Ingmar Bergman et Véronique Vogler : Lit de parade, oiseaux maladifs et cauchemar
Ingmar Bergman and Veronica Vogler : Lying in State, Morbid Birds and Nightmare

Summary/Abstract: The present article represents a psychoanalytic reading not only ofIngmar Bergmanʼs film The Hour of the Wolf/ Vargtimmen (1968), but also ofBergmanʼs personal hour of the wolf, related to an inner pain, to an atmosphericsilence and to the irreducible scar of anxiety. On the other hand, the article presentsthe expressionistic influences of the German school on the creation of the Swedishdirector, regarding the terror of the artist, the adventure of light and whiteness, thesomnambulism, the soul and its double – the shadow, and so on. The nightmare ofthe main character Johan Borg starts with his visit to the von Merkens family: themembers of this strange family can represent projections of his own psychoticreactions – cannibals, ghosts, vampires, living dead, parasites, spiders. In thiscontext, the bed where Johan meets his “perfect” lover, Veronica Vogler, integratesa binary topos of agony and raw sexuality, a pietà and also a lying-in state of thecorpse which allows the ovation and the consumption of the breath of the deceasedby the participants. Ultimately, the bed hides the dramatization and the voyeurismof the self.

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