Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman | |
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![]() Bergman in 1966 | |
Born | Ernst Ingmar Bergman 14 July 1918 Uppsala, Sweden |
Died | 30 July 2007 Fårö, Sweden | (aged 89)
Other names | Buntel Eriksson |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1944–2005 |
Spouses |
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Children | 9, including Linn, Eva, Mats, Anna and Daniel |
Father | Erik Bergman |
Awards | Full list |
Signature | |
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Ernst Ingmar Bergman[a] (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential film directors of all time,[1][2][3] his films have been described as "profoundly personal meditations into the myriad struggles facing the psyche and the soul".[4] Some of his most acclaimed works include The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), Persona (1966) and Fanny and Alexander (1982), which were included in the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time.[5] He was also ranked No. 8 on the magazine's 2002 "Greatest Directors of All Time" list.[6]
Bergman directed more than 60 films and documentaries, most of which he also wrote, for both cinema releases and television screenings. Most of his films were set in Sweden, and many of his films from 1961 onward were filmed on the island of Fårö. He forged a creative partnership with his cinematographers Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist. Bergman also had a theatrical career that included periods as Leading Director of Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and of Germany's Residenztheater in Munich.[7] He directed more than 170 plays. Among his company of actors were Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom and Max von Sydow.
Biography
[edit]Early life
[edit]Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala on 14 July 1918,[8] the son of nurse Karin (née Åkerblom) and Lutheran minister (and later chaplain to the King of Sweden) Erik Bergman. His mother was of Walloon descent.[9][10] The Bergman family was originally from Järvsö. On his father's side, Bergman was a descendant of the noble Bröms, Ehrenskiöld, and Stockenström clergy families of Finnish, German, and Swedish origin. His father also descended from the German noble families Flach and de Frese introduced at the Swedish Riddarhuset. Bergman's paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather were cousins, making his parents second cousins. On his mother's side, he was descended from Dutch merchant Paul Calwagen, who left Holland for Sweden in the 17th century; Paul's Dutch-Swedish wife, Maria van der Hagen, was a descendant of the court painter Laurens van der Plas. Bergman's mother was also a descendant of the noble Tigerschiöld and Weinholz families, as well as the Bure family.[11][12]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Ingmar_86135a.jpg/180px-Ingmar_86135a.jpg)
Bergman grew up with his older brother Dag and younger sister Margareta surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. His father was a conservative parish minister with strict ideas of parenting. Ingmar was locked up in dark closets for infractions such as wetting himself. "While father preached away in the pulpit and the congregation prayed, sang, or listened", Ingmar wrote in his autobiography Laterna Magica, "I devoted my interest to the church's mysterious world of low arches, thick walls, the smell of eternity, the coloured sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls. There was everything that one's imagination could desire—angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans..." Although raised in a devout Lutheran household, Bergman later stated that he lost his faith at age eight, and came to terms with this fact while making Winter Light in 1962.[13] His interest in theatre and film began early; at the age of nine, he traded a set of tin soldiers for a magic lantern. Within a year, he had created a private world by playing with this toy in which he felt completely at home. He fashioned his own scenery, marionettes, and lighting effects and gave puppet productions of Strindberg plays in which he spoke all the parts."[14][15]
Bergman attended the Palmgren School as a teenager. His school years were unhappy,[16] and he remembered them unfavourably in later years. In a 1944 letter concerning the film Torment (sometimes known as Frenzy), which sparked debate on the condition of Swedish high schools (and which Bergman had written),[17] the school's principal Henning Håkanson wrote, among other things, that Bergman had been a "problem child".[18] Bergman wrote in a response that he had strongly disliked the emphasis on homework and testing in his formal schooling.
