CHASING OSCAR - Road to Madness

INGRID BERGMAN 

as Paula Alquist Anton in GASLIGHT (1944)
____________________________________________________________________

In London, Alice Alquist is strangled and her famous jewels miss. Her young niece Paula is sent to Italy. Ten years later, Paula decides to get married with the pianist Gregory Anton, who convinces her to move back to the old address in London. When they arrive, Paula finds a letter from a mysterious Sergis Bauer, making Gregory upset. He psychologically begins to torture Paula and she has a nervous breakdown and memory problems. When the policeman Brian Cameron sees Anton, he recognizes him and decides to investigate and find evidences to connect Gregory with the murder... 

"If I were not mad, I could have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!"

                                         - Paula Alquist Anton

Ingrid Bergman received her first Academy Award, playing Paula, an orphaned whose opera-singer aunt is murdered. She moves to Italy to follow in her aunt's footsteps as a diva, but falls in love and returns to London with her new husband to live in her aunt's empty house. There, she becomes the victim of a carefully-orchestrated campaign to drive her
insane. The main issue in Ingrid Bergman’s performance is that she is always overacting: always doing big movements, looking in the emptiness with her eyes wide open, touching her face - there is nothing subtle in her performance, and sometimes it's grotesque. She never becomes suspicious or a bit rebellious. When her husband manipulates her, tells her she’s forgetful, that she loses things, that she is sick. I would have liked seeing that she is torn apart between her sense and what her husband tells her. She always takes what he says for granted. 
I would have preferred more nuances in her acting, she’s is supposed to be haunted and tormented. I would have preferred more contradictions, more challenges in her acting. When the truth is about to be revealed, she’s at first in denial, and this scene is really well-executed and overwhelming. She can’t imagine that the husband she loves is the one who tormented her. The final confrontation scene, between Paula and her husband is really terrific. It’s the highlight in Bergman’s performance.  All through the film, the relation Husband/wife is really interesting, showing how he abused her, how he lets her hopeless, and how he managed to drive her crazy.

"Ingrid Berman, who won the first of her three Oscars for this film, is terrific as the fragile bride terrorized by her husband's dirty tricks. The Oscar cemented Bergman's reputation as Hollywood's most popular actress."

                                                                                               - Emmanuel Levy

Her performance in « Gaslight » doesn’t allow Ingrid Bergman to show all her range of emotions. Her performance is not subtle enough, her acting is too much mannered, overall she's always overacting.  Her performance is not effective, she doesn't make the right choices in her way to act. 

★★★★★