# Cries and Whispers
**Cries and Whispers** (Swedish: *Viskningar och rop*) is a 1972 Swedish drama film written and directed by [Ingmar Bergman](https://www.edgepedia.org/ingmar-bergman), in which two sisters, Karin and Maria, keep vigil for their third sister, Agnes, who is dying of cancer in a 19th-century mansion and can find solace only with her maid Anna.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/237-cries-and-whispers) The film won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Sven Nykvist and is regarded as one of Bergman's most striking formal experiments, positioned between reality and nightmare.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/237-cries-and-whispers)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *Viskningar och rop*; released in the USA as Cries and Whispers, in France as *Cris et chuchotements*, in West Germany as *Schreie und Flüstern*[2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) |
| Director and writer | Ingmar Bergman; produced by Lars-Owe Carlberg[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/237-cries-and-whispers) • [2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) |
| Principal cast | Harriet Andersson (Agnes), Ingrid Thulin (Karin), Liv Ullmann (Maria), Kari Sylwan (Anna)[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/237-cries-and-whispers) |
| Running time and format | 91 minutes, color (Eastman Color), aspect ratio 1.66:1, optical mono sound[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/237-cries-and-whispers) • [2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) |
| Premieres | New York, 21 December 1972; Sweden, 5 March 1973 at Spegeln, Göteborg[2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) |
| Major awards | Oscar for Best Cinematography (Sven Nykvist, 1974); Technical Grand Prize at Cannes 1973; New York Film Critics Circle Best Film and Best Director 1972[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/awards/) |
| Oscar nominations | Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Costume Design, in addition to the cinematography win[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/awards/) |
| Standing | Ranked =225 in the 2022 Sight and Sound greatest films critics' poll[4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/bac35364-d0ae-5660-b367-f61512c10589/cries-and-whispers) |
## Spoilers
### Story and setting
The action takes place in a large, hushed mansion in Sweden at the end of the 19th century, a period Bergman chose when religion was still a significant force in Swedish life and the social hierarchy was more pronounced.[5](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/108-cries-and-whispers) Agnes (Harriet Andersson) is dying of cancer, and as her agony increases, tension grows between her sisters Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria ([Liv Ullmann](https://www.edgepedia.org/liv-ullmann)), who have come to be at her side.[5](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/108-cries-and-whispers) • [6](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401216/) The sisters are self-absorbed and, in the film's portrait, incapable of empathy; Agnes's only comfort comes from her maid Anna (Kari Sylwan), who has herself lost a child.[6](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401216/) • [7](https://cinemascholars.com/retro-review-cries-and-whispers/)
The supporting characters carry their own crises. Maria has inherited her late mother's beauty and vanity, and Ullmann also plays the mother in flashback; she has had an affair with David (Erland Josephson), the doctor who attends Agnes. Maria's husband Joakim (Henning Moritzen) makes an impotent attempt on his own life. Karin hates her husband Fredrik (Georg Årlin) and herself, a loathing that culminates in a scene of self-mutilation.[8](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/31/cries-and-whispers-review-ingmar-bergman-horror) A pastor, Isak (Anders Ek), also appears.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/237-cries-and-whispers)
The film ends with a recreation of a passage from Agnes's diary: a paradisiacal summer day in which the four women walk together and stop at a swing, and Agnes writes that all her aches and pains were gone and that she felt the presence of the people she was most fond of. Bergman follows the sequence with a title on a red background, "and so the cries and whispers die away".[9](https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/3150) • [10](https://cinephilia.net.au/show_movie.php?movieid=205)
## Color and form
**Red as the interior of the soul.** In his book *Images*, Bergman wrote that all his films could be thought of in black and white except this one, and that in the screenplay red represents the interior of the soul; as a child he imagined the soul as a dragon, and inside the dragon everything was red.[5](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/108-cries-and-whispers) The film's rooms are upholstered in membranous scarlet and its occupants wear white, and the overwhelming red refers not only to the soul but literally to human blood, since the film concerns the physical body, the process of dying, and coming to terms with death.[5](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/108-cries-and-whispers) • [11](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2022/04/01/cries-and-whispers/)
The film is also Bergman's most deliberate attempt at a dream state: the script was written in the language of a story, stressing atmosphere and milieu over dialogue, and the result has the seamless quality of life experienced in trance-like form.[5](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/108-cries-and-whispers) The film opens with a montage of clocks, an image of uncontrollable passing time that bears the plain interpretation that Agnes's time is up.[2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) • [11](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2022/04/01/cries-and-whispers/) The music includes [Johann Sebastian Bach](https://www.edgepedia.org/johann-sebastian-bach)'s Cello Suite no 5 in [C minor](https://www.edgepedia.org/c-minor) and [Frédéric Chopin](https://www.edgepedia.org/frederic-chopin)'s Mazurka no 13 in A minor, opus 17 no 4; in one key confrontation between the sisters, Chopin speaks for the women without dialogue.[2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) • [12](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/cries-and-whispers-7022)
## Title
The enigmatic title was borrowed from the Swedish music critic Yngve Flyckt. According to the Ingmar Bergman Foundation's production page, Flyckt described Mozart's Piano Concerto No 14 in E flat major (K449) as music that sounds just like "cries and whispers".[2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) The film journal Senses of Cinema instead attributes the phrase to Flyckt's description of Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto; the two sources disagree on which concerto is meant.[13](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/cries_and_whispers/)
