4 September 2006
LIG DEUR ‘N DONKER LENS OPAQUE: ‘N GEDIG VIR MY GETROUE INGMAR BERGMAN-VRIENDE ...
Beste Lesers,
Hieronder volg ‘n gedig deur die Ierse digter Louis MacNeice, seun van ‘n voormalige biskop van die Anglikaanse Kerk in Ierland. Ingmar Bergman se pa was ook destyds ‘n prediker en het gedien in die Lutherse Kerk in Swede. 45 jaar gelede het ek in die tydskrif Sight and Sound ‘n beskrywing en analise van Bergman se film Through a Glass Darkly gelees, en die filmkritikus het destyds gewonder en gespekuleer oor die mening van die beelde van ‘n spinnekop in hierdie film. Miskien lê daar in hierdie gedig uiteindelik ‘n redelike verklaring daarvoor. Lees versigtig, veral die laaste reëls en probeer die simboliek visualiseer. Kom ons stap saam binne die labirint van die onderbewuste van die kunstenaar Bergman:
The Preacher
He carried a ball of darkness with him, unrolled it
To find his way by in the streets and rooms,
Every train or boat he took was Charon´s ferry,
He never left the Catacombs;
He never smiled but strung his strands of black
Among the secular crowd who, when he tripped their feet
Saw their own faces in the wet street, saw
Their hell beneath the street.
Among old iron, cinders, sizzling dumps,
A world castrated, amputated, trepanned,
He walked in the lost acres crying " Repent
For the Kingdom of Death is at hand".
He took the books of pagan art and read
Between the lines or worked them out to prove
Humanism a palimpsest and God’s
Anger a more primal fact than love.
And in the city at night where drunken song
Climbed the air like tendrils of vine
He bared a knife and slashed the roots and laid
Another curse on Cain. The sign
Of the cross between his eyes, his mouth drawn down,
He passed the flower-sellers and all
The roses reeked of an abattoir, the gardenias
Became the decor of a funeral.
His hands were always clenched, an eagle
Riveted on a world of vice;
Going upstairs he built, block upon block,
An Aztec pyramid of sacrifice.
Going upstairs to die in a bare room
He tried to square his accounts; lying in bed
He summoned home his dees, drew back
Sixty years´ expanded thread,
Pulled it in through the chink beneath the door,
Wrapped it around him, all
His faith and his despair a ball of black
And he himself at the centre of the ball.
Ek het ongelukkig geen van Daan Desimaal se uitstekende aanbevole boeke oor Bergman gelees nie, dus praat ek bloot van eie geheue. In veel van Bergman se films: Winter Light, Fanny and Alexander esm is daar ‘n onsimpatieke priester, en hierdie karakters hou ongetwyfeld verband met Bergman se persoonlike ondervindinge, en verwys na sy pa.
Beste groete,
Pieter Redelinghuys
terug
