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Stig and Marta are two young musicians playing together in a Swedish orchestra. They meet, they fall in love and they get married. If this synopsis leaves you expecting a romantic film, you'll be disappointed to find out a rough, realistic, yet very sentimental piece of art.

In this film, Bergman uses a quite interesting storytelling method that works really effectively. Although the way their marriage ends is revealed to us in the opening sequence making the rest of the film a flashback (a technique with which Bergman is already familiar with), when the movie reaches its final scene, one can't help but be extremely moved by the way things end up.

Once again, the performances are great and it is clear that these actors open up their own private world for all of us to see, and they can do that simply because they feel comfortable with a director like Bergman. They know they are in safe hands. Victor Sjostrom definitely steals the show (and Bergman will work with him again in Wild Strawberries), but it is the face of Maj-Britt Nilsson (Marta) that will remain in your mind for a long time.

Already in these early films of his, the Swedish master shows his love for close-ups. He likes to diminish the distance between the audience and the actors, especially their faces, sharing the belief that not only their eyes, but also the texture of their skin can reveal to us a whole lot of things about the characters. After all, close ups are one of the great advantages of cinema that have ultimately become one of the most characteristic building blocks of this art form, and Bergman working simultaneously in the theatre, is very much aware of that. Although the extreme close ups are easier to notice and admire, Bergman has also a great arsenal of shots and camera movements that so easily uses in this film. The shots of the orchestra performing either from high above or through the musicians, shows a camera that can move constantly but also in a discreet and, one could say, abstract way. He also proves to be very capable with mise-en-scene, as deep-focus long takes are used in several scenes.

The use of music is also notable, as you will definitely see for yourselves in the remarkable montage sequence in the ending. Classical music is of course common in the director's filmography, but it follows certain stages that are worth mentioning. In his first period, in which "To Joy" is definitely included, Bergman uses pieces performed by large orchestras, grandiose in a way. And it's certainly no coincidence that in these films, a great number of characters are used for narrative purposes (surely Stig are Marta are in the foreground, but there's also the conductor, Sonderby, the mistress and her old husband, Marcel and a few others). But from early 60's on, begins a period in which Bergman uses music of a smaller scale (especially string quartets) and in these films very few characters are introduced to us and, very often, in an isolated place (e.g. Through a Glass Darkly, Silence, Persona).

If you watch carefully this film, you will see many signs of what Ingmar Bergman is going to evolve to. His dramatic approach in human relationships and his effort to capture those moments between two heartbeats, between two lovers. But also his realistic point of view, especially when it comes to marriage (as Scenes From a Marriage a good 20 years after will confirm). A very good film.

When you set up shop and form a marriage, you need to acquire a rather large carriage, to shackle yourselves to, and fill it with you, just make sure you've got plenty of storage. Now your carriage will have many seals, but occasionally these become unpeeled, you'll both try and unpick, then resolutely re-stick, as you turn it into a big wheal. Far too often the damage is done, and the carriage just runs out of fun, so you fill it with distraction, which leads to inaction, the start of the end has begun. This all happened to Stig and to Marta, but they managed to find a big plaster, until one fateful day, something got in the way, with a carriage derailing disaster.

There are some things you can't foresee but they usually result because of a lack of vision.

The "Joy" part, by the way, refers to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from the Ninth Symphony. It pops up twice, once near the beginning and the other time at the end. It's hard to figure out where this film is aiming. The leading man is unpleasant in every way. He is completely self-centered, self-involved and pessimistic. His wife on the other hand is everything good he is not. And yet the film doesn't necessarily follow through on her character. There are some big payoffs though. It's always a joy (pun intended) to see Victor Sjostrom on screen. He would appear later in Bergman's "Wild Strawberries", again as an old man. This time he's an orchestral conductor who gets to know the two young protagonists over the years. They are both musicians. The husband is chasing after fame on stage and the film makes his lack of real talent painfully obvious. The musical excerpts are quite extraordinary. What you see is actually what you hear! Hollywood could pick up on something here - big time. Again, Sjostrom's job as conductor is impeccable. A lot of work went into this. The symmetry is also wonderful with the last images matching the first. And after all, the "Ode to Joy" doesn't arrive until the end of Beethoven's last symphony

Curtis Stotlar

Somewhat one-sided and sometimes melodramatic portrait of a doomed marriage, this still has it share of lovely moments, not least of which is the on-screen performance of great classical music by the orchestra that both protagonists are part of.