## Production
Bergman conceived the film after the commercial and critical disappointment of his first English-language film, *The Touch* (1971); many historians consider *Cries and Whispers* his masterpiece.[14](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/images/FG_Cries%20and%20Whispers.pdf) After watching *The Touch* with Sven Nykvist in spring 1971, Bergman described his new idea: a road, a girl walking toward a manor house with a little dog, and inside the house a large red room where three sisters dressed in white sit whispering together.[2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) The handwritten script is dated Fårö, June 3, 1971, and survives in the Ingmar Bergman Archives alongside typewritten versions and workbook notepads; the film was published in the collection *Filmberättelser 3* (Stockholm: PAN/Norstedts, 1973).[15](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers-0)
The production company was Cinematograph AB, together with Svenska Filminstitutet and the four principal performers, with Sven Nykvist listed among the production credits.[2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) During shooting Bergman remarked, "It's the same old film every time. The same actors. The same scenes. The same problems. The only thing is that we're older."[10](https://cinephilia.net.au/show_movie.php?movieid=205) • [11](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2022/04/01/cries-and-whispers/)
## Reception and awards
The film won the New York Film Critics Circle awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay in 1972, with Liv Ullmann named Best Actress (shared with *The Emigrants*).[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/awards/) At the 1973 Cannes Film Festival it won the Technical Grand Prize.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/awards/) At the 46th Academy Awards it won Best Cinematography for Nykvist and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Costume Design, an unusually strong showing for a non-English-language film.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/awards/) • [16](https://elpais.com/icon-design/2024-12-17/asi-surgieron-las-paredes-rojas-mas-famosas-del-cine-el-flechazo-de-ingmar-bergman-con-el-castillo-de-taxinge-nasby.html) It also won the Guldbagge Award for Best Film, with Harriet Andersson named Best Actress, and took Best Director honors from the [National Board of Review](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-board-of-review) and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/awards/) In the 2022 [Sight and Sound](https://www.edgepedia.org/sight-and-sound) greatest films poll it was ranked =225 by critics.[4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/bac35364-d0ae-5660-b367-f61512c10589/cries-and-whispers)
## Legacy
The film's imagery has echoed through later cinema. Karin's self-mutilation scene made an impression on the Austrian director [Michael Haneke](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-haneke), visible in a different register in *The Piano Teacher*, and on [William Friedkin](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-friedkin) in *The Exorcist*.[2](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers) Ari Aster said that before shooting his horror film *Hereditary* he showed *Cries and Whispers* to his cast.[8](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/31/cries-and-whispers-review-ingmar-bergman-horror) The British director Terence Davies singled it out, alongside *Fanny and Alexander*, as his favorite Bergman film and the one that influenced his own filmmaking most profoundly.[17](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/13163/1/JAMES%20BALLANDS%27S%20PHD%20THESIS%20PDF.pdf)
The work has also crossed media. The composer Patricia MacDowell, a Bergman grantee on Fårö, obtained permission from the Bergman Foundation to use the film's English title for her opera adaptation, *Viskningar och rop*, which was reported by Sveriges Radio.[18](https://www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/5898870) Stage adaptations of the film have been mounted internationally, including a 2008 production of *Gritos y susurros* in Buenos Aires.[15](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers-0) • [19](https://www.musikundbuehne.de/fileadmin/media/Downloads/Infos_allgemein/1_Ingmar_Bergman_On_Stage___guide_.pdf)
## References
1. [Cries and Whispers (1972), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/237-cries-and-whispers)
2. [Cries and Whispers, Feature Film production page, Ingmar Bergman Foundation](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers)
3. [Cries & Whispers (1972) Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/awards/)
4. [Cries and Whispers (1972), BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/bac35364-d0ae-5660-b367-f61512c10589/cries-and-whispers)
5. [Cries and Whispers, essay by Peter Cowie, The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/108-cries-and-whispers)
6. [Cries and Whispers (Viskningar och rop), Cineuropa](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401216/)
7. [Cries and Whispers (1973): A 50th Anniversary Retro Review, Cinema Scholars](https://cinemascholars.com/retro-review-cries-and-whispers/)
8. [Cries and Whispers review, The Guardian, 31 March 2022](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/31/cries-and-whispers-review-ingmar-bergman-horror)
9. [Cries and Whispers film review, Spirituality & Practice](https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/3150)
10. [Cries And Whispers movie review, Cinephilia](https://cinephilia.net.au/show_movie.php?movieid=205)
11. [Cries and Whispers, BFI Southbank Programme Notes, 2022](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/re-releases/2022/04/01/cries-and-whispers/)
12. [Cries and Whispers synopsis, Showtimes](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/cries-and-whispers-7022)
13. [Cries and Whispers, Senses of Cinema](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/cries_and_whispers/)
14. [Cries and Whispers, 1972, Film Comment / University of Michigan](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/images/FG_Cries%20and%20Whispers.pdf)
15. [Cries and Whispers, Writings, Ingmar Bergman Foundation](https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/cries-and-whispers-0)
16. [Así surgieron las paredes rojas más famosas del cine, El País, 2024](https://elpais.com/icon-design/2024-12-17/asi-surgieron-las-paredes-rojas-mas-famosas-del-cine-el-flechazo-de-ingmar-bergman-con-el-castillo-de-taxinge-nasby.html)
17. [James Ball, PhD thesis on Terence Davies and Ingmar Bergman, White Rose eTheses](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/13163/1/JAMES%20BALLANDS%27S%20PHD%20THESIS%20PDF.pdf)
18. ["Viskningar och rop" blir opera, Sveriges Radio](https://www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/5898870)
19. [Ingmar Bergman On Stage guide, Musik und Bühne](https://www.musikundbuehne.de/fileadmin/media/Downloads/Infos_allgemein/1_Ingmar_Bergman_On_Stage___guide_.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1970s › Released 1970 to 1974*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license