Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel have a well-known lyric that bemoans the slyly contagious nature of suppression. The Swedish couple Marianne & Johan have consciously resisted the urge to disturb the silence. Their marriage is shown at a stage in their lives when years of emotional control and fake calm have dissolved into a mutually destructive, pent up dissatisfaction. Marianne Johan suffer from a societally enforced yet self-imposed dispassion that affects them in all areas of their life. Not only do their dyadic issues remain unresolved. In his six-episode series, Scenes from a Marriage, director Ingmar Bergman offers a close-up examination of the deterioration of their confrontation-fearful marriage, establishing the concepts of emotional suppression, emotional illiteracy, and lack of self-awareness as the root of the couple’s estrangement. Scenes chronicles an unhappy marriage that takes place in 1970s Sweden during a period of cultural change. “Instead of rigid gender stereotypes and the traditional values of self sacrifice, conflict avoidance, and respect for others, we saw ideals like self-development, communication of positive or negative emotions, intimacy, as well as more flexible roles. Studies on mass media, public opinion surveys, and studies of other types have shown that this trend is toward individualism. Marianne Johan feel that their silence and suppression is draining their life force and limiting their self-identity. Scenes spans the turbulent decade in their relationship as they both succumb to silence, and overcome it.
The director Bergman said that “in this country we are afraid our anger” and as a result, tensions between Marianne Johan is expressed through their “heroic silent silences,” instead of directly confronting issues. The first season is entitled “The Art of Scrubbing Things Under the Rug,” and it’s a story of miscommunications caused by their aversion toward aggression.
Marianne and Johan are continuing the suppression they experienced as children. They play their gender roles obediently, forming a modern-day behemoth: The professional couple. Marianne quietly states, “I don’t wish we were forced to perform all these roles which we do not want to perform.” Marianne says she has a complex about being persecuted by her mother. Johan explodes at Marianne, saying to tell her the truth. He says he is tired of caring what people think. He has grown tired of her obligations, and the roles he and she have to play.
Johan’s drastic measure reveals the intensity of the basic human need to communicate–particularly for Western societies. Kim, Sherman). According to research, the importance of selfexpression is correlated with the cognitive benefits and negative effects. According to research, European Americans use talking with others about their thoughts and emotions more than Asian Americans. They also benefit from it. What is expressed…implicates the self for people from the European American cultural context because they live and participate in a cultural context in which internal attributes define who they are.”
Bergman uses this constant suppression to create a detachment theme throughout the movie. He suggests that the suppression of emotions can cause a loss in connection to life and reality. Their suppression, their silence, spreads “like a disease” into their careers and everyday lives. It affects everything they do, including their marriage. Marianne is losing her sense of self. Her lack in intensity results in a dulled view of reality. This makes her feel that she isn’t truly living. Marianne, Johan and their best friends Katarina & Peter are shown to have a dull ache when they’re compared. Marianne continues to ruminate, “We are self-indulgent and pitiful cowards. They can’t understand reality, they’re ashamed.” It’s not that we lack affection, love or joy.
Marianne is an experienced divorce lawyer. Mrs. Jacobi (one of her clients) echoes her thoughts: “The lifestyle I’ve lived has hindered me from loving.” There is something strange going on. I feel like my senses are failing me …” Jacobi is experiencing the same feelings as Marianne. Jacobi causes Marianne to be visibly distressed by bringing up the looming and real concept of mortality. Marianne’s emotional suppression is a particularly harmful effect, once it has a historical basis. “In Western culture, the expression of feelings, thoughts, and preferences are seen as an expression of selfhood. Thus, freedom of speech is a powerful indicator of individual freedom. Self-expression…is described as the “assertion of a person’s individual characteristics.” As a result, an important facet of individualism has been called “expressive individualism,” in which people express their innermost thoughts and feelings to achieve their individuality. Marianne’s lack of ability to express herself has a direct correlation to her choice of freedom. The series opens when Marianne is beginning to experience her loss in self.
