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COMMENTARY: MORALITY

August 2, 2007

On Monday, July 30, NewsHour commentary on the death of Ingmar Bergman included talk about his movies but neglected to mention one of his more important films: Virgin Spring. The movie is more than a story of rape, murder and a father's revenge. It is about something common in history: overreaction. The father of the murdered girl kills the two grown brothers who participated in the murder but also the third brother, a young boy, who did not. To this point the film is a distillation of a world condition.

The movie won Bergman his first academy award.