To Joy

To Joy (original title Till glädje), directed by Ingmar Bergman and released on February 20, 1950, is an early work whose title comes from Schiller's Ode to Joy and the choral finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. According to Bergman's own account, attending an orchestra rehearsal where he learned this symphony would be performed gave him both the idea and the title for the film. The story follows two violinists in an orchestra whose marriage strains under the husband's excessive ambition, starring Maj-Britt Nilsson and Stig Olin, with Swedish cinema legend Victor Sjöström as the conductor. Maj-Britt Nilsson was one of Bergman's most frequent early collaborators, also starring in his Summer Interlude and Waiting Women. Who it's for: anyone curious about an early Bergman collaboration inspired by, and named after, a symphony. Who it's not for: viewers familiar with Bergman's later, darker existential period expecting the same tone, since this belongs to an earlier, different phase.