Torment....

from the movie "Torment" or "Hets".

Time to blog after a hectic work period, but there are so many things I am reacting at… Listening to Stabat Mater (the recording with Claudio Abbado), the sun is shining and it was minus-degrees this morning. I don’t have anything booked today. Can do what I want.

Yesterday two of my siblings children (10 and 17 years) “borrowed” my apartment, but I didn’t meet them, unfortunately.

When I wrote on my other blog I was reminded about the movie “Torment” or “Hets” in Swedish where the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman made his début as script writer.

In the Swedish introduction on the site about this movie it stood something which didn’t stand on the English site, namely that this movie is a classic about a rebellious student of secondary school (gymnasist in Swedish).

On this site it stands in the end:

“’Torment’ provoked intensive debate in the press. Aftonbladet published a letter from Henning L. Håkanson of the Palmgren School where Ingmar Bergman had been a pupil (the statement referred to in the following quotation was made by Bergman and published the day after the premiere of ‘Torment’, on 3 October 1944):

‘Mr Bergman's statement, that his entire time at school was hell, surprises me. I clearly recall that he, his brother and his father were all very satisfied with the school. After his final examinations, Ingmar Bergman came back to school to attend our Christmas party, bright and cheery as far as one could tell, and not seeming to harbour any grudge, either against the school or its teachers. In all probability, the fact of the matter lies elsewhere. Our friend Ingmar was a problem child, lazy yet rather gifted, and the fact that such a person does not easily adapt to the daily routines of study is quite natural. A school cannot be adapted to suit bohemian dreamers, but to suit normally constituted, hard working people.’

A few days later Bergman replied: ‘Let us start with the '12-year hell' (coarsely expressed, by the way. Not a word used by me, but by the person who interviewed me. I recall using a milder term, which is somewhat different). Indeed…I was a very lazy boy, and very scared because of my laziness, because I was involved with theatre instead of school and because I hated having to be punctual, having to get up in the morning, do homework, sit still, having to carry maps, having break times, doing tests, taking oral examinations, or to put it plainly: I hated school as a principle, as a system and as an institution. And as such I have definitely not wanted to criticise my own school, but all schools. As far as I understand it, and as I clearly pointed out in that unfortunate interview, my school was neither better nor worse than other institutions with the same purpose.

My revered headmaster also writes (somewhat harshly): 'A school cannot be adapted to suit bohemian dreamers, but to suit normally constituted, hard working people'.

Where should the poor bohemians go? Should pupils be divided up: You're a bohemian, you're a hard-working person, you're a bohemian, etc. Would the bohemians be excused?

There are teachers one never forgets. Men one liked and men one hated. My revered headmaster belonged and still belongs (in my case) to the former category. I also have the feeling that my dear headmaster has not yet seen the film. Perhaps we should go and see it together!’”

Bergman was the second child in line. He had a four year older brother Dag (who died in a disease which "suffocated" him to death literally?). He was allowed to rebel a little more than his oldest sibling, and as his four year younger sister Margareta? A sister which was really "crushed"?? All these siblings hard held by their mom (and a father who worked himself to exhaustion, to measure up to his parents in law, being good enough to them. Bergman's parents probably married in rebellion in the first place, and as a protest? And the life in their home was about hypocrisy really? They showed a facade to the environment, as a perfect priest-family, but the life inside the house's walls was stormy and neurotic. Bergman's mom had a love-affair with a ten year younger priest-colleague to her husband... And in the middle of this the children grew up...).

I had one of Ingmar Bergman's wives as piano-teacher for four years, Käbi Laretei, she has written books, quite honest books about herself and her professional and personal life, and her last book is about her stormy life with Bergman (though a fairly "kind" book it felt to me!!?? She is less open in this than in her other books I think). Käbi writes in Swedish, despite she moved here from Estonia (where her father was diplomat) as 18-year-old, during WW2, and uses the Swedish language much better than many Swedes!! She is probably VERY talented in many areas (even language matters). She speaks German and English fluently too??

Bergman was very impressed by her and her intelligence he has admitted, so he put up a mask he thinks, playing a role... He did to her he thinks - the woman he was married to!! He thinks they played roles to each other. There was a kind of wall between them? As if he was afraid of not measuring up to her, as he wasn't good enough!? And Käbi in turn admired Bergman a lot, and went on admiring him a lot after they were divorced. She reffered to Bergman when we had lessons for her. Bergman had said this and that, for instance about body-language. I think Käbi awoke my intellectual interests - and my curiosity of Bergman?? (how it is with them now!! Quite self-ironically).

Both these two persons suffered from severe sleeping-problems... Laretei walked in her sleep, even when she was pregnant with their son Daniel (even fell in a stair during her pregnancy?), and she still walks in her sleep now in her eighties.

Yesterday we had a masterclass with six of our students from the Higher Music Course (only boys or young men, no girls struck me!!) with the Swedish violinist Nilla Pierrou. She wondered whom I had studied with. I mentioned Käbi.

"How was she?"

Nilla asked.

"She worked on the music and interpretation, not on technical things..."

"I saw a TV-program with her (long ago) where she was taught (probably a form of masterclass), and she was no good pupil!"

"??? Did she argue against the teacher?"

I asked, a bit surprised (or not) and a little amazed.

"Yes she did."

Nilla replied. But we didn't argue with her as students I think (the very well-mannered girl! Trying to measure up, really, straining my whole body to do as she wanted, as I did to all teachers, the model-pupil/student really!!??)... But I think Käbi isn't (and wasn't) easy to live with? Not Bergman either (with all his women! And children here and there)...

A blogposting about people who aren't performing on top - who aren't performing MORE than on top, this person gets a diagnosis explaining why she (he) isn't perfect and more than perfect. There was an article in a Swedish paper about a woman releived getting the diagnosis ADHD...

This diagnosis gave her an explanation to why she for instance was cronically late to everything... But as the blog-owner wrote: but then she was on time in a way, because she was ALWAYS late!?? Why was she never too early?? The blogger wondered if there couldn't lie something deep down... I just sigh... Yes, can't it?? (you can and/or shall "cure" everything that stands out?? Or that is standing out too much?? Not being so visible, but not invisible either!? Clever, but not too clever! Being enough clever and visible? What I have tried my whole life? Yes, if you are depressed you have to take medicine to "cheer up", and if you are the opposite you have to take medicine to calm down! A female colleague, 9 years older than I, takes, or took, calming medicine! She doens't drive car, which is very unpractical in our work *, but have drivers-license. You have to be enough you know!! Not too much or too little!)

The blogger went on describing her own small habits quite ironically and in fact quite fun, so I had to laugh... The laugh not reaching my eyes though??

I would like to draw a blanket over me and disappear totally...

* Driving here and there with all my working-material with me (NOT a piano though, thank goodness!!), using my own, private car, sitting in all sorts of "rooms"... Glad and grateful that we are allowed to work with this... Think of all freedom we have... Yes, and despite all this I am still interested in this (fooling myself?).