While their romance starts sweetly, Stig rapidly turns into a hateful character, his failure to reach stardom as a solo musician translated into taking out his frustrations on his sweet wife, and coldly having an affair to counter his feelings of impotence and self-loathing.

While an interesting portrait of an artist's own ambition standing in the way of being better at their craft (it's Stig's need for approval and outward success that doesn't allow him to really thrown himself, body and soul into his music – or his marriage), Marta his wife just comes off as too perfect a martyr.

There are moments where the acting is very strong, and some of the photography is lovely, but the film just feels a bit like the character of Stig – too self-conscious and too sure about who is right and wrong. Still, there are lots of hints of Bergman's genius to come, and it's well worth seeing for those.

Ingmar Bergman's seventh film, To Joy, is actually a fairly bitter film, more often than not, in looking at the destructiveness of a marriage between two people who somehow got stuck with each other to fall in love. And yet there are some moments that are quite joyful, or at least in the terms that Bergman will allow from time to time, and they help ring this as less a total work of despair than an examination of 'average' people who can't stand not having more. Stig (Stig Olin) and Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson) meet as they're both musicians in an orchestra conducted by Sönderby (Victor Sjostrom).

She's the only woman in the orchestra, but it's not exactly that they have love at first sight in the slightest. Their connection grows following a party where Stig gets drunk and makes a depressing grandstanding fool of himself in front of friends, and somehow his downbeat manner is charming to Marta. Soon they grow closer, even fall in love perhaps, though their future marriage is complicated by Marta becoming pregnant. This scene, when she reveals it three months on to Stig, is the first real crack in the relationship. It only cracks more, with the occasional patch-up, and the question stands more or less- as Stig is looking back on the relationship following his wife and one of his child's deaths- is what could have come from all of this?

Bergman deals with his characters, at this stage in his career, in trying to just find the simple and really not very simple truths of what Stig and Marta are together and separate. For the first half it almost looks like Stig is a bit too two-dimensional, particularly for a Bergman film (and Olin doesn't play him extremely well, even if he does deliver the beats fairly well, perhaps in line with his own character's inadequacies). He can't seem to enjoy anything that he does because he always wants more, to be a supreme soloist, than to have what he already has gotten. Marta, on the other hand, after having several potential men before going with Stig, tries her best to cope with having two kids that she probably wasn't totally thrilled to have in the first place.

There's a great little scene where Sanderby recounts walking in on Stig and Marta after having some kind of odd tender moment (as well as later on after having a quarrel), without them noticing Sanderby walk in, and the expression still underneath their faces when he formally walks in. In typical Bergman fashion we see the disintegration of a relationship (quite a brutal argument in bed really, more of emotional violence than physical), even if the sort of 'patching-up' period towards the end is a little weaker than what's come before.

So on the one hand there is this aspect, the drama of two people having a constant push-and-pull tie that binds them through Stig's delusions of grandeur and self-pity and fear manifesting in other forms (notably into the arms of another woman) and Marta's own semi-helplessness, which is very good, if imperfect, as classic Bergman storytelling. On the other hand it's also one of the best examples of classical music being used as incidental music: there's not exact musical score like if we hear music accompanying the characters giving the emotional cues during an argument scene or when Sanderby offers advice or gets irritated at Stig, but rather the music of Sanderby's orchestra (and Sjostrom, I might add, is pitch-perfect in the role of the weathered and brilliant second-banana conductor) fills in the spaces at times of the emotional context.

Probably the most successful, and joyful, scene is when Stig finds out Marta has the baby, by running out quick during a rehearsal, the music going along as he's on the phone, then continuing as he sits back down, and as Sanderby asks quietly of one musician who asks another to another to Stig what happened, as the music plays on. This, plus the second greatest cinematic interpretation of Beethoven's 9th symphony 4th movement in a climax (the first being Clockwork Orange), make To Joy worth seeing all by itself, if only for Beethoven fans.

As one of the several films included on the recently released Eclipse DVD series, To Joy will appeal to fans of Bergman's knack at telling of characters in shattered, honest romance, and to those looking for some classical music bliss and have seen The Magic Flute or Autumn Sonata too many times.