In 1934, aged 16, he was sent to Germany to spend the summer holidays with family friends. He attended a Nazi rally in Weimar at which he saw Adolf Hitler.[19] He later wrote in Laterna Magica (The Magic Lantern) about the visit to Germany, describing how the German family had put a portrait of Hitler on the wall by his bed, and that "for many years, I was on Hitler's side, delighted by his success and saddened by his defeats".[20] Bergman commented that "Hitler was unbelievably charismatic. He electrified the crowd. ... The Nazism I had seen seemed fun and youthful."[21] Bergman did two five-month stretches of mandatory military service in Sweden.[22] He later reflected, "When the doors to the concentration camps were thrown open ... I was suddenly ripped of my innocence."[21]
Bergman enrolled at Stockholm University College (later renamed Stockholm University) in 1937, to study art and literature. He spent most of his time involved in student theatre and became a "genuine movie addict".[23] At the same time, a romantic involvement led to a physical confrontation with his father which resulted in a break in their relationship which lasted for many years. Although he did not graduate from the university, he wrote a number of plays and an opera, and became an assistant director at a local theatre. In 1942, he was given the opportunity to direct one of his own scripts, Caspar's Death. The play was seen by members of Svensk Filmindustri, which then offered Bergman a position working on scripts. He married Else Fisher in 1943.
Film career until 1975
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Ingmar_Bergman_Smultronstallet.jpg/220px-Ingmar_Bergman_Smultronstallet.jpg)
Bergman's film career began in 1941 with his work rewriting scripts, but his first major accomplishment was in 1944 when he wrote the screenplay for Torment (a.k.a. Frenzy) (Hets), a film directed by Alf Sjöberg. Along with writing the screenplay, he was also appointed assistant director of the film. In his second autobiographical book, Images: My Life in Film, Bergman describes the filming of the exteriors as his actual film directorial debut.[24] The film sparked debate on Swedish formal education. When Henning Håkanson (the principal of the high school Bergman had attended) wrote a letter following the film's release, Bergman, according to scholar Frank Gado, disparaged in a response what he viewed as Håkanson's implication that students "who did not fit some arbitrary prescription of worthiness deserved the system's cruel neglect".[17] Bergman also stated in the letter that he "hated school as a principle, as a system and as an institution. And as such I have definitely not wanted to criticize my own school, but all schools."[25][26] The international success of this film led to Bergman's first opportunity to direct a year later. During the next ten years he wrote and directed more than a dozen films, including Prison (Fängelse) in 1949, as well as Sawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas afton) and Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika), both released in 1953.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Bergman_Sjostrom_1957.jpg/260px-Bergman_Sjostrom_1957.jpg)
Bergman first achieved worldwide success with Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende, 1955), which won for "Best poetic humour" and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes the following year. This was followed by The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) and Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället), released in Sweden ten months apart in 1957. The Seventh Seal won a special jury prize and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and Wild Strawberries won numerous awards for Bergman and its star, Victor Sjöström. Bergman continued to be productive for the next two decades. From the early 1960s, he spent much of his life on the island of Fårö, where he made several films.
In the early 1960s he directed three films that explored the theme of faith and doubt in God, Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en Spegel, 1961), Winter Light (Nattvardsgästerna, 1962), and The Silence (Tystnaden, 1963). Critics created the notion that the common themes in these three films made them a trilogy or cinematic triptych. Bergman initially responded that he did not plan these three films as a trilogy and that he could not see any common motifs in them, but he later seemed to adopt the notion, with some equivocation.[27][28] His parody of the films of Federico Fellini, All These Women (För att inte tala om alla dessa kvinnor) was released in 1964.[29]
Persona (1966), starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann, is a film Bergman considered one of his most important works. While the highly experimental film won few awards, it has been considered his masterpiece. Other films of the period include The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan, 1960), Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen, 1968), Shame (Skammen, 1968) and The Passion of Anna (En Passion, 1969). With his cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Bergman made use of a crimson color scheme for Cries and Whispers (1972), which received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture.[30] He also produced extensively for Swedish television at this time. Two works of note were Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap, 1973) and The Magic Flute (Trollflöjten, 1975).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Ingmar_Bergman_%26_Sven_Nykvist.jpg/260px-Ingmar_Bergman_%26_Sven_Nykvist.jpg)
Tax evasion charges in 1976
[edit]On 30 January 1976, while rehearsing August Strindberg's The Dance of Death at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, he was arrested by two plainclothes police officers and charged with income tax evasion. The impact of the event on Bergman was devastating. He suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of the humiliation, and was hospitalised in a state of deep depression.
