Here are some excerpts from Roger Ebert's film review:
Ingmar Bergman believes that the human face is a great theme in movies. He once told me in an interview that he had seen Michelangelo Antonioni on TV and he found it was not what Antonioni said that attracted him, but his face.
I believe Bergman is thinking more than just close-ups. He thinks about the study of the face, the intense gaze, the face as a window to the soul. Faces are central to all of his films, but are definitely an essential force in his Faith trilogy: Still in the Mirror (1961), Winter Light (1962), Silence ( 1963). In traditional film language, close-ups are part of the grammar used to express opinions, express reactions, and emphasize emotions. The use of close-ups matches the rhythm of the clip. But in the trilogy and many other films, Bergman didn't use his close-ups in this way. His characters often appear alone or in pairs. They're not looking at something specific - maybe they're looking inside themselves.
He asked the actors to maintain a high degree of concentration, as in "Still in the Mirror," with Harriet Andersson's face in the foreground, and another character in the background staring for a long time at a point on the right side of the screen, He didn't blink at all, and his eyes didn't move at all. The camera conveys the power of her obsession, and she believes a voice is calling her. Bergman often uses what I've outlined as the "Basic Bergman Double Shot," a neat technique that produces great power. He juxtaposes the two faces on the screen at a very close distance, but there is no eye contact between the two figures. They each focus on an unclear point off-screen, and their eyes are directed in different directions. They are so close, yet so far apart. It's a visual representation of the underlying belief in his films: We try to reach each other, but often back off because of our inner compulsion. For these shots, Bergman worked closely with photographer Sven Nikvist, one of the preeminent artists in the field. Nikvist makes us realize that most movies just light up the faces of the characters without really illuminating them. Especially since the advent of television, the lighting style adopted by movies has flattened the images and made them appear to be on the same plane. One of the things we love about film noir is its bolder use of angles, shadows, and strategic lighting. In Bergman's film, if you freeze a frame of a two-shot, you'll see Nikvist illuminating each face with a different light source, and he uses the light to create the shadow band, as in A black line is drawn between the two faces, separating them from each other.
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