| | | The Criterion Collection
Features: DVD, English, Subtitled
Winner of the 1961 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. Starring Bergman stalwart and screen icon Max von Sydow, the film is both beautiful and cruel in its depiction of a world teetering between the sacred and the profane and one father's longing to avenge the murder of a child.
"Masterful...Flawless." Saturday Review
"Achieves a tremendous sense of primeval passion and physical power." The New York Times
"A violently beautiful miracle play." Time Magazine
Editor's Note
Derived from a medieval ballad, THE VIRGIN SPRING was director Ingmar Bergman's first film to win an Academy Award. The movie represents a return to simpler themes for Bergman after the philosophical complexity of THE SEVENTH SEAL and WILD STRAWBERRIES. On its most basic level, it's the story of violent crime violently avenged, but it can also be interpreted as a religious allegory on Christian forgiveness. A young girl, Karin (Birgitta Pettersson), is raped and killed by two herdsman on her way to church. Her foster sister, played by Gunnel Lindblom, witnesses the crime and reports back to Karin's parents (Max von Sydow and Birgitta Valberg) shortly after the perpetrators arrive at the couple's home seeking shelter for the night, unaware of their hosts' identity. Karin's grief-stricken father decides to take brutal revenge on his daughter's murderers. THE VIRGIN SPRING represents Bergman's first full collaboration with director of photography Sven Nykvist, who had previously worked as a co-director of photography on SAWDUST AND TINSEL.
Plot Summary
This haunting story of a father's vengeance after the rape and murder of his daughter was inspired by a medieval ballad. A young girl is intercepted by three herdsmen on her way to church and is subsequently raped and killed by the two older men. Unaware of their hosts' identity, the shepherds unwittingly seek shelter at the home of the girls' parents, a peasant couple. When the father learns what has transpired, he plots his gruesome revenge. This film won director Ingmar Bergman his first Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
| Features | Audio Commentary | | Audio: Swedish Mono | | Interactive Menus | | New And Improved English Subtitle Translation | | New Essay By Film Historian And Bergman Scholar Peter Cowie | | New Video Interviews With Gunnel Linblom And Birgitta Petersson | | New, Restored High Definition Digital Transfer | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Image |
| Release Date: 1/24/2006 |
| Running Time: 89 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1960 | | Catalog ID: 1621D | | UPC: 00715515017121 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: Swedish | | Available Audio Tracks: Swedish | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: B&W |
Aspect Ratio | | Standard 1.33:1 [4:3] |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (1961) | | | Marik Vos-Lundh, Nominee, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White | |
Cannes Film Festival (1960) |  | Ingmar Bertman, Winner, Special Mention | | | Ingmar Bertman, Nominee, Golden Palm |
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| | Professional Reviews | Sight and Sound
"...One of Bergman's most austere films..." 01/01/2003 p.62Entertainment Weekly
"Shot in deceptively gorgeous black and white, this is the rare Bergman film in which the violence is as much physical as psychological." -- Grade: A 02/10/2006 p.120-122 USA Today
"The film is a seminal, Oscar-winning favorite..." 07/31/2007 p.3D |
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