Eclipse from The Criterion Collection

Five-Disc Set Includes:

Torment

1944
101 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
Monaural
In Swedish with optional English subtitles

Crisis

1946
91 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
Monaural
In Swedish with optional English subtitles

Port of Call

1946
99 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
Monaural
In Swedish with optional English subtitles

Thirst

1949
84 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
Monaural
In Swedish with
optional English subtitles

To Joy

1949
99 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
Monaural
In Swedish with
optional English subtitles

Release Info

Catalog Number:
ECL001
ISBN:
1-934121-34-7
UPC:
7-15515-02322-1
SRP: $69.95

Before The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries established him as one of the great masters of cinema, Ingmar Bergman created a series of devastating but less well-known psychological character studies, marked by intricate, layered narratives, gritty environments, and haunting visuals. These early films, which show the stirrings of the genius to come, remain the hidden treasures of a European cinema on the cusp of a golden age.

Ingmar Bergman's first produced screenplay was for the great Swedish filmmaker Alf Sjöberg's Torment, a dark coming-of-age drama about a boarding-school senior, Widgren, terrorized by his sadistic Latin teacher. When Widgren falls for a troubled local girl, Bertha, he finds himself caught up even further in a web of emotional mind games.


Urban beauty-shop proprietress Miss Jenny arrives in an idyllic rural town one morning to whisk away her eighteen-year-old daughter, Nelly, whom she abandoned as a child, from the loving woman who has raised her. Once in Stockholm, Nelly receives a crash course in adult corruption and wrenching heartbreak.


Berit, a suicidal young woman living in a working-class port town, unexpectedly falls for Gösta, a sailor on leave. Haunted by a troubled past and held in a vice grip by her domineering mother, Berit begins to hope that her relationship with Gösta might save her from self-destruction.


A couple traveling across a war-ravaged Europe. A disintegrating marriage. A ballet dancer's scarred past. Her friend's psychological agony. Elliptically told in flashbacks and multiple narrative threads, Thirst shows people enslaved to memory and united in isolation.


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.