Ingmar Bergman's "To Joy" (Till glädje) is one of his earlier films. It opens and ends with a community orchestra and choir playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

The story features the courtship and marriage of Stig Eriksson and Marta Olsson, who met while playing violin in the orchestra. Victor Sjöström, who stars in "Wild Strawberries" is the conductor of the orchestra. At the beginning of the film we learn that Marta has been killed in an accident at their summer cottage. It's followed by a long flashback about their tempestuous relationship.

Stig believes himself a skilled player and dreams of a solo career, but his hopes are dashed in one disastrous performance. Stig and Marta have a troubled relationship, but the last several years have seen reconciliation and joy.

It is said the film is semi-autobiographical about Bergman's first two marriages. I found the film an engaging reflection of a couple working through their first six or seven years of marriage.

Ingmar Bergman has rapidly become one of my favourite and most admired directors. He did go on to better things than To Joy and his other early films, but a lot of promise can be seen here. The characters are not as dimensional or compelling in their realism, like in the best of Bergman's films, Marta can be seen as too perfect and Stig is not an easy person to like at all. However, the acting is very good. Stig Olin and Maj-Brit Nilsson give strong performances but Victor Sjostrom gives the best performance. As ever with Bergman, To Joy is superbly directed, while the script is thoughtful and the film itself is beautifully shot. The story is intriguing and paced well, and there are some good themes that are well done they were written even more compellingly in Bergman's later films. The music is amazing and utilised beautifully. Overall, one of the better Bergman films if not among his better overall ones. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This seems to be a deeply personal work for Bergman, and it's interesting that the backdrop to the story is classical music. We get extended sequences of an orchestra practicing or performing, and the music exudes a feeling of being grand, joyful, perfect, and immortal, whereas by contrast the lives of these characters are small, sad, flawed, and fleeting. It's hard to know how much of the story is Bergman flagellating himself for the failure of his second marriage and his inadequacies as a young artist, but regardless, I love the film for its raw honesty, and for showing the husband to be the childish, insecure, and selfish one in this couple's marriage. They both seem to seek authenticity and meaning early on in their relationship, and start off their marriage promising to be honest and kind to one another, but inevitably things deteriorate, the entropy of which is (in various forms) a recurring theme in Bergman's work.

I loved the shot on the boy at the end, it's powerful, but in the overall scene, I would have preferred an even more somber sequence amidst that soaring music. (It's hard to believe I'm saying I would have preferred something being more somber in a Bergman film, so I hope that's not saying more about me than I'm saying about the film, hehe) Anyway, it was wonderful to see legendary director Victor Sjöström as the cranky orchestra conductor, just as he'd appear later for Bergman in 'Wild Strawberries,' and look for Bergman himself in a cameo in the doctor's office.

A few quotes: Bergman seemingly through Stig (Stig Eriksson): "I'll tell you the secret of real art. It's created when you're unhappy. I prefer being unhappy. God knows it's the state I usually find myself in."

And maybe Bergman through Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson): "There's so much misery, laziness, and indifference, in body and in mind. In the end you don't believe in anything. You think that's just how it is. That's the whole meaning. (Stig: There doesn't have to be a meaning.) Yes there does. If there isn't, you make you one up. Otherwise you can't go on living."

And lastly this one, Bergman on music in 1960: "I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence. Ever since childhood, music has been my great source of recreation and stimulation, and I often experience a film or play musically."

This is my favourite film. It is perceptive, gentle, full of deep human understanding. Inspirational, running the whole gamut of the human condition, leaving one sad, but also feeling and understanding what true joy really is. Sublime.

Early Bergman is interesting. With the great silent film director Victor Sjosstrom as his mentor, Bergman gained a strong visual sense early. With his love of and background in theater, he was able to get strong performances out of his actors pretty much out of the gate. However, while most of what I've seen of his early work contains scenes with sharp as a knife writing and biting performances, there's often something missing in the larger sense.

To Joy was made in 1950 and was Bergman's eighth film as director. Of the early work I've seen, it's pretty hit or miss. Crisis is outright bad, but A Ship to India is rather good (not the masterpiece Bergman boasted it was upon its release). To Joy falls in between. I wanted to like it more than I did, but there are some larger elements that I don't think get quite the support that they should.

First, the movie feels like a first draft of Scenes from a Marriage, Bergman's fantastic television miniseries about a couple who marry, divorce, and reunite over several years. I don't want to say that the way to fix To Joy is to add three and a half hours and get it to the length of the miniseries, but I do think that all it really needs is more time.

