8/20: Till glädje

Unless the newfound mass interest in Ingmar Bergman's films prevents me from finding this DVD, we'll watch this on MONDAY 8/20 at 8pm, my place:



TO JOY (Till glädje)
a film by Ingmar Bergman
1949, 99 min.

Here's what the american distributor of the DVD has to say about it:
"An orchestra violinist's dreams of becoming a celebrated soloist and fears of his own mediocrity get in the way of his marriage to the patient, caring Marta. Played out to the music of Beethoven, To Joy is a heartbreaking tale of one man's inability to overcome the demons standing in the way of his happiness."

The name To Joy comes from Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy', from his Ninth Symphony (which the horrendous movie Copying Beethoven claims was actually written by Beethoven's copyist, who was - gasp - a woman. I know what you're thinking, "a female copyist?! has the world gone topsy-turvy?!" Well, that's what Beethoven thought at first, too). Anyway, I had originally thought about trying to present this as a companion piece to Amadeus since they both deal with the struggle with mediocrity, self-doubt, and envy (and classical music), but it seems that everyone has either seen Amadeus or doesn't really have much interest in sitting through a 3-hour-long movie about a classical composer.

Anyway, To Joy doesn't need any companion pieces to be a great film. Hopefully everyone will find it truly edifying.