Abstract
Fanny and Alexander can be seen as a kind of dream play superimposed, as it were, on a realistic drama. That the two do not readily mix is what disturbs and intrigues us about the film, and it suggests an important dichotomy of impulse throughout Bergman’s career, a dichotomy he may be said to have inherited from such Scandinavian precursors as Strindberg himself. At different points in his career, Bergman has followed this impulse in its different directions, toward the allegorical phantasy of Wild Strawberries, for instance, or toward the naturalism of Scenes From a Marriage. The two medieval films, The Seventh Seal and The Virgin Spring, though superficially similar in terms of settings and costumes, represent Bergman’s dichotomy of impulse in a peculiarly clear and apprehensible form.