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Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

The lights are all blinking red.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Republicans don’t trust women.

No Justins, No Peace

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

I was promised a recession.

White supremacy is terrorism.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Fight them, without becoming them!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / It Never Gets Bergman Bad

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80Comments

  1. 1.

    c u n d gulag

    Speaking only for myself – I’ll take “Bergman bad,” over ‘Fatal Attraction bad!!!’

    Not that I’d ever have to worry about such a thing.

  5. 5.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    I don’t know about Wild Strawberries, but I always thought this was hard to beat for highfalutin references:

    Situations have ended sad
    relationships have all been bad
    mine have been like Verlaine and Rimbaud
    But there’s no way I can compare
    all them scenes to this affair

    Also one of the great songs of all time.

  6. 6.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    I heard somewhere that the working title for “Zero Dark Thirty” was “The Seventh Seal”, until someone told them it had been used.

  9. 9.

    Rex Everything

    Oh God. All bands are a bunch of overeducated upperclass douches now. Bergman references? What’s my take on Cassevetes? Fuck you.

  10. 10.

    raven

    @raven: Very short film directed by George Coe (who plays Viktor), and Anthony Lover. It was Madeline Kahn’s first film and was written by Sidney Davis. Great parody of some of Ingmar Bergman’s best known films, including Wild Strawberries (Smultronstaellet) and The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet).

  11. 11.

    the Conster

    @raven:

    I first saw this when it was played before Brewster McCloud on campus back in the early 70s. It made a great opening setup.

  13. 13.

    MazeDancer

    Bergman Bad isn’t even close to Woody Allen Bad. Allen, the titular character of the posted song, is about as low as you can go.

    Allen took nude pictures of his girlfriend’s daughter and had sex with the child when she was a teen. Dumping the girlfriend Mia Farrow, and marrying the daughter does not make it any less abusive. Nothing malicious or over the top that went on in any custody battles changes Woody Allen courted a teen, who was essentially his step-daughter, the sister to his son, and had sex with the teen while nominally attached to her mother.

    As Allen & Farrow’s biological son, Ronan, who does not have contact with his father, said about his bio dad’s current marriage: “That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression . . . I lived with all these adopted children, so they are my family. To say Soon-Yi was not my sister is an insult to all adopted children.”

  16. 16.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @MazeDancer “Sometimes it gets as bad as what happens to the characters in a Bergman movie” was what that meant.

    If someone said that it gets “Hitchcock scary” or “Disney cute” it would be similar. Nothing to do with whether Hitchcock was scary or Walt Disney himself was cute.

  17. 17.

    cmorenc

    Perhaps it’s because I’m too shallow a person to appreciate really great deep stuff like Bergman films, but frankly the ones I’ve tried to watch, I’ve found myself bored silly by them. OTOH, it’s been over twenty years since the last time I’ve tried to sit through one of Bergman’s films; maybe it’s time to give “Wild Strawberries” a try to see whether his work has more resonance now that I’ve got some additional age (64 now) and life experience. If nothing else, I might find that I’m simply out of my depth on Bergman films, and that my level of film sophistication is forever more on the “Die Hard”/Bruce Willis level.

  19. 19.

    WereBear

    @cmorenc: With “art movies” it’s often a matter of how much you want to bring to the table.

    People who like them tend to be artistic themselves, but love having “someone else’s coloring book.” I see a man sitting in a chair… well, an art movie fan will create a whole back story for the guy. Why he picked that chair, what’s going to happen when he gets up, has he ever looked out the window behind him?

    If you either do this sort of thing yourself (like, me, I’m a novelist, and find most art movies boring) or you want the artist to do the heavy lifting, that’s their job!

    That’s when “art” movies do not appeal. IMHO, they do not deserve to be lauded over other forms of movie making. I’m a genre fan; the most difficult thing on Earth is making a good science fiction movie.

    That’s why we have so few.

  20. 20.

    techno

    @Rex Everything:
    Seriously, you must be an “overeducated upperclass douche” to be a Bergman fan? Good lord! And to think that many members of my Nordic tribe have long considered Bergman sort of frivolous. I know when I first saw Seventh Seal, I thought it was this amazingly humorous parody of a Sunday School lesson.

