The Virgin Spring (1960) - The Criterion Collection

Synopsis

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. Starring frequent Bergman collaborator and screen icon Max von Sydow, the film is both beautiful and cruel in its depiction of a world teetering between paganism and Christianity, and of one father’s need to avenge the death of a child.

Cast

Töre	Max von Sydow
Märeta	Birgitta Valberg
Ingeri	Gunnel Lindblom
Karin	Birgitta Pettersson
The boy	Ove Porath
The herdsmen	Axel Düberg
The herdsmen	Tor Isedal

Credits

Director	Ingmar Bergman
Screenplay	Ulla Isaksson
Cinematography	Sven Nykvist
Editing	Oscar Rosander
Producer	Ingmar Bergman
Music	Erik Nordgren
Production Design	P.A. Lundgren
Costume design	Marik Vos

Disc Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by Ingmar Bergman scholar Birgitta Steene
New video interviews with actresses Gunnel Lindblom and Birgitta Pettersson
Introduction by filmmaker Ang Lee
An audio recording of a 1975 American Film Institute seminar by Bergman
Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
New and improved English subtitle translation
A 28-page booklet featuring essays by film scholar Peter Cowie and screenwriter Ulla Isaksson, the medieval ballad on which the film is based, and a letter from Bergman on the film’s controversial rape scene

From the Current

The Virgin Spring: Bergman in Transition

by Peter Cowie Jan 23, 2006

Ingmar Bergman was enjoying one of the happiest spells of his life while making The Virgin Spring (1960). On a personal level, he was felicitously ensconced...