Undressing Souls in Scenes from a Marriage

Training its patient gaze on the vicissitudes of domestic life, Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage is a showcase for high-wire acting, requiring its two stars to chart a winding trajectory from love to betrayal to reconciliation. By the time shooting began on the island of Fårö in 1972, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson felt comfortable summoning such emotional nakedness on set, having already developed a powerful chemistry through several previous collaborations with the director. The nuances and modulations of their performances make for a drama of rare intimacy, one that is also rich in the kind of bittersweetly comic moments that arise between actors who share a lived-in intimacy with each other. In this excerpt from an interview on our edition of the film, newly released on Blu-ray this week, Ullmann and Josephson reflect on their close off-screen friendship and how it allowed them to stay open and vulnerable on camera.