  21. 21.

    magurakurin

    art film has too narrow of a definition in my opinion. It seems to just refer to films that are avant garde. I think movies like those made by Kurosawa and David Lean deserve to be considered art films as well. In either of those directors movies you can freeze the film at almost any place during the movie and have a perfectly composed still photography. David Lean’s movies are really beautiful to me. And I think that Dr. Zhivago is a poem formed as a motion picture. I guess it comes down to whether one thinks art is beauty or truth, and that is an ancient debate to be sure.

  23. 23.

    Karen in GA

    I’m pretty undereducated myself. But I do have some ancestors from Stockholm. I don’t speak to them much, though.

    (An oblique Douglas Adams reference to compensate for my lack of education. Also, too, use of the word “oblique.” Because commenting here is cheaper than going back to college.)

  24. 24.

    Rex Everything

    @mistermix: Yeah, too bad Woody Guthrie wasn’t writing about the latest Duchamp installation at the National Gallery, right dahling? The Beatles shouldn’t have said love is all you need when they could have just referred us to Blow Up. Pop music used to be so … so … declasse!

  25. 25.

    MazeDancer

    @raven: @Bill E Pilgrim:

    The post said:

    And what better gauge of the state of your relationship than “sometimes it gets bad, it never gets Bergman bad”.

    Was pointing out that relationship-wise, few go lower and badder than Allen. Both Bergman and Allen have movies about relationships. Bergman’s are relentlessly dark. Allen’s real life relationships are, too.

    It’s an open thread, wasn’t starting any simile-esque semantics, or following any exact x is to y as z is to q thing. Understand your points. Just mentioning the grim, dark relationship stuff about Allen that is so swept under the rug, even the rug isn’t noticed anymore.

    Am also aware many people are able to separate Allen’s movies from his step-daughter molestation and trouncing heinously and abusively on his family’s psyche and emotions. I won’t go to a Woody Allen movie. YMMV. Big Hollywood stars don’t care either.

  26. 26.

    Rex Everything

    @techno:

    Seriously, you must be an “overeducated upperclass douche” to be a Bergman fan?

    Not at all. But writing a rock song about it? That’s a serious misstep, a misapplication of the form, a major douchebag move that only the kind of upperclass douchebags who made it could make. Unfortunately they’re the only people with the means or time to form real bands anymore…

  27. 27.

    WereBear

    @MazeDancer: Am also aware many people are able to separate Allen’s movies from his step-daughter molestation and trouncing heinously and abusively on his family’s psyche and emotions. I won’t go to a Woody Allen movie. YMMV. Big Hollywood stars don’t care either.

    I found him funny, back when he made funny movies. But I’m like that, too; can’t watch him any more.

    Now, the fact that Picasso was an arrogant entitled ass (and we are talking painters, here) does not interfere with my enjoyment of his art. But Allen… now all those funny twitches seem evidence of a disturbed mind.

    Not funny.

  29. 29.

    mistermix

    @Rex Everything: “overeducated”: That song takes probably the two of the most popular and commented-upon movies from two of the biggest name directors in the history of cinema and makes a pretty direct connection to the singer’s love life. You hardly need to be a film crit major to know about Manhattan or Wild Strawberries.

    “upperclass”: The Spotify bio of the band says that the lead singer named it after what the market workers in Soho said to her every morning on her way to work. In other words, she had a real world job before she started the band, and she’ll probably have another one in a few years unless by some miracle the band makes it really big.

  30. 30.

    scav

    By all means, Creativity must work within tightly monitered genre-complient bounds, referencing only from a list of approved concepts in order to attain validation from the correctly Goldilocks-range educated (with cherished and nurtured plots of ignorence) gatekeepers of authenticity.

  33. 33.

    Rex Everything

    @scav: Naw, it’d be better to let everything just devolve into a bunch of rich kids playing dress-up in Brooklyn and Brixton.

  37. 37.

    Rex Everything

    I think I’m going to write a rap song in which I sample Snoop Dog, the subject of which is being on the most badass water-polo team at the whole country club.

    You’ll hafta consult a book to determine whether it’s authentic or not.

  39. 39.

    Elizabelle

    The special snowflakes in the House have voted to defund Obamacare, bless their hearts.

