Ingmar Bergman's Face to Face

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Ingmar Bergman's Face to Face seems to be one of those films that dwell in the shadows, as if patiently waiting to be found by a discerning eye. Enter Swedish critic and scholar Michael Tapper, who in throwing his sharp torchlight virtually revives this film, which for so long has remained a blind spot neglected by critics and scholarship alike. Most of all Tapper succeeds in delineating how Face to Face lends itself to a rich contextualization of the sort not generally found in mainstream Bergman studies, be it the sexual revolution of the 1970s, second-wave feminism, the growing importance of television as producer of feature film, or the (in)famous 'primal scream' therapy promoted by Henry Janov. Face to Face superbly mirrors the times in which it was made, yet is saturated with issues that remain relevant today. An added feature of this book is that it includes never before published material, for instance the director's diaries in the Ingmar Bergman Foundation Archive, which would otherwise not have seen the light of day. Maaret Koskinen, Stockholm University