Sawdust and Tinsel
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Synopsis
Ingmar Bergman presents the battle of the sexes as a ramshackle, grotesque carnival of humiliation in Sawdust and Tinsel, one of the master’s most vivid early works and his first of many collaborations with the great cinematographer Sven Nykvist. The story of the charged relationship between a turn-of-the-twentieth-century circus owner (Åke Grönberg) and his younger mistress (Harriet Andersson), a horseback rider in the traveling show, the film features dreamlike detours and twisted psychosexual power plays, making for a piercingly brilliant depiction of physical and spiritual degradation.
Picture 8/10
Sourced from a new 2K restoration, Criterion upgrades their edition of Ingmar Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel to Blu-ray, presenting the film in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1 with a 1080p/24hz encode on a dual-layer disc. The 35mm original camera negative was scanned for the restoration.
It is incredible what a fresh new scan can do, and only 10-or-so-years after what was done for the restoration used on Criterion’s original DVD. What we get is a far sharper, more film-like presentation, delivering far better clarity and detail, far better grain rendering, and significantly improved gray levels. Contrast looked a little off on the old DVD, but it seems better balanced here, delivering nicer grays and blacks. The opening flashback still looks to be boosted, but it still seems to be intentional and it doesn’t look as extreme as what was found on the DVD, where the image ended up being so blown out it was hard to see.
The restoration is also far better. A few marks can still pop up on the edges of the screen in places but on the whole it’s still a significant improvement over what was on the old DVD, which wasn’t that bad to begin with. The image is also far more stable, lacking the frame jumps and pulsing that presented itself on the DVD. Overall, it’s a far sharper, more stable, and cleaner looking image than what the DVD presented, the improvements not being subtle at all.
Sawdust and Tinsel - Screen Captures
Audio 6/10
The Swedish soundtrack gets an upgrade as well, though the 1.0 linear PCM track that we get here still shows its age. It’s cleaner and not as edgy, but fidelity is still weak, with dialogue coming off pretty flat.
Extras 6/10
Criterion ports most of the material over from the DVD, which wasn’t that large of a special edition to begin with. Things yet again start off with Peter Cowie’s audio commentary, recorded originally for their DVD edition. Cowie begins things off by proclaiming it’s a very big deal that Criterion is releasing this film since the film was so hard to come by prior to this release. He talks about the title and why Criterion chose it (Criterion is apparently using the UK title, as the American title, The Naked Night, was only used to market the film more as a “sexploitation” picture), and from there talks about it’s release history and how it fits into Bergman’s filmography, pointing out themes that would become common throughout his work, and talks about his theater work played into this film. I always enjoy Cowie’s tracks for Bergman’s films and this is another good one to throw in with the others.
The disc the presents yet again a 3-minute introduction featuring Bergman, taken from a series of introductions filmed by director Marie Nyreröd back in 2003 and used to introduce his films on television. Here Bergman talks about his fondness for the film and his initial disappointment at how poorly received it was when originally released. Criterion downgrades the booklet that came with the DVD unfortunately: it is now a simple fold-out insert that drops the reprinting of a 2003 appreciation for the film written by filmmaker Catherine Breillat, but keeps the essay written by John Simon.
Dropping the Breillat appreciation is actually rather unfortunate since the supplements were so slim to begin with, but Cowie’s commentary still manages to cover the significant aspects around the film.
Closing
Though still slim on features, the new restoration looks incredible and would make this one worth the upgrade for those that already own the DVD.
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