Feature Film, 1948

Eve

Directed by Gustaf Molander, based on a short story and fragments by Ingmar Bergman.

"Ingmar Bergman is quite simply the only person in Swedish cinema capable of writing erotic dialogue."

Nils Beyer in Morgontidningen

About the film

In February 1948 Ingmar Bergman sold a pitch entitled "The Trumpeter and Our Lord" to Svensk Filmindustri, promising to develop a screenplay that spring. However, various circumstances prevented him from fulfilling this obligation in its entirety. The task was entrusted instead to Gösta Stevens and Gustaf Molander, who began shooting the film on 27 May 1948, the same day that a certain director contracted to SF, Ingmar Bergman, started shooting Harbour City.

The film was Sweden's contribution to the Venice Biennale in 1949. As was the case with Woman without a Face, Eve was widely received as a film by Bergman rather than Molander.

Sources

The Ingmar Bergman Archives.

A G B in Aftontidningen:

Step by step, Ingmar Bergman is improving as a film narrator. This is due in all likelihood to the fact that his most powerful inner tensions are starting to relax. He has become freer, and his vision has broadened he is gradually beginning to discover ordinary people, the common man. And in his case this is a significant gain. As far as the new film Eve is concerned, one can also discern an altogether more intimate, almost devoted, partnership with the director Gustaf Molander, who is also responsible for the finished screenplay. Together they have made a film of very high artistic quality.

Nils Beyer in Morgontidningen:

Ingmar Bergman's short story on which the film is based is called 'The Little Trumpeter and Our Lord'. It sounds like a fairytale, and it would be wise to adopt an accordingly childlike approach to this film. Just as in the fairytales of old, the cruel and the idyllic are the two poles between which Ingmar Bergman's imagination ranges. But let us not dissect this fairytale too minutely! It feels as if Ingmar Bergman was driven by necessity to tell it and this makes the trumpeter's unfortunate fate all the more enthralling. There are also delightful scenes with dialogue that never for one minute loses its everyday tone, yet still manages to be poetic. Ingmar Bergman is quite simply the only person in Swedish cinema capable of writing erotic dialogue.

Lill i Svenska Dagbladet:

A few pages from the life of a young man this would be the simplest and most apt way to describe Ingmar Bergman's Christmas present to cinema audiences. Eve is not entirely a drama, nor indeed a comedy, just a series of notes, tossed off almost playfully even though they touch on subjects of the utmost seriousness: the revolt of youth against parental authority, and the fear of death lurking behind love and life. How spontaneous, how living and natural these scenes are! And how genuine the words sound, entirely appropriate from the very moment they are uttered! Ingmar Bergman is something of a magician, everything he touches springs into life. What is more, Eve convincingly shows how he is gaining in independence, maturity and lightness of touch the film is, without doubt, the least neurotic work he has released to date.

Distribution titles

Eva (Norway)
Eva (Finland)
Eva (Denmark)
Eva (West Germany)
Sensualité (France)

Production details

Working title: Starkare än döden

Production country: Sweden
Distributor in Sweden (35 mm): Svensk Filmindustri
Laboratory: FilmTeknik AB
Production company: Svensk Filmindustri
Make up: Firma Carl M. Lundh AB
Original work: Trumpetaren och Vår Herre (Novel) by Ingmar Bergman

Aspect ratio: 1,37:1
Colour system: Black and white
Sound system: AGA-Baltic
Original length (minutes): 97

Censorship: 074.572
Date: 1948-12-06
Age limit: 15 years and over
Length: 2685 metres

Release date: 1948-12-26, Skandia, Borås, Sweden, 97 minutes
Röda Kvarn, Eskilstuna, Sweden
Cosmorama, Göteborg, Sweden
Scania, Malmö, Sweden
Röda Kvarn, Stockholm, Sweden

Filming locations

Sweden (1948-05-27-1948-08-06)

Filmstaden, Råsunda
Tylösand
Nynäshamn
Hudiksvall
Tvetaberg
Handen
Tumba
Bogesund
Norrköping

Music

Title: Liten vårvisa Alternative title: Nu dansar våren omkring i backen...
Composer: Anna-Lisa Frykman (1939)
Lyrics: Anna-Lisa Frykman (1939)
Singer: Anne Karlsson
Instrumentalist: Anne Karlsson

Title: Bondvals
Composer: Eric Bengtson
Instrumentalist: Anne Karlsson

Title: Dragspelsschottis
Composer: Eric Bengtson
Comment: Instrumental.

