Doberman Unleashed

With the Ingmar Bergman Season starting on Film 4 next week, we asked modern intellectual and Harry Enfield sidekick Frank Doberman to give us his views on one of the great auteurs …

Well, of course I admire Bergman, who doesn’t.

I applaud the way he can conjure an entirely unique cinematic universe from delicate light & magic. And that even the quality of his silences are, like Kurosawa, both distinct and numinously evocative.

However, if I was in B&Q, of a saturday afternoon, picking out some new decking with the wife and he arrived and started stripping down to his nuddies, causing a ruccuss, over-turning pot plants and jumping on tables in that Swedish way they do, I would have to say, ‘Oi! Bergman! NOOOOO!

‘I admire the way you have inspired a generation of filmakers to paint the moving leitmotif of alienation and loss onto the fragile canvas of reality.

‘But if you think you can come over here, stroll into my local superstore and shit in my plant pots, you’ve got another think coming, YOU BOSS-EYED HERRING-BREATHED VIKING PONCE!!!

And I should most definitely have to give him an almighty slap!

Doberman Unleashed

We’re very grateful here at TALES to have the renowned modern philosopher Frank Doberman, who has agreed be a regular contributor to the site, giving us the benefit of his vast knowledge on people and current events. Mr Enfield, if you read this, please don’t sue me.

First off, Modernist Composer Philip Glass …

Don’t get me wrong – I admire Glass! His particular brand of Minimalist music is both moving and sublime.

But, if he was to come round my ‘ouse, in the middle of the night, and record over all my Phil Collins cassettes with his poncey bleeps and farts and what have you – I would have to say, ‘Oi Glass! No!

‘I admire the way you can weave both hypnotic and elegaic musical structures from the most basic atonal forms whilst at the same time nodding contrapunctually towards both Bach and Schubert.

‘But you’re having a laugh if you think you can break into my ‘ouse in the middle of the night, fumble through my wife’s undies and shit on the dining room carpet, YOU BIG-NOSED, TONE-DEAF, MOP-TOPPED YANKEE FUCKWIT!!!’

And I would most definitely have to give him an almighty slap!