiss. Robert Ebert mentioned incest also, but I don't think that occurred.

I had two reasons for referencing someone like Ebert. I wanted to know what I missed that I could look for the next time I saw the movie and I wanted to look for divergence between Ebert's description and what I actually saw. Ebert would be presenting an authoritative version that might need to be rejected in part.

One of the divergences is that Ebert assumed Karin was schizophrenic. I think it is more interesting to see her as not. Her brother admitted that he did not think she was mentally ill and neither did she. Most important, the closet door clearly opened making one wonder if what she was experiencing was a delusion or not.

[Clopin]

Yeh but Karin and Minus both act very strangely after the boat scene. Karin suggests that something serious has happened, starts crying and laments what she has 'done' to Minus; and later when David calls Minus to talk to him he's running around and hiding (lol, the scene was I think, unitentionally, humorous). It could be what you think though, it's ambiguous.

As for the door, a helicoptor goes by the house when it opens, maybe it just blows open.

[YesNo]

The helicopter might have opened the door. I will watch the movie again to see if that was possible.

The pattern I see is Karin's successful rejection of sexual advances. That is why I don't think she and Minus actually had an incestuous relationship. Even the rejection of the present her father gave her seemed to fit as a rejection of a sexual advance. It seemed to me that Karin was in control throughout from the very first where she gets her way to the end where she wants to go back to the hospital.

The linking of sex with spirituality is however key. I think that may have been Bergman's intent, but I do not know enough about him. I will probably have to watch some of the other films, especially, Winter Light and The Silence.

[Clopin]

Yeh possibly, I didn't consider the repeated rejections of sexual advances, but now that you mention it, it strikes me as pretty relevant. Karin won't have sex with her husband while she is 'ill' and she rejects God himself!

[Clopin]

Also regarding the door opening. Once I was discussing Kafka online with someone who drew a humorous diagram or graph in paint which plotted characters in The Metamorphosis alongside their level of 'buggyness' and was accompanied with the argument that Kafka envisioned a world in which human life could be explained through the binaries of 'buggy' and 'not buggy' and considering this he stressed the possibility that really Gregor's parents are the ones who woke up changed... who woke up less buggy. It was defintely a joke, sort of a stab at literary criticism in general and Kafka analysis in particular. How that relates to the door, well... okay.

So I think the general interpretation of Through a Glass Darkly is the more literal one, that Karin has schizophrenia or something like schizophrenia and is uncurable. However your suggestion that there is no illness would mean what? Well that she's suffering from life? Or a spiritual strugglers? That makes a lot of sense to me given Bergmans oeuvre and the themes he chooses to tackle repeatedly in his films. He touches on mental illness a lot, but not nearly as much as he contemplates the silence of God, or (damn this word) existentialism, and you can also assume perhaps that mental illness isn't just mental illness when it crops up in his movies. So really then Karin is just suffering from a spiritual crisis of a much stronger magnitude than anyone else, but as you can see, every character is struggling in their own way and perhaps it's only a matter of degree separating Karin from everyone else instead of Karin being 'sick' and others being 'well'.

That could explain why everyone sees the door open at the same time becsuse every character is sick in the same way as Karin is, but maybe it's just not as pronounced, or they don't notice it all the time.

[Pompey Bum]

The door is opened by the spider god so that he can rape Karin. It is also blown open by the helicopter coming to the island so that she can be forcibly committed to an institution. The silhouette of the helicopter is the image of the spider god coming for her. It is also the thing itself. They are analogous, but they are the same thing (Karin's her mind, and in the reality of the film). That is the power and horror of the scene. She has been waiting for God to come and redeem her from the schizophrenia that she inherited from her mother and that had led her to seduce her childish and needy brother. But instead of the forgiving and redeeming God she seeks, she gets a god of sickness, the spider god, an image Bergman takes from Nietzsche's critique of the Christian God in The Anti-Christ.

[Clopin]

Woah, maybe I'll go rewatch it right now.