Marianne also shows Johan’s tendency of avoiding important issues. Marianne is often compelled to leave the house and asks Johan for help. There are many such foreboding indications in the early episodes that the marriage is not as stable as it seems.
Marianne Johan hold the same early 20th century views that “marriage equals self-discipline,” and that “the most important rule in a happy marriage is to please your partner.” This belief was reflected in marital advice from 1900-1979 that were studied by Cancian Gordan. The 1970s scene (when Scenes takes place), however, was an article that argued that such marriages “leave little breathing room for both individuals to retain individual personalities”. However, marital advice articles in 1970s were still promoting self-sacrifice and assuming that women are responsible for maintaining a relationship. Marianne admits, in the 4th episode, that she wishes to be able to let go of her temper. This would be a life-changing experience. It would change my life. Once on her game, she tells Johan, who is broken, that it feels “goddamn good” to finally express herself to his face. Marianne says, “If I’m going to appreciate anything, it’s that I’m alive.” We’re almost human.”
Johan calls this emotional illiteracy. The characters are unable to overcome their differences when they attempt to do so. Marianne says that “sometimes it feels like a couple is talking on an unreliable telephone.” Johan also reflects about their emotional illiteracy, realizing the lack of emotional intelligence prevents them from reconciling their differences. In Africa we’ve learned about the anatomy of animals and how to farm. We have memorized mathematical formulas. But we were never taught about the soul. We have a profound ignorance of what makes us tick. His discontent indicates that the marital arrangement, which involves self-sacrifice as well as self-suppression, has adversely impacted on both male and female spouses.
Johan’s affair taught him “how to fight” as well as “how to talk ,”–. It was a lesson in how only by having disagreements, and being angry can couples grow together. Since spouses’ desires are often unknown, or in conflict with each other, it is inevitable for them to act against one another’s interest and desires. (Cancian & Gordon). Johan and Marianne both benefitted from such lessons in emotional Intelligence, which helped them connect their thoughts with their emotions.
Marianne finally talks to her mother at the end of the show about marital disputes. She confesses that Marianne was raised by her father, and both she and Marianne resisted addressing the issues. They waited for their spouses to forget the differences, rather than confronting them. They never tended to their differences. The article “The Variety of Intimacy”, published in 1977, speaks to Marianne’s mother’s longings. The author argues that the degree of intimacy between a couple depends on their ability to “negotiate” differences. Marianne’s mom describes her marriage as a contract that was entirely to her husband’s benefit. She would sometimes hate him because of this. Her mother, like Marianne feels she entered into a contract where (mostly female) sacrifice is required. She also mentions that Marianne’s “vibrant personality” was hurt by the silence, again suggesting that this oppressive marriage setup has a heavy toll for both parties, across generations.
Marriage therapists often cite concepts such as “know thyself”, or maturity in one’s own life, to be important for marital happiness (Gottman & Notarius). The “heightened self attention” that comes from this self-consciousness is what leads to more self-disclosure (Young). The fifth episode shows Johan describing himself as an “inconvenience, unproductive, costly unit” due to his failures. We became so dependent on rituals because we were so focused on material things. We used to feel secure because of externals. “I don’t even know myself.” The spittle is all over me. I feel like someone spat in my face. He has expressed his admiration of Paula’s passion, which fills her emptiness. Johan is convinced that he does not have this passion, this defining purpose to live for. You express your thoughts in order to deal with the emptiness that is inside. Have you ever felt how painful emptiness is? The void I feel inside is painful, it stings. It’s like the pain you felt as a child after crying and having your entire body ache.
Johan slowly fades, but Marianne gradually gains an emancipation through self-realization and awareness. This brings a newfound zest for life and the discovery of her greatness.
Marianne’s unstoppable journey of growth will begin when she looks back on old photos. While paging her past, she discovers she’s never known herself. Marianne’s voiceover explains Marianne’s character in this scene, while the camera looks through memories with a sad eye. Marianne verbalizes in this moment the resigned human nature that she and both the audience and Marianne have always sensed, but which they had not fully identified until now.
