An examination of themes from Ingmar Bergman's film 'Cries and Whispers'

Cries and Whispers

Cries and Whispers is a film about how we are all existentially alone in our feelings, the need for an emotional outlet, and the need we all have for human comfort. This 1972 film is by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman starring Liv Ullmann as Maria; Harriet Andersson as Agnes; Ingrid Thulin as Karin; Erland Josephson as the Doctor and Kari Sylwan as Anna. The film received 5 Academy Award nominations, winning in the category of Best Cinematography for Sven Nykvist.  Although the film made $1,500.00 it was considered a commercial success being made for only $400,000.00. The film takes place in a mansion in the late 19th century and focuses on 3 sisters, 1 of whom is dying of cancer. The main theme of the film is how unexpressed feelings often express themselves in destructive ways. The metaphor of this theme is Agnes whose cries are contrasted with the silence of her 2 sisters who keep their own pain bottled up. Another crucial theme in the film is warmth, represented by the maid Anna who provides the film’s human element and contrast to other members of the cast, especially sisters Karin and Maria who are both cold and distant. Another theme explored in the film is redemption. Symbolically, Agnes is Christ bearing the sins and suffering of her sisters, giving her voice to the pain they feel but are incapable of expressing themselves. 

Isolation and suffering

Isolation

Isolation is a universal condition in this film. Agnes appears to be the main character this condition applies to but she isn’t because of their maid, Anna, who is always there to comfort her when she cries out. It is Agnes’ mother and 2 sisters who have no comfort and who are isolated and incapable of expressing their pain and feelings. This film is about existential loneliness, the silences, and “tissues” that prevent us from touching each other. Though there is pain and unhappiness in their lives, none of the film’s characters are able to share their pain with each other nor do they cry out for help like Agnes whose cries for help are answered by Anna. Karin has no one to share her feelings with; Maria is too selfish and Frederik, her husband, is too insensitive. Therefore, Karin expresses her pain by mutilating her private parts. Joakim, also, has no one to share the pain caused by his cheating wife and attempts suicide. The sisters’ mother has no one to share her loneliness with except Agnes whom she neglected. But it is because of this isolation and neglect that Agnes is able to relate to her mother. Like Agnes, the servant Anna, who lost her daughter to an illness, knows also what it’s like to feel lonely and isolated which is why she can relate to Agnes. 

Suffering

Suffering is another universal condition in the film in which Karin and Maria are contrasted against Agnes and Anna. Karin and Maria were favored by their mother and in the context of this theme of suffering never experienced any real suffering or loneliness that would have given them empathy. Their callousness towards each other, their sister, Anna and their husbands are consistent throughout the film. Anna and Agnes, on the other hand, have suffered in ways that made them sensitive to others’ suffering. This is why Agnes relates better than her sisters to their mother even though her mother neglects her. Agnes' suffering in isolation and loneliness helps her understand her mother’s isolation and loneliness. Anna suffers quietly as a maidservant among employers who look down on her. This and the death of her ill daughter makes her able to comfort and relate to Agnes’ pain. 

Warmth

Anna is the only person who expresses warmth in the film. This is beautifully shown when she opens her blouse to press Agnes’ head on her breast. This is also suggested when Karin tells the maid to start a fire. By contrast, Karin and Maria are cold to their sister, Anna, their husbands, and towards each other. 

Maria uses her charms for advantage and deception. She attempts to use these false charms to deceive her dead sister but when Agnes pulls her down for a kiss, the real Maria comes out and she runs out of the room leaving her dead sister to Anna’s care.

By not receiving any warmth herself, Karin is unable to provide any to her husband.

Lies

Karins' and Marias’ relationships with their husbands and each other are based on lies. The doctor points this out in the scene where he “reads”— like sentences— Maria’s face  and characterizing the lines in it as artifice, deceit, coldness, unconcern, and selfishness. In a scene late in the film, she shares an intimate moment with Karin where they appear to open up to each other. Later, however, Karin reminds Maria of this conversation and Maria smiles coldly. Her marriage to Joakim— who knows about her affairs with the doctor— is a lie. When Anna comes back from the dead and pleads for Maria’s comfort she, after 1st pretending to care about Agnes’ pain, comes up with a superficial excuse to get out of comforting her dead sister. 

