Luca D
Really great movie. Says a lot about pride and shame. The movie shows how a man becomes when the woman he loves hurts his pride. The women in the movie seem to not think about consequences which is pretty realistic, and the men feel lost when the woman they love commits shameful careless acts. A very depressing and maddening movie, but definitely worth a watch.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
10/05/23
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Audience Member
This movie depicts the typical life of Starving Artists. As the title suggests "tinsel represents the outward appearance and glamor of Circus life. While on the other hand Sawdust represents the lack of income Circus performance suffers. As the film progresses you get a direct view behind the scenes of the Theatre as well as other forms of Artistic lifestyles. Disease and poverty follow the main characters footsteps every step of the way towards desperation and madness. From the directors point of you it is clearly depicting the reality of their struggles. Production value wise this movie clearly wasn't cheaply made. As far as the amount of Actors , rare animals , costumes and designs are concerned. In the end it falls short on many levels and unfortunately the storyline just does not pay off .
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
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Audience Member
A refreshing Berman film in that I didn't want to kill myself at the end. Well, almost, but still.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/17/23
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Audience Member
They said go join the circus. They said it'd be fun. Then this happened. Maudlin, depressing, dull, not a classic.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
Full Review
Audience Member
(a "humiliation" film review by Timothy J. Verret)
I never imagined that I would want to write a film review of any Ingmar Bergman film wherein I would not write a review for the entirety of the film but simply from just the opening (YouTube video above), but this is where I'm going with this film review of Ingmar Bergman's SAWDUST AND TINSEL. The choice I am making here is because the opening of SAWDUST AND TINSEL encapsulates the entirety of the film that explores the scope of one human condition: Humiliation.
At the beginning of SAWDUST AND TINSEL, we see horses on the horizon carrying circus people, circus animals, and circus props. They are traveling from one town to another, and then the camera brings us two men seemingly bored on this journey, leading one of the men to tell the other man an entertaining story about a clown named Frost and his wife, Alma. Frost's wife, Alma, is walking on a beach alone when she encounters a regiment of men shooting off long cannons. These long cannons represent not only the regimented men….well, regimenting….but also and more symbolically the sexual "long"ing of these same men. The men begin to entice Alma, and she entices them most assuredly in return. A young boy runs to tell Frost what his wife is up to. Frost goes with young boy to find Alma, who is out in the water frolicking with some of these regimented men. Then, humiliation begins: Frost takes off his clown clothes revealing his undergarments, covering his back and front (humiliation) as he goes into the water to save Alma from further humiliating herself. The young boy who led Frost to this scenario steals Frost's clown clothes so Frost will stay exposed in his undergarments, possibly revealing more back and front than before now that he'll be holding onto Alma (humiliation). Frost brings Alma to shore as all the men are laughing at them both (double humiliation). Frost walks with Alma in his arms along a horizon very similar to the one present at the beginning of the film (this horizon walk parallels the walking of Jesus Christ carrying The Cross to Calvary). As Frost is carrying Alma, he falls (humiliation) and can hardly get up with Alma pressing down on him (more humiliation). Then, Alma yells at the men for humiliating her and her husband, Frost. When the story is over, the man telling the story says they all yelled back at Alma that it is was her who brought this on (humiliation) and that they actually were the ones who lifted up Frost, as the camera cuts to showing Frost's face in white-frost closeup with white clown-faced anguish (humiliation).
All of this to say that Ingmar Bergman is at his best when he probes and dissects the human condition, and he probes and dissects the human condition of humiliation in SAWDUST AND TINSEL. It's the human condition of how we humiliate one another, how this humiliation stays with us and changes us, and how we bide our time until the next humiliation appears. And the fact that Bergman films SAWDUST AND TINSEL in a circus, for me anyway, takes humiliation to a whole other level. Circuses that travel with circus people humiliate their circus people through buffoonery and clown antics. Circuses that travel with circus animals humiliate circus animals by forcing them to perform against their innermost nature to be wild and free. Circuses that travel with circus props humiliate their audiences who watch the humiliation of their circus people and animals with these props. Under or NOT under the Big Top of the circus, humiliation is unfortunately a human condition residing in all of us. We humiliate another, often unaware of doing this, every time we hate another, every time we dominate another, and every time we put another over there while we are over here laughing at them. Bergman totally gets this line of humiliation because he is an artist and thus knows humiliation resides often at the core of an artist, i.e., an artist is humiliated simply on the grounds that he or she IS an artist. This is why so many of Bergman films, whether about a circus or not, always seem to have that one character who is an artist (actor, writer, circus performer, etc.) with Bergman's personal and all-consuming artistic message of "how do I create in reality (humiliation) when all I really want to create in is fantasy (NOT humiliation)?" For an artist, there is never an easy answer to this question and often enough, the question goes unanswered. All an artist knows is that he or she needs to create from fantasy (NOT humiliation) that unfortunately can not come by any other way than to create with reality (humiliation).
