The Emotional HITCHBERG

Dream-work and Wild Strawberries

Freud’s popular analysis of dreams – the dream-work (which includes four processes) – shows up in Bergman’s film. Objects and symbols are usually identified with the dream-work and in film, attempts to close the gap between science and art. With Freud’s dream-work, Bergman assists Isak in self-analysis instead of Hitchcock’s using of psychoanalysis for Marnie. He is able to look at symbols and receive input from others to successfully realize the source of his trauma and try to amend his past actions.

Freud’s first process of dream-work is condensation, “in which different dream-elements are fused” (Freud xiv). The two Isaks in his first nightmare are like one, but in different ways because one is the real Isak and the other looks as if it is an absurd representation of Isak because of the scrunched face.

The second part of Freud’s dream-work is displacement, where it “[transfers] emotional intensity from the centre of the dream-thought to its marginal components” (Freud xiv). Bergman physically transfers emotional intensity by switching from different objects we see as minor and making them the most important elements in the dream sequence, like in the case of the clock.

Borg's famous dream sequence - Clock with no hands

It looks minor until we see that it has no hands. To add, Bergman decides to make the ticking beat out at us so we are able to feel it. It represents a way to connect with the audience and the clock has now affected us as viewers.

The carriage is another symbol which is a minor one, until Bergman has it hitting the lamppost continuously and forcefully to catch our attention. He then has a coffin fall out of it, which acts as the climax, but then Bergman is even more successful in showing us the importance of objects by having the corpse come alive looking exactly like Isak. He has these symbols as “representations in dreams” to “fit the representation sources of the dream,” which is Freud’s third process of the dream-work, and they all are consistently able to fit the nightmare as a whole (Freud xiv). The last process of Freud’s dream-work is secondary revision, “which censors the exuberance of the dream [reassuring] the dreamer by introducing thoughts like ‘It’s only a dream’ and fills in gaps in the dreams’ structure so as to make it more logical and coherent” (Freud xiv).

This concludes Isak’s first nightmare where he wakes up and realizes it wasn’t reality.

Isak has received closure by mending the relationships he has now in his final days – that of his son, Evald, and his daughter-in-law Marianne. He thanks Marianne for joining him on the journey, and tells his son he feels excellent: “If I have been worried or sad during the day, it often calms me to recall childhood memories. I did so on this evening too” (Wild Strawberries). His final dream – not a nightmare anymore – shows us young Sara running towards the camera telling Isak, “There are no strawberries left” (Wild Strawberries). The wild strawberries seem to be a symbol of Isak’s emotional trauma stemming from his childhood – there is no more of that now.

Isak, before falling asleep...

Isak, asleep...

Read more:

An Introduction to Dreams on Film

Who are HITCH and BERG?

What is MARNIE about?

What is WILD STRAWBERRIES about?

So who is influencing HITCHBERG?

RED RED RED!

Is that you...Borg?

Think Psychoanalysis, Think Freud

Dream-work and Wild Strawberries

Concluding Thoughts, Works Cited, Suggested Reading, Image Credits, and About Me