[YesNo]

The door is opened by the spider god so that he can rape her. It is also blown open by the helicopter so that she can be forcibly committed to an institution. The shadow of the helicopter is the image of the spider god coming for her. It is also the helicopter itself coming for her. They are analogous, but they are also the same thing. That is the power and horror of the scene. Karin has been waiting for God to come and redeem her from the schizophrenia that she inherited from her mother and that led her to seduce her childish and needy brother. But instead of the forgiving and redeeming God she seeks, she gets a god of sickness, the spider god, an image Bergman takes from Nietzsche's critique of the Christian God in The Anti-Christ.

I searched and found one reference to "spider" in Nietzsche's The AntiChrist: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19322/pg19322.txt

"the priest himself is seen as he actually is--as the most dangerous form of parasite, as the venomous spider of creation...."

I'll have to watch this again to see how the helicopter and its shadow are presented.

She perceived the spider as wanting to have sex with her, but I don't think she saw it as attempting rape. I will have to pay attention to that as well. Also, at one point she agreed to go to the hospital. However, there is the scene where she is given a drug to calm her after the spider incident. I will have to see to what extent she is forced to go to the hospital.

[Pompey Bum]

I think this is the pertinent quote:

The Christian conception of God--God as god of the sick, God as a spider, God as spirit--is one of the most corrupt conceptions of the divine ever attained onearth. It may even represent the low-water mark in the descending development of divine types. God degenerated into the contradiction of life, instead of being its transfiguration and eternal Yes! God as the declaration of war against life, against nature, against the will to live! God--the formula for every slander against "this world," for every lie about the "beyond"! God--the deification of nothingness, the will to nothingness pronounced holy!

I don't believe Bergman is embracing Nietzche's ethos so much as recoiling at his recognition of its applicability. The horror is relieved (barely) by the suggestion that faith may still be found in our potential to love one another ("Papa spoke to me!"). But that possibility is precisely what Bergman rejects in The Winter's Light, and especially in The Silence.

Edit: This clip shows the helicopter sequence and the symbolic rape (with syringe). I notice that the image of the father is opposite the opening door. Somehow I had forgotten that over the years.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=41dVm3EauOU

[YesNo]

I rewatched the movie. Karin does believe the spider wanted to rape her, but she was able to defend herself against him. Injecting the drug was against her will. That the helicopter occurred at the same time as the door opening implies there is some connection. There was no shadow of the helicopter on the floor. It had descended below the window by the time Karin recognized the spider, however, the final scene does have the helicopter leave and there is a shadow on its landing site that moves away.

Karin feels she was being forced by the "Others" to reject Martin, seduce Minus and read David's journal. She assumes responsibility, but excuses it by denying any free will on her part. She did want to go back to the hospital requesting that no attempts be made to give her therapy (which is what they did with the injection) so she could stay with the Others and not come back to them. I will have to see how "Winter's Light" and "The Silence" turn out. I've had enough Bergman for one day.

The idea of God as spider is a new one for me. However, I don't know if this idea is something Bergman intended to use or if others imagined this afterwards.

[Pompey Bum]

I rewatched the movie. Karin does believe the spider wanted to rape her, but she was able to defend herself against him. Injecting the drug was against her will. That the helicopter occurred at the same time as the door opening implies there is some connection. There was no shadow of the helicopter on the floor. It had descended below the window by the time Karin recognized the spider, however, the final scene does have the helicopter leave and there is a shadow on its landing site that moves away.