The movie is the story of a couple's relationship as they fall into love, marry, separate after having two children, and then fall back in love again only to have the relationship torn apart again by the wife's death, along with one of the two children. There are individual scenes that, taken out of context, feel like they should hit me emotionally pretty powerfully, but the problem is that by the time we get to those scenes, we don't have a strong enough sense of the relationship as a whole. To see the two begin to rend apart is muted by the fact that we never really saw them terribly happy before that point. I really feel like an extra half hour where we saw the two in a more "normal" state before things flew apart would make the ultimate destruction of the relationship impact more deeply.

I think this is best emphasized by the final scene. Throughout the movie, Bergman had used the couple's careers as musicians in an orchestra to help not only score the film, but underline the conflict of emotions at given moments. The final scene is the husband playing the Ode to Joy in the orchestra with great emotion to an audience of one, his son, the last of his family. Again, out of context, it feels quite powerful, but the son has had once quick scene up to that point. I had to think about who the little boy was for a moment before I remembered him, despite there being only one little boy in the movie. There was no connection between me and the boy, or between the boy and his father. It really undermined the power of the scene, which had the husband playing this joyful music to images of his deceased wife and their most unpleasant moments. It should have worked better than it did.

But, as I said, Bergman's filmmaking at this point was refined and rather wonderful. His mise en scene, particularly in his conversations where he kept both faces in frame and in focus as much as possible, is really strong. His camera work is almost elegant in its movements. And his use of the music through the story is very well done. I just wish the movie had filled out the earlier parts of the relationship more, and given us more time with the children to feel for them as part of the equation of the relationship.

Although the plot of this film is rather simple - a man reflecting on the good and bad times that he had with his wife - it is handled well by Bergman, who gives the film an interesting audio and visual side, including creative editing changes, and at least one meaningful aerial shot early on the piece. The protagonist and his wife are concert musicians, and in the first few scenes, and in some later on, non-original music is used superbly to coincide with the action on screen. There are however a few concerts scenes that may have been better had they been trimmed in length, as seeing a whole concert performed is not necessary in the story. Although the film is mostly a series of memories, there is also one is ill-judged point in which a character other than the protagonist starts to narrate events, which is not possible in the way the story is told. Also, there is room to complain about the film being a bit too literal, but there is hardly reason to concentrate on the drawbacks of the film when it is such a delight to watch, and so well done where it is well done. Victor Sjöström, as the maestro, delivers fine support, and the film is an excellent example of great visual storytelling. In the years after this, Bergman would go on to direct more complex films that would require more skill on his behalf, but this early entry still stands up fairly well, even if not up to the standard of some of his latter work. The final sequence is especially well done, both in how it uses music, and in the contrast that it has to the first scene in which the man's son is seen.

A moderate and still early film from Bergman that explores death, marriage and ultimately hope, through another common theme for many of his films, classical music.

Starting off in an uneasy tone, a telephone call brings bad news. From them on we get an insightful drama how the relationship and then marriage of the couple started, hiccuped through career ups and downs, infidelities, children and then reconciliation.

It's well scripted, as usual. But, for me there' too much emphasis on watching orchestras rehearsing, whilst important to the story (the husband is a notable violinist, his wife a member of the same orchestra) to many it would seem like padding. Many of the ups and downs and tribulations they face are not at all unusual, either for Bergman, nor for a relationship drama by anybody else.

Despite its often bleak outlook, To Joy, aptly played by the orchestra at the end, sparks a measure of hope and continuity.

"To joy" is a film about a couple married too soon. In "Summer with Monica" (1953, Ingmar Bergman) it is particularly the woman who is not mature enough, in "To joy" it is the man.

Stig Eriksson (Stig Olin) values his career more than his marriage. The goal of his career is to become the first violinist of the orchestra in which he plays. Even the conductor (played by Vitor Sjöström) can not persuade him that there is also much satisfaction to be gained from a more serving role in the orchstra. Only when it is too late he realises that the conductor was right when his son visits a rehearsal of Beethovens ninth (the title of the movie "To joy" is derived from the name of this symphony) to listen to his father.

