Shame (Skammen). Ingmar Bergman, 1968.
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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray set Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema, released 2018. Swedish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.
Summary: Killing of a chicken.
Details: At 1:20:40 is a quick middle-ground scene of a military invader killing a chicken. He grabs one bird, lays it across the coop roof and hacks at it quickly, throws its body down and grabs another chicken. Any adult knows what is happening, but the soldier’s back is to us, the context chaotic, and the portrayal not that graphic. This is Bergman, not a Zack Snyder blood spray with each tattooed and mohawked droplet snarling in digifury.
Ullmann and von Sydow play a happy contemporary farm couple whose land is suddenly the scene of a military invasion. At 34:30, when they realize that they needed to get out yesterday, there is a Woody Allen-like moment where the stress of urgency meets the realization that they have not packed any food, and the couple wastes time bickering in front of their chicken coop about whether to take the pet birds alive, kill them for food now, or take them to kill later. They realize that they will not be killing any chickens and drive away, but the foreshadowing is set. I like this unusual Bergman.
Shame is on disc #10 of 30 in Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema (part of ‘Centerpiece 1’), along with The Passion of Anna. The disc also includes the 1968 documentary An Introduction to Ingmar Bergman and several interviews with cast and director.