Gycklarnas afton (1953) received its American title, Naked Night, at a time when European cinema was shown mostly at often seedy “art” theaters and marketed by sensational posters exploiting images of more open and daring, if not explicit, sexuality. Although from this point on I translate Bergman's own title as The Clowns' Evening, I have always liked the title Naked Night and find it particularly appropriate, even though most critics have deplored it. It emphasizes the notion of a reduction of life to its essentials at a time of self-revelation and judgment. In the course of the film, Anne and Albert are stripped naked, displayed to a leering audience, exposed under glaring lights, and left without illusions. Indeed, The Clowns' Evening is the most raw and primal of all of Bergman's films, the one that shows human nature closest to its animal forebears, least qualified and transformed by the artificialities of society. In fact, it is a film directly about the relation of these elements and about the origin of the human from the animal. It is a film of primordial beginnings, spiritual as well as sexual, and is thus a fitting first view of the geography of the soul.

Escaping the Circus

It is clear from the first words Jens speaks to Albert as the caravan approaches town in the cold hours before dawn that something broods over the circus and that this day will be different and difficult.