Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring: Cultures in conflict

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Notes

1. The film was re‐released in 2006 on Criterion Collection and is available for home viewing.

2. In successfully censoring the film, American officials myopically focused on the raw and licentious brutality of Karin’s rape and murder.

3. Notably, unlike the United States, the Swedish today, as in the time of Bergmann’s heyday, have some of the most liberal and least vengeful of all penal criminal sanctions in the world. This includes extensive due process rights for the accused, strong preferences for probation, low imprisonment rates, short sentences, strong rehabilitation programmes, individual cells that come with civilised amenities, high guard‐to‐prisoner ratios, lenient furlough, work, decent prison pay and visitation (including conjugal visitation) policies as well as some of the lowest crime rates and recidivism rates in the world. Ironically, Sweden, particularly its youth, is undergoing a conservative movement calling for stronger penalties. This trend is blamed, by Swedish authorities, on American influences – especially in the areas of film and television and evangelical religion (Snyder, 2001).

4. Bernard of Clairvaux would have been the most famous Cistercian.