The Cinematheque

“Bergman’s definitive apocalyptic vision, painful and powerful.”

Judith Crist, New York

“One of Bergman’s greatest films” (Pauline Kael), The Shame is a devastating dystopian drama set in an unnamed country in the throes of civil war. Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow are married musicians living a relatively peaceful existence on an island that has so far escaped the violence engulfing the mainland. When the island is invaded, the tensions in their marriage erupt, and they react in very different ways to the difficult moral choices confronting them. Bergman’s shattering portrait of war is lent a harsh documentary authenticity by Sven Nykvist’s stark black-and-white cinematography. The film was a major influence on Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice, also shot by Nykvist. The Shame​’s haunting final images inspired the watery conclusion of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men.