The investigation was focused on an alleged 1970 transaction of 500,000 Swedish kronor (SEK) between Bergman's Swedish company Cinematograf and its Swiss subsidiary Persona, an entity that was mainly used for the paying of salaries to foreign actors. Bergman dissolved Persona in 1974 after having been notified by the Swedish Central Bank and subsequently reported the income. On 23 March 1976, the special prosecutor Anders Nordenadler dropped the charges against Bergman, saying that the alleged crime had no legal basis, saying it would be like bringing "charges against a person who has stolen his own car, thinking it was someone else's".[31] Director General Gösta S Ekman, chief of the Swedish Internal Revenue Service, defended the failed investigation, saying that the investigation was dealing with important legal material and that Bergman was treated just like any other suspect. He expressed regret that Bergman had left the country, hoping that Bergman was a "stronger" person now when the investigation had shown that he had not done any wrong.[32]
Although the charges were dropped, Bergman became disconsolate, fearing he would never again return to directing. Despite pleas by the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, high public figures, and leaders of the film industry, he vowed never to work in Sweden again. He closed down his studio on the island of Fårö, suspended two announced film projects, and went into self-imposed exile in Munich, West Germany. Harry Schein, director of the Swedish Film Institute, estimated the immediate damage as ten million SEK (kronor) and hundreds of jobs lost.[33]
Aftermath following arrest
[edit]Bergman then briefly considered the possibility of working in America; his next film, The Serpent's Egg (1977) was a West German-U.S. production and his second English-language film (the first being The Touch, 1971). This was followed by a British-Norwegian co-production, Autumn Sonata (Höstsonaten, 1978) starring Ingrid Bergman (no relation) and Liv Ullmann, and From the Life of the Marionettes (Aus dem Leben der Marionetten, 1980) which was a British-West German co-production.
He temporarily returned to his homeland to direct Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander, 1982). Bergman stated that the film would be his last, and that afterwards he would focus on directing theatre. After that he wrote several film scripts and directed a number of television specials. As with previous work for television, some of these productions were later theatrically released. The last such work was Saraband (2003), a sequel to Scenes from a Marriage and directed by Bergman when he was 84 years old.
Although he continued to operate from Munich, by mid-1978 Bergman had overcome some of his bitterness toward the Swedish government. In July of that year he visited Sweden, celebrating his sixtieth birthday on the island of Fårö, and partly resumed his work as a director at Royal Dramatic Theatre. To honour his return, the Swedish Film Institute launched a new Ingmar Bergman Prize to be awarded annually for excellence in filmmaking.[34] Still, he remained in Munich until 1984. In one of the last major interviews with Bergman, conducted in 2005 on the island of Fårö, Bergman said that despite being active during the exile, he had effectively lost eight years of his professional life.[35]
Retirement and death
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Grave_of_Ingmar_Bergman%2C_may_2008.jpg/260px-Grave_of_Ingmar_Bergman%2C_may_2008.jpg)
Bergman retired from filmmaking in December 2003. He had hip surgery in October 2006 and was making a difficult recovery. He died in his sleep[36] at age 89; his body was found at his home on the island of Fårö, on 30 July 2007.[37] It was the same day another renowned existentialist film director, Michelangelo Antonioni, died. The interment was private, at the Fårö Church on 18 August 2007. A place in the Fårö churchyard was prepared for him under heavy secrecy. Although he was buried on the island of Fårö, his name and date of birth were inscribed under his wife's name on a tomb at Roslagsbro churchyard, Norrtälje Municipality, several years before his death.
