'Doing the Alexander': On Christmas motifs in Bergman's Fanny and Alexander

This short subject examines Christmas motifs in Ingmar Bergman's film Fanny and Alexander with particular emphasis on autobiographical, literary and ethnographic roots, and explores visual and psychological themes defining the contrasting lifestyles of the Ekdahl and Vergerus households: joie de vivre vs rigid moralism; sensuality vs asceticism; light vs darkness; magic vs stark realism; and theatrical performance vs church dogma. In a film course on Ingmar Bergman, my American students became fascinated by the Christmas celebration in Fanny och Alexander/Fanny and Alexander (1982), especially the traditional Swedish longdans where the entire household dance in a single file through the spacious apartment of Alexander's grandmother, the matriarch Helena Ekdahl. The longdans was later adopted by the students on various special occasions and was called ` doing the alexander'. This annexation of the longdans motif