Continuing the Dartmouth Film Society's spring "Mommie Dearest" film series, "Autumn Sonata" and "September" explore the issues of the mother-daughter relationship.
"Autumn Sonata," written and directed by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, examines the life of a world-famous pianist named Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman, who has no relation to the director) and her direct confrontation with her oldest daughter Eva (Liv Ullman), who feels no connection with her mother.
The two most famous Swedish film superstars finally team up together in a role that Bergman plays with remarkable restraint, especially considering she was undergoing radiation treatments for advanced cancer and was scheduled for surgery after the film was completed.
Ingrid Bergman told the director, "You know I'm living on borrowed time."
But Bergman, when creating the rough draft of his film, wrote that Ingrid Bergman, and nobody else, must play the role of the mother.
While Bergman found working with Ingrid Bergman frustrating because she prided herself on her constant rehearsing (which Bergman despised because he felt too much rehearsing took away any spontaneity from the shoot), he believed Ingrid gave all her energy to the role and proved to be a key asset to the film.
Although the mother-daughter relationship is an integral part of the film, the other important relationship is Charlotte's loss of her ability to perform as a pianist on a world-class level. While she is a more than competent pianist, Charlotte realizes she can never regain the level of success she once achieved in her younger years.
The irony of her situation is that she decided to take time away from touring in order to spend more time with her daughters only to be a ghost in their lives.
Irony, which runs high in most Woody Allen films, is more subdued in his 1988 film "September."
Allen believes that Bergman's premiere genre, the tragedy, is the only genre which can truly allow an auteur to reach his creative apex. Unfortunately, Allen has never quite reached the success in tragedies as his idol Bergman had.
Yet Allen has established himself as the premiere comedy and romantic-comedy writer and director over the past 20 years. His success relies on the subtleties of adult characters searching for love and meaning.
Allen captures the complexities of adult life and its responsibilities, like John Hughes' bull's-eye profiles of teenage angst.
"September" stars Allen's usual acting troupe with Mia Farrow as Lane and Elaine Stritch as her mother, Diane.
Taking place in Vermont during the last few days of August (not in September as the title might suggest), a group of friends prepare for the end of summer which ends up being the last chance for these friends to express their heart-felt feelings towards each other.
Not only does this plot allow for some innocent love triangles to form, but it finally offers Lane the opportunity to express the disgust she had for her mother while growing up.
"Autumn Sonata" and "September" not only explore the mother-daughter relationship (or lack thereof), but demonstrate the facades people put on in order to please others. In reality, the fronts just make everybody even more miserable.
Only when the characters put themselves at risk in confronting each other do they realize the happiness they can achieve.