Filmography
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- Four Screenplays: Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and The Magician (1969) [screenplays]
- Three Films: Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence (1970) [screenplays]
- Persona and Shame: the Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman (1972) [screenplays]
- Four Stories: The Touch, Cries and Whispers, The Hour of the Wolf, and The Passion of Anna (1976) [screenplays]
- From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) [screenplay]
- Fanny and Alexander (1982) [screenplay]
- The Marriage Scenarios: Scenes from a Marriage, Face to Face, and Autumn Sonata (1983) [screenplays]
- The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography (1987) [nonfiction]
- The Best Intentions (1991) [novel]
- Sunday's Children (1993) [novel]
- Private Confessions (1996) [novel]
- Images: My Life in Film (2017) [nonfiction](originally published as Bilder (Norstedts Förlag, Stockholm, 1990)[38])
Style of working
[edit]Repertory company
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Ingmar_Bergman_and_Ingrid_Thulin_-Tystnaden.jpg/260px-Ingmar_Bergman_and_Ingrid_Thulin_-Tystnaden.jpg)
Bergman developed a personal "repertory company" of Swedish actors whom he repeatedly cast in his films, including Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom, and Gunnar Björnstrand, each of whom appeared in at least five Bergman features. Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann, who appeared in nine of Bergman's films and one televisual film (Saraband), was the last to join this group (in the film Persona), and ultimately became the most closely associated with Bergman, both artistically and personally. They had a daughter together, Linn Ullmann (born 1966).
In Bergman's working arrangement with Sven Nykvist, his best-known cinematographer, the two men developed sufficient rapport to allow Bergman not to worry about the composition of a shot until the day before it was filmed. On the morning of the shoot, he would briefly speak to Nykvist about the mood and composition he hoped for, and then leave Nykvist to work, lacking interruption or comment until post-production discussion of the next day's work.
Financing
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Filmstaden.jpg/260px-Filmstaden.jpg)
By Bergman's own account, he never had a problem with funding. He cited two reasons for this: one, that he did not live in the United States, which he viewed as obsessed with box-office earnings; and two, that his films tended to be low-budget affairs. (Cries and Whispers, for instance, was finished for about $450,000, while Scenes from a Marriage, a six-episode television feature, cost only $200,000.)[39]
Technique
[edit]Bergman usually wrote his films' screenplays, thinking about them for months or years before starting the actual process of writing, which he viewed as somewhat tedious. His earlier films are carefully constructed and are either based on his plays or written in collaboration with other authors. Bergman stated that in his later works, when on occasion his actors would want to do things differently from his own intention, he would let them, noting that the results were often "disastrous" when he did not do so. As his career progressed, Bergman increasingly let his actors improvise their dialogue. In his later films, he wrote just the ideas informing the scene and allowed his actors to determine the exact dialogue. When viewing daily rushes, Bergman stressed the importance of being critical but unemotive, claiming that he asked himself not if the work was great or terrible, but rather if it was sufficient or needed to be reshot.[39]
Subjects
[edit]Bergman's films usually deal with existential questions of mortality, loneliness, and religious faith. In addition to these cerebral topics, however, sexual desire features in the foreground of most of his films, whether the central event is medieval plague (The Seventh Seal), upper-class family activity in early twentieth century Uppsala (Fanny and Alexander), or contemporary alienation (The Silence). His female characters are usually more in touch with their sexuality than their male equivalents, and unafraid to proclaim it, sometimes with breathtaking overtness (as in Cries and Whispers) as would define the work of "the conjurer," as Bergman called himself in a 1960 TIME cover story.[40] In an interview with Playboy in 1964, he said: "The manifestation of sex is very important, and particularly to me, for above all, I don't want to make merely intellectual films. I want audiences to feel, to sense my films. This to me is much more important than their understanding them." Film, Bergman said, was his demanding mistress.[41] While he was a social democrat as an adult, Bergman stated that "as an artist I'm not politically involved ... I don't make propaganda for either one attitude or the other."[42]
Bergman's views on his career
[edit]When asked in the series of interviews later titled "Ingmar Bergman – 3 dokumentärer om film, teater, Fårö och livet" conducted by Marie Nyreröd for Swedish TV and released in 2004, Bergman said that of his works, he held Winter Light,[43] Persona, and Cries and Whispers[44] in the highest regard. There he also states that he managed to push the envelope of film making in the films Persona and Cries and Whispers. Bergman stated on numerous occasions (for example in the interview book Bergman on Bergman) that The Silence meant the end of the era in which religious questions were a major concern of his films. Bergman said that he would get depressed by his own films: "jittery and ready to cry... and miserable."[45] In the same interview he also stated: "If there is one thing I miss about working with films, it is working with Sven" (Nykvist), the third cinematographer with whom he had collaborated.
