There's something about Ingmar Bergman's filmography that very much resembles a stage troupe. He began as a playwright, so perhaps that's it. Perhaps it's his frequent collaborations with the same people. I think maybe the real reason for that feeling is that his storytelling continued to come back to specific themes time and again.

Here we explore a truly bitter relationship, between circus master Albert and his mistress, the performer Anne. Resentment and suspicion have already begun to poison their lives together by the time we meet them as they arrive in the town where Albert's wife lives with their two sons - whom he hasn't seen in three years. Anne is right to suspect Albert wishes to leave the circus and settle down with his estranged family. For her part, Anne makes a terrible choice in dabbling with a despicable actor as a means of revenge.

Here also we see the life of the performer through Bergman's eyes. As in The Magician and The Seventh Seal, we're acutely aware of the disrespect historically shown toward entertainers. When Albert comes hat in hand to the local theater to plead for the borrowing of costumes, the director, Mr. Sjuberg, berates him and all circus performers as being vastly inferior to stage performers: "The lowest of us would spit on the best of you," he taunts.

The objective of entertainment is to connect with the audience in a key way; it can range from amusement to inspiration, but whatever the connection it must be personal. The most successful entertainers (such as Bergman) deftly shift from the specifically personal to the universal in such a way that we identify with people who are not us. It is in this context, then, that one can become genuinely confused by the resentment of entertainers - and identify with Bergman's nearly perverse fascination with it.

As intended, I was consumed with dread throughout the climax of the film as Albert holes up with the revolver. I came to wish he would simply shoot himself, but I knew that the bear would not survive as soon as I saw the shot of Alma trying to coax her into eating. It's not a mercy killing, as in Old Yeller; nor is it even a killing of necessity, as with the execution of Gasim in Lawrence of Arabia. This is nothing more than pettiness. It is a lashing out at the vulnerable, caged and sickly bear because Albert needs to punish someone for his manic resentment of the world.

It isn't merely that the bear is defenseless and pitiable that makes her the obvious victim of Albert's contempt. Alma is the bear's caretaker, and one suspects that on some level at least, Albert is attempting to punish her symbolically for what she did to humiliate Frost seven years earlier in the anecdote shared with him when the film opens. It's as though Alma is Eve, and Albert is angry that Anne bit into an apple of her own.

“You only risk your lives. We risk our pride,” says Sjuberg. Sawdust and Tinsel opens with a tale that originated with Alma's pride and closes with the death of the bear. As someone who nearly ended his life last year and is presently going through a divorce, I am acutely aware of the precariousness of both life and pride, and the temptations of anger and bitterness that poisoned Albert and Anne. Perhaps more than even Bergman's other films about failing and failed relationships, this one struck a chord with me. To my credit, I have not shot any bears - literal, metaphorical or otherwise.

Draper forces Friday to learn English rather than learning his language. He never even considers learning the other language. Also, it was a bit annoying when he sat around and made Friday work for him. It was like he figured out he was a slave, so hey, he can do my chores too!

how she doesn't need oxygen but Draper does! I mean, he has bigger lungs, but that shouldn't matter too much. She'd need more oxygen than what is indicated that there is on Mars!