Smiles of a Summer Night/Sommarnattens leende - Film screening with lecture by Astrid Söderbergh Widding Thursday, March 11, 6:30 pm
Directed by Ingmar Bergman (1955). The 1956 prize-winning comedy Smiles of a Summer Night ushered in an international audience for director Ingmar Bergman. Set in turn-of-the-century Sweden, four women and four men attempt to juggle the laws of attraction amidst their daily bourgeois life. When a weekend in the country brings them all face to face, the women ally to force the men’s hands in their matters of the heart, exposing their pretensions and insecurities along the way. Chock full of flirtatious propositions and sharp-witted wisdom, Smiles of a Summer Night is one of film history’s great tragicomedies, a bittersweet view of the transience of human carnality. 108 min.