Film < Shame
AB Svensk Filmindustri

Shame

Feature Film, 1968

A married couple, both musicians, cultivate their garden on an island just off the coast, trying in vain to avoid the war that is encroaching from the mainland.

"With 'The Shame', Bergman has stepped out of the struggle with his own demons to our own times, to something outside and greater than himself."
- Mauritz Edström in Dagens Nyheter

 

Stiftelsen Ingmar Bergman

Max von Sydow an Liv Ullmann plays an artistic couple who grows their garden on an island in the archipelago and, in vain, tries to avoid the approaching war in a dystopic drama.

Originally entitled "The War", Bergman changed the name to "The Dreams of Shame" during the writing of the screenplay. The film's final title came about only when it had been completed.

The MSEK 2.8 budget, rather high for a black and white Swedish film, was largely met by overseas sales (handled by United Artists) before the film premiered.

 

Ingmar Bergman in Images:

"For a long time before making this film I had carried around the notion of trying to focus on the 'little war', the war that exist on the periphery where there is total confusion, and nobody knows what is actually going on. If I had been more patient when writing the script, I would have depicted this 'little war' in a better way. I did not have that patience."


Read more in Sources of inspiration