Karin’s lie is silently putting up with her husband because of his wealth and position while at the same time despising him and faking periods to get out of sleeping with him. 

Pain

Sin in this movie is synonymous with the color red which has a lot to do with the inside of the human body or the human heart. Here are some examples of how red as sin is used as a theme in this film: 

• The red interior of the mansion is Agnes’s body
• Red is also the color of the nightgown Maria wears to seduce the doctor into having sex
• The red fade ins and outs are always associated with pain of some sort like the flashback of Maria’s husband attempting to commit suicide because of her infidelity
• Red is also a metaphor associated with the self-mutilation scene involving Karin

Agnes in this film is the Christ figure, carrying the burden of sins for everyone through her own physical suffering. Karin, Maria, and Anna have on white dresses at the beginning of the film to show that they have been washed by Agnes bearing their pain for them.

Ingmar Bergman's 'Cries and Whispers': Plot Summary

This is a summary of Ingmar Bergman's 1972 film 'Cries and Whispers'.

Cries and Whispers is a film about how we are all isolated experiences and feelings and the need for expression and comfort we all need from each other. This 1972 film is by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman starring Liv Ullmann as Maria; Harriet Andersson as Agnes; Ingrid Thulin as Karin; Erland Josephson as the Doctor and Kari Sylwan as Anna. The film received 5 Academy Award nominations, winning in the category of Best Cinematography for Sven Nykvist.  Although the film made $1,500.00 it was considered a commercial success being made for only $400,000.00. The film takes place in a mansion in the late 19th century and is centered around 3 sisters, 1 of which is terminally Ill with cancer. The main theme of the film deals with existential isolation and how we communicate our feelings to each other. This is a plot summary covering the main points in the film. Thanks.

Cries and Whispers

The film begins with an exterior shot of the mansion enshrouded in mists followed by a red fade in taking us inside the mansion. Here we see a montage of various clocks throughout the house. A woman in a long white gown is asleep in a chair in a room that is completely red. Maria fell asleep while keeping vigil over her dying sister. Labored breathing comes from the next room. Agnes awakens in pain. She gets out of bed and drinks a glass of water, then walks over to a clock on the fireplace. She draws the curtains to let the light in. She walks to the door and smiles when she sees her sister, Maria, asleep in the chair. 

Agnes sits at a table and opens her journal. “I’m in pain,” she writes. “My sister’s Maria and Karin are taking turns staying up.”

She returns to bed. Anna, the maid, brings coffee to Maria and Karin. They ask  Anna if anything happened with Agnes overnight. Maria admits to dozing on her watch. Both sisters are dressed in white gowns. Maria leaves  and Karin begins her shift. She tells Anna to start a fire.

Maria is in bed looking at a dollhouse replica of the mansion. Meanwhile, Karin is at a table writing. She drops her pen to the floor. Elsewhere, Anna kneels to pray before her deceased daughter’s picture on a table. Anna offers thanks to God for waking her up and making her cheerful and also offers a prayer for her daughter. 

Agnes is up and walking around in her room. A bowl of white roses sit on a nearby table. She goes over to smell 1 and the perfume brings back childhood memories of their mother who passed away 20 years ago. 

Mother is the spitting image of Marie and likes to stroll the grounds around the estate alone. Aunt Olga often puts on plays for the children and mother spends these happy occasions with Maria and Karin. Agnes is treated like an outsider. 

Agnes hides behind the curtain to watch her mother in the red drawing room in her white dress. Mother spots young Agnes and calls her into the room. With a look of pity, Mother lays her hand against Agnes’ cheek and Agnes presses her small hand against her mother’s cheek. 