Sorry, I meant silhouette. I went back and changed it later. But, she screams at the apparition of the image of the helicopter descending from the heavens like a spider on a thread (I also edited the scene into my post above). The rape was symbolic. The men (including her brother) trap her on the stairs and her husband injects her butt against her will. She does not say that she was successful in her attempt to defend herself. The description of what actually happened (in her delusion) seems to mirror whatever transpired between Karin and Minus in the ruined ship (based on the eye contact she makes with him as she describes it). Later, Minus tells his father that this involved reality "bursting open" and his "tumbling out" it seems to me that he is confessing his incest. What Karin seems to have been alluding to is that it did not involve actual penetration--perhaps because if Minus' immaturity.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LEdRxYotZuQ

[YesNo]

Also regarding the door opening. Once I was discussing Kafka online with someone who drew a humorous diagram or graph in paint which plotted characters in The Metamorphosis alongside their level of 'buggyness' and was accompanied with the argument that Kafka envisioned a world in which human life could be explained through the binaries of 'buggy' and 'not buggy' and considering this he stressed the possibility that really Gregor's parents are the ones who woke up changed... who woke up less buggy. It was defintely a joke, sort of a stab at literary criticism in general and Kafka analysis in particular. How that relates to the door, well... okay.

So I think the general interpretation of Through a Glass Darkly is the more literal one, that Karin has schizophrenia or something like schizophrenia and is uncurable. However your suggestion that there is no illness would mean what? Well that she's suffering from life? Or a spiritual strugglers? That makes a lot of sense to me given Bergmans oeuvre and the themes he chooses to tackle repeatedly in his films. He touches on mental illness a lot, but not nearly as much as he contemplates the silence of God, or (damn this word) existentialism, and you can also assume perhaps that mental illness isn't just mental illness when it crops up in his movies. So really then Karin is just suffering from a spiritual crisis of a much stronger magnitude than anyone else, but as you can see, every character is struggling in their own way and perhaps it's only a matter of degree separating Karin from everyone else instead of Karin being 'sick' and others being 'well'.

That could explain why everyone sees the door open at the same time becsuse every character is sick in the same way as Karin is, but maybe it's just not as pronounced, or they don't notice it all the time.

My assumption is that she was not mentally ill, or that her problems were a form of spiritual crisis she needed to work through. If that is true, then her treatments generated the symptoms of schizophrenia which reinforced the diagnosis of why she heard the Others. However, that is what I want to see in the film. That may not be what Bergman intended. Whatever Bergman intended is what counts.

[YesNo]

Sorry, I meant silhouette. I went back and changed it later. But, she screams at the apparition of the image of the helicopter descending from the heavens (I also edited the scene into my post above). The rape was symbolic. The men (including her brother) trap her on the stairs and her husband injects her butt against her will. She does not say that she was successful in her attempt to defend herself. The description of what actually happened (in her delusion) seems to mirror whatever transpired between Karin and Minus in the ruined ship (based on the eye contact she makes with him as she describes it). Later, Minus tells his father that this involved reality "bursting open" and his "tumbling out" it seems to me that he is confessing his incest.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w6YD7Z0EtlM

In the next clip she says at 3:30 "I defended myself" against the spider and I assume that was successful since she also said at 3:47 that "he couldn't penetrate me". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzyMu4pBjYA

I agree that the helicopter symbolizes the spider. As it lands she sees the spider on the floor. The helicopter will take her back to the hospital where she will be with the Others provided she does not get further treatment like they gave her with the injection. After seeing the spider perhaps she will want the treatment now.

I don't think Karin and Minus committed incest. Her rejection of Minus as his face came close to hers was a sign of her free will which she assumed she did not have since the Others were supposedly making her seduce Minus. Minus was confused and he felt guilty since he probably wanted to have sex with her.

[Pompey Bum]

In the next clip she says at 3:30 "I defended myself" against the spider and I assume that was successful since she also said at 3:47 that "he couldn't penetrate me". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzyMu4pBjYA

Sorry again, but please see my thoughts about this above. I apologize for editing so much into posts I have already submitted, but that's the way my mind works

[YesNo]

Sorry again, but please see my thoughts about this above. I apologize for editing so much into posts I have already submitted, but that's the way my mind works

No problem. I edit mine as well. I have been trying to see if it makes sense that Karin and Minus had sex given the way she looked at the end of the scene where she brought Minus head toward her. At the moment I don't think it matters one way or the other. Perhaps my idea that she was rejecting sex in different ways is not what Bergman intended.