Feature Film, 1951

Divorced

Directed by Gustaf Molander, screenplay by Ingmar Bergman and Herbert Grevenius.

"Everyone who liked Noel Coward's Brief Encounter will also enjoy Divorced."
Lill in Svenska Dagbladet

About the film

Divorced was Herbert Grevenius' fourth collaboration with Ingmar Bergman, and the third Bergman screenplay to be directed by Gustaf Molander. In all the literature produced on the subject of Ingmar Bergman, Divorced has been largely ignored. It appears to be widely assumed that Grevenius and Gustaf Molander exerted the most influence on the film. However, the theme itself – the way to inner balance and freedom through outer trials and tribulations – was recurrent in Bergman's works of the early 1950s, as evinced by To Joy and Summer Interlude.

A majority of the Stockholm critics regarded it as a film that featured a 'delightful' Inga Tidblad, beautiful, cool and sophisticated, under the competent direction of Gustav Molander, but one lacking both true spark and psychological penetration in the characterisation of the main parts.

Lill, writing in Svenska Dagbladet, was pleasantly surprised by Ingmar Bergman's contribution. Older people in Bergman's works had tended to be 'bad and depraved, constantly threatening the happiness of the young, like parasitic worms in fresh meat.' Yet this time the author had written 'beautifully and sympathetically about a forty year-old woman manoeuvred out of her husband's affections, her marriage and her home, standing there as perplexed, confused and helpless as any young person ever was'. 'But', she writes, 'co-writer Herbert Grevenius and director Gustaf Molander have put their own mark on the film, giving it an autumnal, muted tone of resigned wisdom, which is boundlessly benevolent and will appeal to a very large section of the mature audience. Everyone who liked Noel Coward's Brief Encounter will also enjoy Divorced.'

Sources

  • The Ingmar Bergman Archives.

Collaborators

  • Inga Tidblad
  • Alf Kjellin
  • Doris Svedlund
  • Hjördis Petterson
  • Håkan Westergren
  • Irma Christenson
  • Holger Löwenadler
  • Marianne Löfgren
  • Stig Olin
  • Elsa Prawitz
  • Birgitta Valberg
  • Sif Ruud
  • Carl Ström
  • Ingrid Borthen
  • Yvonne Lombard
  • Einar Axelsson
  • Ragnar Arvedson
  • Rune Halvarsson
  • Rudolf Wendbladh
  • Guje Lagerwall
  • Nils Ohlin
  • Nils Jacobsson
  • Hanny Schedin
  • Harriet Andersson
  • Kerstin "Kiki" Bratt
  • Inga-Lill Åhström
  • Åke Jensen
  • Marianne Hylén
  • Anita Rosén
  • Kerstin Wibom
  • Christian Bratt
  • Gerissa Jalander
  • Rune Stylander
  • Margaretha Löwler
  • Curt Löwgren
  • Inga Ehrström
  • Margareta Bergman
  • Gustaf Hedberg
  • Gösta Qvist
  • Gustav Roger
  • Jonas Albert Jonsson
  • Eric von Gegerfelt
  • Birgit Rogner
  • Arne Lindblad
  • Haide Göransson
  • Curt "Minimal" Åström
  • Jane Antoniazzi
  • Nils Svenwall, Art Director
  • Kalle Bergholm, First Assistant Cameraman
  • Theodor Mierzinsky, Boom Operator
  • Åke Dahlqvist, Director of Photography
  • Oscar Rosander, Film Editor
  • Lennart Unnerstad, Production Mixer
  • Herbert Grevenius, Screenplay
  • Gustaf Molander, Adaption
  • Sven Persson, Re-recording Mixer
  • Bengt Wallerström, Music Composer
  • Erik Nordgren, Music Composer
  • Eskil Eckert-Lundin, Orchestra Leader
  • Allan Ekelund, Production Manager / Production Coordinator
  • Sol-Britt Norlander, Script Supervisor
  • Louis Huch, Still Photographer
  • Ingmar Bergman, Screenplay