Theatrical work
[edit]Although Bergman was universally famous for his contribution to cinema, he was also an active and productive stage director throughout his life. During his studies at what was then Stockholm University College, he became active in its student theatre, where he made a name for himself early on. His first work after graduation was as a trainee-director at a Stockholm theatre. At twenty-six years, he became the youngest theatrical manager in Europe at the Helsingborg City Theatre. He stayed at Helsingborg for three years and then became the director at Gothenburg city theatre from 1946 to 1949.
He became director of the Malmö City Theatre in 1953, and remained for seven years. Many of his star actors were people with whom he began working on stage. He was the director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm from 1960 to 1966, and manager from 1963 to 1966, where he began a long-time collaboration with choreographer Donya Feuer.
After Bergman left Sweden because of the tax evasion incident, he became director of the Residenz Theatre of Munich, West Germany (1977–1984). He remained active in theatre throughout the 1990s and made his final production on stage with Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2003.[46]
Personal life
[edit]Marriages and children
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Kabi-Laretei-Ingmar-Bergman.jpg/220px-Kabi-Laretei-Ingmar-Bergman.jpg)
Bergman was married five times:
- 25 March 1943 – 1945, to Else Fisher (1 March 1918 – 3 March 2006), choreographer and dancer (divorced). Children:
- Lena Bergman, actress, born 1943.
- 22 July 1945 – 1950, to Ellen Lundström (23 April 1919 – 6 March 2007), choreographer and film director (divorced). Children:
- Eva Bergman, film director, born 1945
- Jan Bergman, film director (1946–2000)
- the twins Mats and Anna Bergman, both actors and film directors, born in 1948.
- 1951 – 1959, to Gun Grut (1916–1971), journalist (divorced). Children:
- Ingmar Bergman Jr., retired airline captain, born 1951.
- 1959 – 1969, to Käbi Laretei (14 July 1922 – 31 October 2014), concert pianist (divorced). Children:
- Daniel Bergman, film director, born 1962.
- 11 November 1971 – 20 May 1995, to Ingrid von Rosen (maiden name Karlebo). Children:
- Maria von Rosen, author, born 1959.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Ullmann-Bergman-1968.jpeg/220px-Ullmann-Bergman-1968.jpeg)
The first four marriages ended in divorce, while the last ended when his wife Ingrid died of stomach cancer in 1995, aged 65. Aside from his marriages, Bergman had romantic relationships with actresses Harriet Andersson (1952–1955), Bibi Andersson (1955–1959), and Liv Ullmann (1965–1970). He was the father of writer Linn Ullmann with Ullmann. In all, Bergman had nine children, one of whom predeceased him. Bergman eventually married all the mothers of his children, with the exception of Liv Ullmann. His daughter with his last wife, Ingrid von Rosen, was born twelve years before their marriage. He had dozens of mistresses throughout his life and would justify the affairs to his various wives by telling them: "I have so many lives."[47]
Although Bergman once described himself as one who had lost his faith in an afterlife, in 2000 he stated that a conversation he had with Erland Josephson helped him to believe that he would see Ingrid again. He said, "I'm not actually afraid of dying. On the contrary, really. I think it'll be interesting."[48] In 2012, Max von Sydow stated in an interview with Charlie Rose that he had had many discussions with Bergman about religion which seemed to indicate that Bergman believed in an afterlife, with von Sydow even claiming that Bergman contacted him after his passing to prove there was indeed a life after death, though he chose not to elaborate further on the exact meaning of the statement.[49]
In an early draft of his autobiography, Bergman admitted to raping his then-girlfriend Karin Lannby. The portion was edited out for the final version.[50]
Health
[edit]Bergman suffered from physical ailments such as insomnia and severe stomach problems dating back to childhood.[51] He called his nervous stomach "a calamity as foolish as it is humiliating" and joked that the private lavatories he secured at the theatres in which he worked represented his "most lasting contribution to the history of theatre."[52]
Awards and nominations
[edit]In 1958, he won the Best Director award for Brink of Life at the Cannes Film Festival,[53] and won the Golden Bear for Wild Strawberries at the Berlin International Film Festival.[54] In 1960 Bergman was featured in the cover of TIME, the first foreign-language filmmaker to do so since Leni Riefenstahl in 1936.[55][56] In 1971, Bergman received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Academy Awards ceremony. Three of his films (The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, and Fanny and Alexander) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1997, he was awarded the Palme des Palmes (Palm of the Palms) at the 50th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. He won many other awards and has been nominated for numerous other awards.
