Fanny and Alexander () is a 1982 period drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The plot focuses on two siblings and their large family in Uppsala, Sweden during the first decade of the twentieth century. Following the death of the children's father (Allan Edwall), their mother (Ewa Fröling) remarries a prominent bishop (Jan Malmsjö) who becomes abusive towards Alexander for his vivid imagination.
Bergman intended Fanny and Alexander to be his final picture before retiring, and his script is semi-autobiographical. The characters Alexander, Fanny and stepfather Edvard are based on himself, his sister Margareta and his father Erik Bergman, respectively. Many of the scenes were filmed on location in Uppsala. The documentary film The Making of Fanny and Alexander was made simultaneously with the feature and chronicles its production.
The production was originally conceived as a television miniseries and cut in that version, spanning 312 minutes. A 188-minute cut version was created later for cinematic release, although this version was in fact the one to be released first. The television version has since been released as a complete film, and both versions have been shown in theaters throughout the world. The 312-minute cut is one of the longest cinematic films in history.
The theatrical version was released to universal critical acclaim. It won four Academy Awards, including for Best Foreign Language Film; three Guldbagge Awards, including Best Film; and other honours. Fanny and Alexander was followed by stage adaptations and further semi-autobiographical screenplays by Bergman, released as films in 1992: The Best Intentions, directed by Bille August, and Sunday's Children, directed by Daniel Bergman. On both review websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic it is the highest-rated film of the 1980s, and has since then been regarded as one of Bergman's finest works, one of the greatest works of Swedish cinema, and of all time.
Plot In 1907, young Alexander, his sister Fanny, and their well-to-do family, the Ekdahls, live in a Swedish town, running a moderately profitable theatre. At Christmastime, the Ekdahls hold a Nativity play and later a large lively Christmas party. The siblings' parents, Emilie and Oscar, are happily married, with Oscar managing the theatre on behalf of the matriarch, Helena Ekdahl. Helena, a widow, reminisces humorously with long-time family friend, Isak Jacobi, about the time her husband caught them in flagrante delicto in an embrace, fondly remembering how their friendships endured. The siblings' womanizing uncle, Gustav Adolf, carries on with the nursemaid, Maj, with the forbearance of his wife, Alma, who jokes with the women in the family about her husband’s latest fling. The siblings' other uncle, Carl, privately bemoans himself humorlessly as a failure to his tolerant wife, Lydia. The joyful Christmas festivities at the Ekdahls abruptly end when Oscar suddenly dies from a stroke.
Shortly thereafter, Emilie marries Edvard Vergérus, the local bishop and a widower, who supported Emilie in her deep grief, advantageously pressing his suit. Emilie and her children move into the Vergérus home where he lives with his mother, sister, aunt, and maids. The children's stepfather, the bishop Edvard, soon reveals himself to be a strict and controlling authoritarian. The relationship between the bishop and Alexander is especially cold, as Alexander invents stories, for which Edvard punishes him severely. Quickly realizing her mistake, Emilie asks for a divorce, which Edvard will not consent to; though she may leave the marriage, this would be legally considered desertion, placing the children in his custody. Meanwhile, the rest of the Ekdahl family has begun to worry about their condition, and Emilie secretly visits her former mother-in-law, Helena, revealing she is pregnant.
During Emilie's absence, Edvard confines the children to their bedroom, ostensibly for their safety. There, Alexander shares a story, claiming he was visited by the ghosts of the Vergérus's children, who revealed the bishop was responsible for their deaths. The maid Justina reports the story to Edvard, who responds with corporal punishment. After Emilie returns, the Ekdahl family friend, Isak Jacobi, helps smuggle the children from the house. They live temporarily with Isak and his nephews in their store.
Emilie's former brothers-in-law confront Edvard to negotiate a divorce, using the children, the bishop's debts, and the threat of a public scandal for leverage, but Edvard is unmoved. Emilie, now in the later stages of her pregnancy and still living with Vergérus, refuses to restore the children to Edvard's home. Emilie manipulates Edvard into drinking a large dosage of her bromide sedative from her cup. As the medication takes effect, she explains to him that she intends to flee the home as he sleeps. He drowsily threatens to follow her family and ruin their lives but falls unconscious. After Emilie escapes, Edvard's dying Aunt Elsa accidentally overturns a gas lamp, setting her bedclothes, nightgown, and hair on fire. Engulfed in flames, she runs through the house, seeking Edvard's help, but he, too, is set aflame. Although partially incapacitated by the sedative, he disentangles himself from Aunt Elsa, but he is badly burned and dies shortly thereafter.
Alexander had fantasised about his stepfather's death while living with Isak and his nephews, Aron and Ismael Retzinsky. The mysterious Ismael explains that fantasy can become true as he dreams it.
