The leading and not a very particularly likeable character is a mediocre violinist and has an incredibly inflated view of his abilities - actually quite unpleasant, self-centered, self-involved, pessimistic, disgusting and neurotic, like most of Bergman's films………. It's when the character starts to communicate that the trouble really begins to brew.
Drunken outbursts, insecurity, hysterical (and in the verge of insanity) protagonist, irritable, silly, crazy and stupid character, the protagonist opines that marriage is both time consuming and nerve-racking, how he hates children and does not want them, questions if the world is good enough to come to and that he would prefer extinction, that even after marriage he feels he is all alone and wants to be left alone, lots of word diarrhea
Somewhere one of the Bergman’s character mentions that there is so much indifference, laxity and misery in body and mind. In the end one doesn’t believe in anything. One thinks that’s how it is. That’s the whole meaning. There has to be a meaning. If there isn’t then one has to make one up. Otherwise one can’t live. Existential crisis.
One can see the influence of Johan August Strindberg, a contemporary of Henrik Ibsen, on Ingmar Bergman.
Classical music was used quite abundantly. Bergman tried to show what happens (while rehearsing) if one plays his own tune in an orchestra - Nothing by chaos surfaces. And when the conductor takes over – music emerges.
The film starts with:
Beethoven’s Symphony 9 in D Minor, Op 125, “Choral” : IV. Presto - Allegro assai - Choral Finale/
In Between :
Egmont, by Beethoven – overture to the tragedy, Op. 84 - pieces for the 1787 play of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe/
The Bartered Bride (overture) by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana/
Mozart’s Flute Quartet in A major, K.298/
Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, I Allegro molto appassionato/
Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, II Andante (C major)/
Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, III Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace (E major)/
Mozart’s The Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183, III Menuetto & Trio/
Beethoven’s Symphony No 1 in C Major, Op 21, IV Finale, Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace/ E
And ends again with a repeat of:
Beethoven’s Symphony 9 in D Minor, Op 125, “Choral” : IV. Presto - Allegro assai - Choral Finale.
By the way one would wonder how one of the characters (the conductor) got his thoughts and images across audience, while the leading actor was in a flashback mode?
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