Academy Awards
Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1959 | Best Original Screenplay | Wild Strawberries | Nominated |
1960 | Best Foreign Language Film | The Virgin Spring | Won |
1961 | Through a Glass Darkly | Won | |
1962 | Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | |
1973 | Best Picture | Cries and Whispers | Nominated |
Best Director | Nominated | ||
Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | ||
1976 | Best Director | Face to Face | Nominated |
1978 | Best Original Screenplay | Autumn Sonata | Nominated |
1983 | Best Foreign Language Film | Fanny and Alexander | Won |
Best Director | Nominated | ||
Best Original Screenplay | Nominated |
Legacy
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Popiersie_Ingmar_Bergman_ssj_20110627.jpg/220px-Popiersie_Ingmar_Bergman_ssj_20110627.jpg)
In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ranked Bergman at No. 8 in its "50 Greatest Directors" list.[57][58] In 2002, Bergman was listed at number nine on the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound list of the top ten film directors of modern times.[59] MovieMaker magazine ranked Bergman at No. 13 on their 2002 list of The 25 Most Influential Directors of All Time.[60] Bergman was ranked at No. 36 on Empire magazine's "Top 40 Greatest Directors of All-Time" list in 2005.[57] In 2007, Total Film magazine ranked Bergman at No. 7 on its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list.[61] In 2017, New York magazine ranked Bergman at number 55 on their list of The 100 Best Screenwriters of All Time.[62]
Stanley Kubrick admired the work of Bergman and expressed it in personal letter: "Your vision of life has moved me deeply, much more deeply than I have ever been moved by any films. I believe you are the greatest film-maker at work today [...], unsurpassed by anyone in the creation of mood and atmosphere, the subtlety of performance, the avoidance of the obvious, the truthfulness and completeness of characterization. To this one must also add everything else that goes into the making of a film; [...] and I shall look forward with eagerness to each of your films."[63] Film critic Philip French referred to Bergman as "one of the greatest artists of the 20th century ... he found in literature and the performing arts a way of both recreating and questioning the human condition."[64] Director Martin Scorsese commented that "it's impossible to overestimate the effect that [his] films had on people."[65] Terrence Rafferty of The New York Times wrote that throughout the 1960s, when Bergman "was considered pretty much the last word in cinematic profundity, his every tic was scrupulously pored over, analyzed, elaborated in ingenious arguments about identity, the nature of film, the fate of the artist in the modern world and so on."[66]
Bergman's work was a point of reference and inspiration for director Woody Allen. He described Bergman as “probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera”.[67] Bergman's films are mentioned and praised in Annie Hall and other Allen films. Allen also admired Bergman's longtime director of photography Sven Nykvist and invited him to return as his DP on Crimes and Misdemeanors.[68] Danish Director Thomas Vinterberg has cited Bergman as one of his major influences, "Bergman is always in my head. He is part of my upbringing and I was fortunate to meet him and get advice from him."[69] Writer and director Richard Ayoade counts Bergman as one of his inspirations. In 2017, the British Film Institute (BFI) hosted an Ingmar Bergman season and Ayoade said in a Guardian interview that he saw everything in it, "which was one of the best two months ever."[70] The BFI's programme included a discussion with Ayoade on Bergman's 1966 film, Persona, before a screening.[71]
After Bergman died, a large archive of notes was donated to the Swedish Film Institute. Among the notes are several unpublished and unfinished scripts both for stage and films, and many more ideas for works in different stages of development. A never-performed play has the title Kärlek utan älskare ("Love without lovers"), and has the note "Complete disaster!" written on the envelope; the play is about a director who disappears and an editor who tries to complete a work he has left unfinished. Other canceled projects include the script for a pornographic film which Bergman abandoned since he did not think it was alive enough, a play about a cannibal, some loose scenes set inside a womb, a film about the life of Jesus, a film about The Merry Widow, and a play with the title Från sperm till spöke ("From sperm to spook").[72] The Swedish director Marcus Lindeen went through the material, and inspired by Kärlek utan älskare he took samples from many of the works and turned them into a play, titled Arkivet för orealiserbara drömmar och visioner ("The archive for unrealisable dreams and visions"). Lindeen's play premiered on 28 May 2012 at the Stockholm City Theatre.[72]