Title: Turalleri eller Piken i Hamburg Alternative title: Sjølivet det er en førnøjelig stand...
Arrangement: Evert Taube (noted and arranged 1919)
Comment: Instrumental.

Title: Nubbevisa
Composer: Fred Winter (Pseudonym) Einar Fagstad
Singer: Åke Claesson, Birger Malmsten, Inga Landgré, Wanda Rothgardt, Monica Weinzierl

Title: Din klara sol går åter opp
Lyrics: Johan Olof Wallin (svensk text 1814)
Composer: Johann Georg Störl (1710)
Instrumentalist: Birger Malmsten

Title: Souvenir de Hapsal, piano, op 2, nr 3
Kompositör: Pëtrajkovskij
Comment: Instrumental.

Title: Hvordan ligger det med kærlighed i dag? Alternative title: Hur har du det med kärleken i dag?
Composer: Hans Schreiber (1945)
Lyrics: Knud Pfeiffer (Danish lyrics 1945) Fritz Gustaf (Alter ego) (Swedish lyrics 1945)
Singer: Eva Dahlbeck, Stig Olin

Title: Foxtrot (Eckert-Lundin)
Composer: Eskil Eckert-Lundin
Comment: Instrumental.

Title: Trummusik
Composer: Joe Naster
Singer: Stig Olin
Instrumentalist: Stig Olin

Title: Serenaden i Prästgatan, kvarteret Venus, Alternative title: Ah, ah! Mina bröder...
Composer: Evert Taube (arrangement of "Valse Fiorentino" 1923)
Lyrics: Evert Taube (1924)
Comment: Instrumental.

Bo: So, what's the news on the countryside?
Erik: There's a new northbound express, non-stopping though.

Bo: This isn't the first time I walked down here, to this particular spot. Bu there is nothing to see here. Yet I have to come, stand here, and remember. Never forget that Death is an executioner, the grim reaper.

Bo: Good evening, how do you do?
Maria: I'm all right, thanks. But Granddad is poorly. He'll be leaving us soon.
Aron: Who is leaving?
Maria: You are!
Aron: Oh, we'll see about that.
Maria: He doesn't have long. If he lives tomorrow, it's a miracle.

Eva: Do you still fear the nearness of death?
Bo: Yes, it's ghastly. It's like a shadow behind you that grasps at everything and crushes it. All that live must die.
Eva: Perhaps we go on elsewhere.
Bo: I don't believe in that. I don't believe in God.
Eva: Then it's hard to believe in anything.

Bo: It's no good to have your fiancée so far away.
Göran: Bring her here.
Bo: Easier said than done. She can't leave her grandmother. They're running a whole farm.
Göran: Then find someone else. While you're waiting.
Bo: You're a real cynic, Göran.
Göran: Maybe. I've always considered biology of minor importance.
Bo: I don't.
Göran: Susanne is tickling your biology, isn't she?
Bo: Ah, shut up about that. I'm moving out tomorrow.

Göran: So, I'll turn the other way round and say: Go ahead!
Susanne: I don't get it.
Göran: You have my blessing. We're educated and modern people.

Bo: Mind the furniture. Even a simple country boy can see that theory and practice don't always agree. Come on then, Susanne.

Eva: I don't believe in an explanation. It's just a lot of things happening without context. I don't believe in anything.
Bo: But you do, Eva, deep down.
Eva: I think God has abandoned mankind. I thing God is dead. Everything just goes on and on until it's over.