The present: 

Agnes is in bed and a sound awakens her; it is the doctor. He smiles and presses his ear against her chest. He puts his hand on her stomach and she brings it to her face. He lays his hand on her cheek and looks at her thoughtfully. Anna walks the doctor out of the room. He is about to leave when he hears a sound, a whisper, turning around to see Maria in a corner partly hidden in the shadows. He goes over and she takes his hand. They kiss passionately, then he breaks free and leaves her. The confidence in her face is shaken. The whispers begin and the scene fades to red and a flashback.

A few years earlier:

Maria and Joakim, her husband, stayed at the mansion when Agnes went to Italy for health reasons. One day, Anna’s daughter took ill and Maria summoned the doctor who lived in a nearby country town. Maria assisted him with a pan of water to wash his hands and asked him to stay for supper at which she poured twice as much wine into his glass as that of her own. Smiling and watching him eat, she told him how Agnes and Karin were doing, that they were traveling about in Italy, and that Agnes was better and had started back painting. The doctor smiled faintly. He asked her how Joakim was and she told him that Joakim had gone to town on business and wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. Anna, she told the doctor, had prepared the guest room for him to stay overnight because of the weather. She asked if there was another woman and he said, “Isn’t there always?” She smiled.

Later that night, the doctor was in his room in a chair by the fireplace reading a book when someone knocked on his door. He asked who it was and Maria came in wearing a red negligee. She tried to seduce him but he got up and summoned her to a mirror to see how she had changed:

“Now, your eyes cast quick, calculating side glances. You used to look ahead, straightforwardly openly unmasked. Your mouth has taken on an expression of discontent and hunger; it used to be so soft. Your complexion is pale now; you use makeup. Your fine, broad forehead now has four wrinkles above each brow. No, you can’t see it in this light. But you can in broad daylight. Do you know what caused those wrinkles? Indifference, Marie. And this fine line that runs from ear to chin is not as obvious anymore. But it is etched there by your easygoing, indolent ways. And there, by the bridge of your nose. Why do you sneer so often, Marie? You see it? You sneer too often. And look under your eyes, the sharp, scarcely noticeable lines of your impatience and your ennui.” 

They make love.

The next day, Anna served coffee to Joakim who had returned home. She told him that the doctor came to see Anna’s daughter last night and stayed overnight because of the weather. Joakim was reading a newspaper and looked up when she said this. He got up and went to her and pressed his palm gently against her cheek. She looked up at him and he looked down into her face reading all of the things in it that the doctor pointed out the night before. Then, he left the room. She went to his parlor and found him with a knife sticking out his chest.  Whispers from the past returned her to the present. 

It’s night and  Karin is reading a book. Suddenly, she hears whispers and asks Anna if she hears them too but Anna doesn’t hear anything except the wind and the clocks. Agnes moans and calls out to Anna. Anna climbs in bed with the dying woman. Agnes is in a lot of pain and Anna opens up her gown to let Agnes lay her head against her breast. Agnes’ breathing becomes thin. Fearfully, Anna wakes up Maria and Karin and they stay with Agnes all night. Agnes wakes up feeling better. They wash her and dress her in a fresh gown. Maria and Karin help her to a chair and comb her hair and give her a glass of water. 

They read to her while Anna changes the linen on the bed. Agnes drifts off and they leave the room. Agnes wakes up screaming and Anna calms her. Agnes settles back down to her pillow and turns her face to the light coming through the window. Her eyes close. She’s dead. 

Relatives in black stop by to pay their respect. A priest gives the eulogy over her: 

“Should it be that you gathered up our suffering in agony into your body. Should it be that you bore with you this hardship through death. Should it be that you meet with God as you come to that other land. Should it be that you find His countenance turned toward you then. Should it be that you know the language to speak so this God may hear and understand. Should it be that you then talk with this god and he hear you out. Should it be so pray for us. Agnes, dear child, please listen. Listen to what I have to tell you now. Pray for us who have been left behind on this miserable Earth. With the sky above us, grim and empty, lay your burden at God’s feet, the whole of all your suffering and plead with Him to pardon us. Plead with Him that He may free us of our anxiety and our weariness of our misgivings and fears. Plead with Him that He may make sense and meaning of our lives. Agnes, you who have borne your anguish and suffering for so long are most surely worthy of advocating our cause.”