    And news is so new that THIS is up in the WaPost online breaking news story:

    Lawmakers voted __ to ___ to approve the funding measure. ___ Democrats joined with ___ Republicans to approve the plan; ___ Republicans joined with Democrats.

    “This place is a mess,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor before the vote.

    Uh huh.

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’m awaiting some evidence that there’s a minion of mistermix running around the country pointing a gun at the head of commenters and insisting they must play the clips and listen to the songs.

  42. 42.

    mistermix

    @Rex Everything: Based on this comment, the title of “most down with the streets” Balloon Juice commenter is hereby awarded to Rex Everything. Your prize is a sampling of John’s favorite organic teas, a bottle of DougJ’s favorite Malbec, and the complete Allo Darlin’ CD collection.

  45. 45.

    The Dangerman

    I must be a bad person; a quote from this CNN article:

    “I’m just so opposed to the legislation and Obama’s big government agenda,” said Moore, 62, a contract certified public accountant. “There’s no way I’m giving my health care records to the government. I and many people need to make a statement.”

    62, uninsured, and against the ACA; there should be a special clause for assholes like him. Get in a bad accident or have a heart attack after watching Hannity, no bankruptcy for you. You can pay it off in monthly installments. Now, THERE’S a statement, motherfuckers.

    ETA: OK, the fuck will end up paying the penalty, so he’s not a total free-rider, but still….

  47. 47.

    MomSense

    Ok O/T but work today is Bergman/Fatal Attraction/WoodyAllen/Breaking B.A.D.

    It is demoralizing when your boss doesn’t give a crap and you are constantly saving his ass in spite of his stupidity.

    Need to find a new job!!!

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    @mistermix: I’ll contribute a bag of chicken shit to the prize package. It’s great for growing heirloom tomatoes, which are divine with just a sprinkle of Pink Himalayan salt and freshly ground black pepper.

    Also, as a very bad ukulele player, I approve of my more competent sister musicians. Allo Darlin’ is okay in my book.

  50. 50.

    Violet

    @mistermix:

    Your prize is a sampling of John’s favorite organic teas, a bottle of DougJ’s favorite Malbec, and the complete Allo Darlin’ CD collection.

    Do the runners-up get a sample bottle of John’s lavender oil?

  53. 53.

    mistermix

    @Betty Cracker: I’m one suburb over from where Julia Nunes grew up. She parlayed her YouTube ukelele performances into a record deal:

    http://www.junumusic.com/

    Or, as Rex Nothing would say, she leveraged her upper class privilege to foist her overeducated bourgeois worldview onto her undeserving peers.

  56. 56.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Speaking of Woody’s and Bergmans – Woody Guthrie penned a great (unrecorded by him) ode to Ingrid Bergman, recorded by Billy Bragg and Wilco for the Mermaid Avenue album.

  65. 65.

    sparrow

    @MazeDancer: Please. Allen’s relationship with his girlfriend’s adopted daughter, while definitely in the not-nice range of things, is absolutely NOT molestation. It was a consentual relationship. And they’ve been married for something like 15 years so I think it’s probably water under the bridge at this point.

  66. 66.

    handsmile

    @eemom:

    How very kind. (but that’s always been your principal trait here.)

    Not sure if I’m actually “back.” Just an occasional lurker of late (Bergman would lure me, of course). Late summer personal dramatics (nothing catastrophic, mind) have left me, um,…”re-assessing” commitments of time/energy/angst. So there’s that….

    (I do hope that we might belatedly exchange the virtual for the corporeal when I visit your bedeviled burg later this autumn.) Skoal!

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    @sparrow: Here’s what Allen said about it:

    In a 2005 Vanity Fair interview, Allen estimated that, despite the scandal’s damage to his reputation, Farrow’s discovery of Allen’s attraction to [then 20-year-old] Soon-Yi Previn by finding nude photographs of her was “just one of the fortuitous events, one of the great pieces of luck in my life. . . It was a turning point for the better.” Of his relationship with Farrow, he said, “I’m sure there are things that I might have done differently. . . Probably in retrospect I should have bowed out of that relationship much earlier than I did.” In a June 22, 2011 report, Reuters quoted Allen as saying, “What was the scandal? I fell in love with this girl, married her. We have been married for almost 15 years now. There was no scandal, but people refer to it all the time as a scandal and I kind of like that in a way because when I go I would like to say I had one real juicy scandal in my life.”

