Through a Glass Darkly story
Through a Glass Darkly (Swedish: Såsom i en spegel, lit. 'As in a Mirror') is a 1961 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and starring Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow and Lars Passgård. The film tells the story of a schizophrenic young woman (Andersson) vacationing with her family on a remote island, during which time she experiences delusions about meeting God, who ultimately appears to her in the form of a monstrous spider. Meanwhile, her author father attempts to use her illness in his work, and her brother struggles with sexual frustration.
18 total · 4 choice · 9 major · 5 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| coping with someone losing their mind | choice | the story centered on a small family who were dealing with the fact that one of them, Karin, was gradually becoming ever-more schizophrenic with little or no hope of improvement |
| love | choice | tied up with religiousness was talk about all sorts of love, especially familial; David soliloquized to Minus on the subject of love |
| schizophrenia | choice | it was said that Karin suffered from near incurable schizophrenia; she had received electroshock treatment; the condition gave her hallucinations of a religious nature, and she began to expect the arrival of God |
| the nature of creativity | choice | David and Martin were both writers. We learned much about David's tormented writing. Central to the story was the fact that he exploited his daughter's disease as a subject for his writing. |
| brother and sister | major | Minus and Karin |
| Christianity | major | Karin's hallucinations made her expect the coming of God, in the Christian tradition |
| compromising one's ethical principles for personal advantage | major | David beat himself up because he had used Karin's insanity as a subject for his novel, having otherwise trouble with creativity |
| creative writing | major | David and Martin were both writers. David appeared to have had a writer's block to some extent. |
| father and daughter | major | David and Karin |
| father and son | major | David and Minus; the story concluded with Minus cherishing having had a real conversation with his father |