Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master ListGlobe · 1
Spoiler-free premise
Across a decade, lawyer Marianne and professor Johan move through marriage, separation, other relationships, and recurring attempts at intimacy.
Read expanded premiseLonger, still spoiler-free+
Marianne and Johan initially present their ten-year marriage as enviably stable, but an unexpected disclosure breaks its routines. Six chapters follow separation, anger, affairs, legal negotiation, and later meetings in which attachment persists without restoring the old structure.
Why it belongs
Through ruthless close-ups and Ullmann and Josephson's willingness to expose contradictory feeling, Scenes from a Marriage makes unbroken conversation electrifying.
Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case+
Plain rooms, long takes, minimal music, changing hair and clothing, and faces held after speech strip away social distraction. Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson make intimacy a shifting practice of cruelty, recognition, performance, and need.
