Shame: Ingmar Bergman’s Vietnam War

Ingmar Bergman’s film Skammen [Shame] (1968), about a married couple trapped between the warring parties in a bloody civil war, triggered fierce ideological debate in Sweden. According to the harsh critics of the film, among whom the leading critic was well-known author Sara Lidman, Bergman had managed to create propaganda for the American government and its controversial war in Vietnam. In the present paper, the debate is studied historically in relation to ongoing research about the culture of the late 1960s in Sweden. The studied material consists of press clippings, Bergman scholarship, and Bergman’s own recently released papers at the Ingmar Bergman Foundation Archive in Stockholm. Furthermore, questions about meaning and interpretation regarding film viewing are dealt with, taking into consideration developments in contemporary film theory.