What I would say now, with regard to Bergman's films in general and Summer with Monika in particular, is that I am in awe of Bergman's unsparing gaze, that from a range of animal-judgment, which finds its formal capitulation within the back-and-forth between long- and medium-shots and close-ups, unsparing but not.
I'm not going to re-read it but I remember something about a direct and pitiless mise-en-scène that I laid out. I wrote an obituary for Bergman at the time - inadequate - why wouldn't it be, thirteen years. Before these treatments, I'm forced to think back to 2007 when Bergman died, which was the same day as the death of Antonioni, and as such when all the pussy nasty American critics who reactionarily peacocked their gladdest cinephilia of nothing more than the journeyeomanshipwork of the Old Stalwarts (I'm not going to mention names, because I myself love many of those directors) (but not as much as I love Ingmar Bergman) came out to shit on the face of Bergman's corpse - fat old white dazed American celibates all. There are four main aspects of Summer with Monika I care to focus on.