Marianne ponders her childhood and realizes that she always did as she was instructed, was well behaved, even meek. She remembers expressing herself a few times and being punished. She was obsessed with sex and never expressed it. She says she was brainwashed by guilt. She laments that she has given up her dream of becoming an actress because of the ridicule. She had never been a drama queen. She worries loudly if her life is over. She grew-up in a world “that was comfortable, where you took things for granted.” But the comfort and safety of her childhood are accompanied by an “implied cruelty” – an oppression.
Marianne reflects on her epiphany as she shares it with Johan. While she may believe they were in love, Marianne regrets the social rules that governed their relationship. Suddenly she realizes that marriage isn’t just about love. She also recognizes that good intentions and courtship happiness aren’t enough. Marianne questions later whether she was able to experience love because she did not reject this self-sacrificing, repressive contract of marriage. She regrets having not lived a relation on her terms sooner. “Sometimes, it hurts me to have never been loved. It’s possible that I was never loved. It’s distressing. She says she has lived a fake life to satisfy society, acting, faking every relationship she’s had with men to date, thinking only of what the man wants. She admits to having accepted “the culture’s definition of love as a service of the other by obliterating personal rights and desires”(Cancian Gordon). Marianne muses on the fact that she is playing a part that does not reflect her true self. Subscribing “to the ‘proper expression’ of emotion and experience” of her era, suppressing her rage and accepting the definition love as selfless sacrifice has made her feel powerless and prevented her from realizing her potential. These restraints made her appear “plain” or “not fired up”. But, now that she has discovered what she truly wants, she’s excited to live truthfully and find out.
As she begins to realize her true potential, Marianne wonders what might have happened if she’d maximized her resources at the outset. Marianne now has a greater understanding of herself and her potential. By rejecting the limits set by society, she opens a portal to discovering what is possible in her life. Marianne, by defining marriage in her own words, follows a Western tradition of the 1960s and 70s.
Strindberg said it best, and Bergman often quotes him in his films: “I am what I dream.” Bergman seems throughout to emphasize the fact that people who have no dreams about greatness outside of themselves are not living. Scenes ends up being a reflection on what living fully means. Marianne echoes the same line she used in the first scene, telling Johan to cast off the mask and refuse playing the role others assigned to them. She says that society has imposed limits on her opportunities and life. The 1973 Reader’s Digest article explains the dissatisfaction of women with marriage in this way: “They find it harder and more difficult to accept that they have an illogically subordinated role, to sacrifice themselves for their spouses’ fulfillment” (Cancion Gordon). Marianne admits to being tempted by Johan’s traditional marriage and lifestyle, but she refuses to give in to this temptation. She wants to live a free, independent life, not return to a past that is safe. Marianne is afraid of falling into old habits, which are based on ignorance, illiteracy and suppression. She encourages Johan, who is a young man at the time, to be himself and to free himself from his past. Marianne, enthused by her newfound self-confidence, tells her ex-husband, “We have discovered ourselves.” Imagine the awareness we have gained. I am persistent. I enjoy myself. I trust my gut and common sense. The passage of time has made me more experienced.
Works Cited
Scenes From A Marriage Dir. Ingmar Bergman. 1974. DVD. Criterion, 2004.
Cancian Francesca M. Gordon Steven L.
US Women’s Journals Since 1900. Gender and Society. Gender and Society. 2.3 (1988).
Geher and Mayer “Emotional Intelligence: The Identification of Emotion.” Intelligence, 22 (1996), pp. 89-113
Gottman J. Notarius C. Marriage research in the twentieth century and an agenda for research in the 21st. (2002): 159-297
Gross, James J. and Richards Jane M.
Kim, Heejung and Sherman David K.
Young, Richard D. “The Effects of private self-consciousness and perspective taking on satisfaction in close relationships.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48.1 (1985):1584-1594
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