"To joy" is an early Bergman. Ingmar Bergman was a director who had to learn his trade, so the quality of this film is below the quality of the films he made in his prime. Noteworthy is the collaboration with former director Victor Sjöström, who counselled Bergman in his early years. This collaboration (Bergman as director, Sjöström as actor) would become very famous when it was repeated when Bergman was in his prime ("Wild strawberries", 1957).

Bergman was maybe not yet fully grown as a director, he did show some selfknowledge. During the making of "To joy" Bergman's own marriage was dissolved. It is not unlikely that the character of Stig Eriksson contains some autobiographical elements.

It took a long time to have even a slight interest in Stig and pouting, depressing being. He is a mediocre violinist playing in a second tier orchestra. He has an incredibly inflated view of his abilities. When he gets his opportunity to solo, he blows it, but, of course, none of it is his fault. He becomes involved with Marta, who is herself a complex being. He is known for his embarrassing behavior, like he exhibits at her birthday party. But still she finds in him something that leads to their getting married. Her pregnancy derails things for a while but they fall back together. Meanwhile, he begins to see a beautiful young woman, the wife of a much older man and friend. He really is a cad and even though things are going so well, he can't handle a settled situation. Eventually, this involvement with a mistress becomes too much for the couple. She gets fed up and he regresses to his tight little self- centered world. At some point he sees that there is more to life than wandering around in the pits and they are reunited. We already know the ending because the whole thing is done in flashback. There is stunning cinematography, lovely closeups, black and white images that translate emotionally. Bergman seemed to be a master from the very beginning of his career.

To Joy (1950)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Lightweight but sometimes charming and touching drama from Ingmar Bergman about a husband (Stig Olin) who looks back over his marriage after the sudden death of his wife (Maj-Britt Nilsson). While this isn't the classic touch we'd later see in such films as Scenes from a Marriage and Saraband, this film remains somewhat interesting simply because we know the director went onto better things. The screenplay is actually pretty good even though it's a tad bit shaky during certain scenes but the real highlight are the two performances, which really keep this from getting boring. The basic story is that husbands are little cry-babies and the wives are the backbone and strength to a relationship. The two actors, especially Nilsson, pull this off very well.

We have seen such movies that touch existential problems of the social being and they all are same in searching of the leading motive in its existence. They all lead the being modus of the existence to the mood in which is possible the phenomenon of love.

In Bergman's style this movie is pretty human and realistic. It tells about the one's fight with himself, self-overwhelming, egocentricity and egotism, dreams for ruling in the world like a semi-god presence dressed in body; to accepting the other, sobering, becoming a man, family and children.

The image of the protagonist shows us hard but not in any case unpleasant character, sunk in honestly presented true realism of life, washed and ironed after being dingy with light postmodern delusions.

Known to everyone story told in unknown way. In moments too long fragments with concert plays are not able to spoil this movie. On the contrary.

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Although Olin and Nilsson is good as always, it is Sjöström that makes this movie worth watching. He was a terrific actor, returning to Bergman a few years later in 'Wild Strawberries'. The plot itself nothing out of the ordinary, if you have seen several Bergman movies. Worth mentioning is also Beethoven's wonderful classical music, 'To Joy'.

Most people probably know Ingmar Bergman as the director of "The Seventh Seal" and other philosophical movies. One of his early efforts looks at the effects of a career on a relationship. "Till glädje" ("To Joy" in English) depicts a musician whose determination to achieve greatness in his field harms his marriage. It's not a great movie, but an interesting one. As with most of Bergman's movies, it requires a long attention span. On top of this, like most movies that depict people trying to start families, it makes family life look unpleasant (speaking as a cinephile, I don't like the idea of having to give up movie-watching just to raise children, especially since I wouldn't know their mental states).

All in all, an okay movie.

The title is a bit misleading since there isn't that much joy to be found in Ingmar Bergman's 1950 film "To Joy". It begins with the off-screen death of one of its two leading characters and is then told in flashback. They are violinists in an orchestra who marry but find living together difficult. She's Maj-Britt Nilsson and he's Stig Olsen and the conductor is played by Victor Sjostrom.

The music's great but the material is just another chilly Bergman view of infidelity and an unhappy marriage; watching it you feel as if the director had all of Olsen's character's ambition but had yet to fully realise his talent. Nilsson's beauty and natural warmth shine through and Gunnar Fischer's cinematography is suitably crisp but overall, a minor addition to the Bergman canon.