At this point of the film review of SAWDUST AND TINSEL, I am aching to go further from this opening mentioned above to talk about a woman who sexually cheats on the man she loves (humiliation), about this man, just the same, cheating on this woman with his previous wife nonsexually (humiliation for all three) and about when the man finds out the woman cheated on him, just the same, instead of processing this humiliation inside of himself, he takes out his humiliation on the circus bear by shooting the poor soul. Saying probably way more than I initially intended with this film review, I will stop here because I don't want to humiliate you in any way, whereby I "force" you to see this film. You might have some interest in seeing SAWDUST AND TINSEL for the probing and dissection of the human condition of humiliation but, if you have never been humiliated in your life, why would you even want to watch a film all about humiliation? I seem to be betting that you ARE human and you have been humiliated in your life and thus will desire to see what Bergman has to say about all this. I, however, promise not to hold a gun to your head like done to Frost in this film, because I desire not to humiliate anyone, human or nonhuman animal, in my life. This desire got further solidified after watching SAWDUST AND TINSEL because of the brilliancy and bravery in which Ingmar Bergman consistently and constantly explores any and all human conditions in his films, and Ingmar Bergman never disappoints on this front (or, better yet, on our insides) and doesn't disappoint on this front (or Frost) of humiliation in SAWDUST AND TINSEL.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
Full Review
andres s
Very interesting seeing how a traveling circus wandered around in carriages pulled by horses. Seems so dangerous and dirty and miserable but exciting and interesting. I mean if your wife is giving you that much trouble, like this Alma chick that just got naked in the ocean in front of a whole regiment of soldiers, I feel like it's time to move on bro. Pretty twisted and unsettling, kind of like a nightmare, the way Bergman portrayed the whole story of Frost the Clown and his wife Alma. I feel like it might be a bit foreshadowing of what might happen between the circus owner and Anne. Jeez, this fancy director is such a pompous ass. Ok, she stared way tool long at that actor dude. That's not a good sign. But damn, she is a fine little thang.
Wow, what a childish little brat though, throwing that tantrum and she's obviously a super jealous person. She's got some growing up to do. I mean, this circus owner dude is pretty much holding all the cards right now. Agda seems to be doing just fine without him. He seems to be overly prideful and stubborn as hell. If I were him, I'd ditch the dirty circus thing and try to live a normal cleaner life with Agda and the kids. This could be a dream she's having, the way no one notices her being there (Anne) at the theater while the play is going on, the way the theater lights go out in a very dream-like fashion. Wow, she pretty much sold her body, prostituted herself, so she could get the amulet and the key to escape the room. The bear I guess symbolizes the chain that connects and keeps everyone together in the circus and in killing it, it might represent freedom. I can definitely sympathize with Albert at the end, the way he felt like he had nothing else to live for, feeling completely destroyed. I was really hoping that it would end with Albert going back to his wife and them living happily ever after, but then I remembered the way he treated her. Almost as if he had a short temper. It seems like he might have mistreated her at some point or maybe taken her for granted so I guess it needed to end the way it did. I think Albert's problem is his frustration and short temper which might derive from his lack of finding a successful and fruitful life within the circus. But you can also tell that he enjoys the traveling circus life and almost lives for it. If he was stripped of it, he would feel empty, a longing. So I guess everything worked out for the better.
The way Bergman is presenting this movie so far is very dry, very gloomy, very kind of sad and dreary. I'm not really digging it that much, it's making me depressed lol. I'm mainly watching it to see how the story unfolds between the circus owner, his wife and this cute girl he's got now. There is definitely social commentary here on the clashing of classes. Poor class versus high class. The wicked high class trying to see how low the poor class is willing to go for a better life. How wicked high class people can be and how they can toy with the lower class as if they were animals. It's quite bleak and dark the way it's presented. An interesting look at how traveling circus life was. I admire Bergman's love for really old things as we've seen with The Seventh Seal which takes place during medieval times and now this one which seems to take place during the late 1800's. Very very very interesting movie that highlights the complexities of relationships and how career changes can affect a relationship in both positive and negative ways. I learned a lot watching this movie but I wouldn't watch it again because of how dark and dreary it is.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
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