The Ekdahl family reunites for the christening celebration of Emilie's and the late bishop's daughter as well as the extra-marital daughter of Alexander's uncle, Gustav Adolf, and the maid, Maj. Alexander encounters the ghost of the bishop who knocks him to the floor, and tells him, "You can never escape me." Emilie, having inherited the theatre, hands Helena a copy of August Strindberg's play A Dream Play to read and tells her that they should perform it together onstage. Initially scoffing at the idea and declaring Strindberg a "misogynist," Helena takes to the idea and begins reading it to a sleeping Alexander.
Cast
The cast consists of:
Ekdahl house
Bishop's house
Jacobi's house
Theatre
Production Development
Director Ingmar Bergman conceived of Fanny and Alexander while working on his 1980 film From the Life of the Marionettes, and wrote the screenplay at Fårö in summer 1979. Bergman intended Fanny and Alexander to be his last feature film, but he wrote several screenplays afterwards and directed for television. He told the press he decided to retire, because, "I don't have the strength any more, neither psychologically nor physically". The screenplay was semi-autobiographical, attempting to portray Bergman's fondest memories in what he called a "happy and privileged" childhood; Alexander himself was meant as a representation of the young Ingmar. His recollections of his grandmother's home were a particular inspiration. He commented on his boyhood:
Bergman also recalled receiving his own magic lantern at age 10, from his aunt; in his autobiography, he described it as personally significant, and previously depicted a magic lantern in his 1972 Cries and Whispers.
However, the Ekdahls do not entirely match the Bergmans. Ingmar's relationship with his sister Margareta during their shared childhood is depicted through the character Fanny, who is included in the title though she is not as large a character as Alexander. Bergman had previously modeled characters after his mother, Karin Åkerblom, as simultaneously "virgin and seductress": Emilie also fits that self-contradictory design.
Margareta and Ingmar's father was the strict Erik Bergman, a Lutheran pastor. Edvard is based on Erik, and like Edvard, Erik was raised in a family almost completely made up of women. Erik and Ingmar also often conflicted over "truth" and honesty, much as Edvard and Alexander do. The story Alexander tells of being sold to a circus resembles one Ingmar had told as a boy, and he was accosted by Erik much as Edvard lectures Alexander. However, Bergman also stated that "It has been suggested ... that 12-year-old Alexander is my alter-ego. But this is not quite true. Fanny and Alexander is a story, the chronicle of a middle-class, perhaps upper-middle-class family sticking closely together ... There's a lot of me in the Bishop, rather than in Alexander. He is haunted by his own devils".
Bergman proposed the project to producer Jörn Donner, who said he could provide the budget if all production and costume design crew would be Swedish. Bergman initially doubted that Sweden alone had the manpower, but eventually caved, Donner said. The estimated budget of 40 million SEK made it the most costly Swedish film ever. To raise the $6 million, Donner and the Swedish Film Institute partnered with the French company Gaumont and West German TV. Bergman completed the screenplay by October 1980 and assembled a budget of $7 million, according to New York.
Casting
The project was announced in October 1980 with Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow and Erland Josephson in lead roles; von Sydow was cast as Edvard, the bishop who Ingmar told the press resembled Erik Bergman. However, negotiations to secure von Sydow became troubled as he continued to act more in productions beyond Sweden, and as his agent demanded a larger salary. Edvard was recast with Jan Malmsjö, whom Bergman had worked with before in Scenes from a Marriage. In 1981, Ullmann also rejected the role of Emilie, due to a scheduling conflict, though in 2013 she remarked "I still don't know why I did that".
Bertil Guve was 10 when cast as Alexander. Bergman had seen Guve in a television film by Lasse Hallström and called for an audition with Guve, though the boy did not know who Bergman was. Bergman ultimately cast Guve, without sharing the story of Fanny and Alexander with him, recognising his imagination when he told a story about killing his own grandfather during the audition. Guve also said, "I asked Ingmar later why he chose me. He said it was because I acted with my eyes". Child actress Pernilla Allwin was cast as Fanny, and she and Guve regarded each other as rivals when they first met and began working; Bergman identified with this sibling rivalry.
Other actors, like Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, and Jarl Kulle, had previously appeared in Bergman's filmography. Björnstrand was developing Alzheimer's syndrome, making it difficult for him to memorise his dialogue, but he was still awarded a small role. Veteran actress Gunn Wållgren was cast as Helena, despite the fact that she was suffering from cancer, often concealing her pain during shots. Fanny and Alexander marked the final film appearances of both Björnstrand and Wållgren.
Pernilla Wallgren (later August) was cast, out of a state school where she was studying the stage, for what became her breakthrough role. August later explained she received a message inviting her to read the screenplay, and she did not know how the filmmakers knew of her. She had developed an interest in acting after seeing Bergman's Cries and Whispers, and wanted a part like Kari Sylwan's in a film one day. Bergman also cast some of his real-life children, including Mats Bergman as Isak's nephew Aron, and Anna Bergman as Hanna Schwartz; Linn Ullmann was to play Alexander's older sister Amanda, but when Linn's school refused to give her a break for production, her father cut the character. His ex-wife Käbi Laretei was cast as an aunt. In total, there were 60 characters with lines, and over 1,200 extras.
Pre-production