Agnes was the priest’s confirmation child (she was Catholic) and her faith was stronger than his.  He leaves. Karin hears whispers.

Years earlier:

Karin and her husband were pursuing diplomatic careers and had once stayed at the manor for some months. One day as they were having supper, Fredrik asked his wife to keep him company. Karin said no. Karin asked him if he wanted coffee or if he wanted to go to bed. Go to bed, he told her, and a wineglass broke simultaneously. He finished his supper and his wine. Then he got up and went to bed and told her he’d be waiting for her. 

She stared at the broken glass on the table then gathered the pieces in a napkin and said, “It’s all a tissue of lies.” Anna helped Karin undress and when the maid left her, Karin produced a small piece of broken glass she saved. She sat in a chair, raised her gown, and used the broken glass on herself.

When she came into the bedroom her husband was waiting. She got in the bed, straddled it, and displayed the blood between them, smearing her face and lips with it.

The present:

Karin is at the table looking at documents concerning the estate. Maria wants to talk to her but Karin refuses to. Maria wants to be closer to her Karin now that Agnes is gone. Karin leaves the room but Maria stops her wanting to know whether she said anything hurtful.

Karin reads an entry out of Agnes’ diary: “I received the most wonderful gift anyone can receive in this life. A gift that is called many things: togetherness, companionship, relatedness, affection. I think this is what is called grace.”

Karin avoids Maria’s touch. Maria touches Karin’s face. They embrace. Karin pushes her off and asks to be left alone. 

Maria and Karin discuss the formalities of the estate over dinner, the division of furniture, china, etc., They send Anna out the room to discuss what to leave her. They decide to give her a trinket. Karin tells Marie that she things about committing suicide and that she hates her. Maria smiles. 

Karin goes to the next room and screams. Maria embraces her and they talk to each other in silence.

Red fade in:

Anna hears her daughter whispering. She goes into Agnes’ room and sees tears flowing from Agnes’ closed eyes. Agnes asks Anna if she’s afraid and Anna says no. Agnes asks for Karin. Anna summons Karin to the room and leaves. Karin recoils in horror. She tells Agnes she hates her and leaves. Agnes cries out for Maria and Anna summons her to the room. Agnes asks Maria to come closer and to give her her hand. Agnes, pulls Maria down and kisses her. Maria screams and flies out of the room. Anna comforts Agnes and tells the sisters that she will stay with her. 

Maria: “There’s my daughter I must think about. She must realize that also, my husband needs me.”

Karin: “Its pure morbidity; she’s already begun to rot. she has foul spots on her hand.”

Anna cradles Agnes.

Following Agnes’ funeral, Maria, Karin, and their husbands discuss the matter of the estate. Karin sends Anna out so they can discuss what to leave her for looking after Agnes for the past 12 years. Frederik wants her to have nothing. She is young and strong and has had it easy up to now. Karin insists on a trinket and Fredrik reluctantly goes along with the idea.  

Karin rings a tiny bell for Anna to come in. Joakim tells her she can stay until the end of the month. Karin offers her a memento of Agnes’ but when Anna refuses it Fredrik mocks her: “She’s trying to play a nice role,” he scoffs. 

Everyone leaves. Maria and Joakim scrape a few dollars together to give Anna. Karin stops Maria to ask her about their last conversation and what they said to each other. Karin reminds Maria of the touch she had given her that day but Maria plays dumb and acts cold. Karin is disappointed. Maria tries to kiss her but Karin rejects it.

Anna lights a candle and sets it by her daughter’s picture. She reads an entry from Agnes’ diary recalling the sisters walking together all wearing white dresses. They sit in a swing and Anna pushes them. Agnes admires Maria and Karin looking very content. The end.