The opening of Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute consists of faces. As Mozart’s overture plays, he cuts back and forth between faces—dozens of faces—of men, women, children, of all ages and ethnicities, frequently returning to one redheaded girl (Bergman’s daughter).
They’re watching, or getting ready to watch, what we’re about to see onscreen. The movie is staged, theatrical performance and a completely cinematic experience at once (it’s kind of like The Muppet Show, actually), and this opening montage is his way of drawing you in, spectating the spectators until you completely identify with them. It keeps going on, for eight whole minutes—an eternity in film time—but it doesn’t matter. You could just keep watching them. It’s really beautiful. I can’t think of a better way to begin a film.
Here is every face in that opening montage, all 100 and something of them. I recommend you play the overture (above—but you’ll need to click through to see it if you’re viewing this from Tumblr’s dashboard) while you look at them.
(By the way, the photography is by the late, great Sven Nykvist, who never seemed to run out of ways to shoot the human face, and the editing is by Siv Lundgren.)