    Allen might not be a pedophile, but he is a Limbaugh-class douchebag.

  69. 69.

    eemom

    @handsmile:

    I do hope that we might belatedly exchange the virtual for the corporeal when I visit your bedeviled burg later this autumn.

    I would like that very much!

    Meanwhile, best of luck with the personal stuff.

    Sucks to be human, lotta the time.

  70. 70.

    ruemara

    @MazeDancer: I’m in this camp. I can’t enjoy Woody Allen anymore.

    @Betty Cracker: Soon-Yi’s brother says she was 16 at the time. Allen & Soon-Yi claim the 20. I wonder why. I don’t quite put 16 in the pedo category, just inappropriate, but I do point out the Manhattan story-line.

    My entire life is Beyond Bergman Bad and running very close to Dickens Bad.

  71. 71.

    J.Ty

    I always assumed the mention of wild strawberries in Some Swedish Trees by The Mountain Goats was a reference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19DA3bzdTTE

    Not that I can tell you *how* it’s a reference. Other than the name of the song, and the fact that it’s off the album Sweden. And that the band’s literary/douche-y enough to have named an album Taking The Dative.

  72. 72.

    sparrow

    @Betty Cracker: Yeah, asshole for sure. But I think a lot of people over-react to the age difference, which to me really isn’t and shouldn’t be a big deal. And lots of relationships start out with cheating, which is definitely shitty, but kind of only a concern to the immediate people involved. I donno, I guess I’m just in the other camp. The are other people that I used to like (ahem… Mel Gibson) that I can’t watch anymore, so to each their own.

  73. 73.

    WereBear

    @Betty Cracker: Allen might not be a pedophile, but he is a Limbaugh-class douchebag.

    I’d add to that: he is certainly in an incestuous relationship, considering he became the young woman’s stepfather when she was around 11. In addition, she is developmentally disabled; was she capable of consent when the relationship with her stepfather began? And when did it begin?

  74. 74.

    WereBear

    @ruemara: Soon-Yi’s brother says she was 16 at the time. Allen & Soon-Yi claim the 20.

    There is some doubt of her actual age: she was adopted from an orphanage, prior to neglect and head injury from her birth mother. She is developmentally disabled… whenever it was, was she capable of consent?

    Woody Allen became her stepfather when she was between 9 and 11. Now that is squicktastic on its own merits.

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    @sparrow: The age difference doesn’t bother me (as long as she was actually an adult, which is apparently an open question). It’s the fact that he was boinking his partner’s kid. That is just hideously inappropriate. And not only that, he crows about it after the fact. “Asshole” isn’t strong enough a word in my book.

  77. 77.

    eemom

    Putting aside the moral issues, I think it says a lot about Woody that the only relationship in his life that’s lasted is with a woman who appears to be no kind of intellectual match for him.

  78. 78.

    Socrates

    @MazeDancer:

    I knew it wouldn’t be long before some self-righteous asshole made the usual stupid judgments about Allen’s personal life. Which is none of your business. Asshole.

  79. 79.

    Socrates

    “he became the young woman’s stepfather when she was around 11”

    Allen was never her stepfather. Never. Get your facts straight.

  80. 80.

    Socrates

    The facts:

    Soon-Yi was 19.

    Allen and Mia Farrow were never married.

    Allen and Farrow never even lived together.

    Allen was not Soon-Yi’s stepfather.

    I have no doubt that Mia Farrow had every right to feelings of betrayal. But how the fuck is that your business? Who are you to judge?

    Allen clearly loves Soon-Yi. What’s really stupid is that no mention of Woody Allen is ever made without all of the usual lies and self-righteous moral scoldings about his personal life. And that’s too bad because Allen is a terrific writer and his movies are a rich source of opinions on art, relationships, sex, mortality, morality, religion, all the big subjects. But instead of talking about any of this important stuff, people just turn into assholes at the mere mention of his name. It’s pretty fucking stupid. If you ask me.

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