In the Presence of a Clown

A play written in 1993 by a film and theatre classic lived in Sweden (the film version produced by the author in 1997) belongs to a family trilogy known to the Estonian reader from the publication Loomingu Raamatukogu. This time one period in the life of the uncle of Ingmar Bergman – Carl – is under closer inspection. Uncle Carl also appears as a secondary character in other autobiographical works by the author.

Running Time:

2:30

The passion of the mentally unstable Carl was various inventions – in this work "the speaking silent film." In 1925, only a few years before the birth of the sound film, uncle Carl who is not young any more travels with his young fiancée around Sweden and demonstrates, to the few people interested, his latest invention - a peculiar symbiosis of cinema and theatre: the hand-coloured "moving pictures" enlarged on the wall are accompanied by synchronised sound. Through Carl's personal drama many of the topics which have interested Bergman in the course of his life - artist as "the elect," artist's extraordinariness, openness, the pressures of childhood and adolescence memories, controversial relationships with family members and the different "selves" of oneself – are discussed with Bergman-like comprehensiveness and ruthlessness.