In 2018, in honor of Bergman's 100th birthday, The Criterion Collection compiled and released a Blu-ray disc box set comprising 39 of Bergman's features. The set spans Bergman's early career, beginning in the 1940s, up to his final film in 2003. The films are organized non-chronologically, and are instead presented in four groupings that mimic the procession of a film festival. Accompanying the discs is a book featuring critical essays on each of the films, intended to guide the viewer through the experience. Upon its release, The New York Times critic Glenn Kenny assessed the set as "impressive and almost exhaustive", and interpreted it as "a fresh case for [Bergman's] continuing importance", in response to criticisms such as Jonathan Rosenbaum's 2007 opinion piece "Scenes From an Overrated Career".[73][74]
The Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award is awarded annually at the Gothenburg Film Festival, in partnership with the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, the Bergman Estate and the Bergman Center on Fårö. The prize includes a visit to the Bergman Estate as well as to Bergmans personal archive in Stockholm.[75]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ Swedish pronunciation: [ˈɪ̌ŋːmar ˈbæ̌rjman]
References
[edit]- ^ Rothstein, Mervyn (30 July 2007). "Ingmar Bergman, Master Director, Dies at 89". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 31 July 2007.
Ingmar Bergman, the 'poet with the camera' who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died today on the small island of Faro where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said. Bergman was 89.
- ^ Tuohy, Andy (3 September 2015). A-Z Great Film Directors. Octopus. ISBN 9781844038558.
- ^ Gallagher, John (1 January 1989). Film Directors on Directing. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780275932725.
- ^ Ankeny, Jason. "Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos". AllMovie. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
- ^ "Critics' top 100". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 7 February 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
- ^ "BFI | Sight & Sound | Top Ten Poll 2002 – The Directors' Top Ten Directors". 13 October 2018. Archived from the original on 13 October 2018.
- ^ Norwich, John Julius (1985–1993). Oxford illustrated encyclopedia. Judge, Harry George., Toyne, Anthony. Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-19-869129-7. OCLC 11814265.
- ^ Steene 2005, p. 23.
- ^ Gado 1986, p. 374.
- ^ In a book published in 2011, Bergman's niece Veronica Ralston suggested that the director was not identical to the child born to Erik and Karin Bergman in July 1918. Ralston's claim was that this child would have died and been substituted for another child allegedly born to Erik Bergman in an extramarital relationship. (See Who was the mother of Ingmar Bergman? Dagens Nyheter, 26 May 2011. Retrieved 28 May 2011.) The DNA evidence was weakened after the laboratory consulted by Ralston clarified that it had only been possible to extract DNA from one out of two stamps submitted for testing, and the child supposedly substituted for the newborn child of Karin Bergman was later identified as having emigrated to the US in 1923 with his adopted parents and lived there until his death in 1982 (Clas Barkman, "Nya turer i mysteriet kring Bergman", Dagens Nyheter, 4 June 2011. Retrieved 8 June 2011).
- ^ Geni.com. "The Pedigree of Ingmar Bergman". Geni.com.
- ^ Gustaf, Elgenstierna. "Genealogy of Hermanni Family". Adelsvapen.
- ^ Kalin, Jesse (2003). The Films of Ingmar Bergman. p. 193.
- ^ Rothstein, Mervyn (31 July 2007). "Ingmar Bergman, Master Filmmaker, Dies at 89". The New York Times.
- ^ For an extended discussion of the profound influence that August Strindberg's work played in Bergman's life and career, see: Ottiliana Rolandsson, Pure Artistry: Ingmar Bergman, the Face as Portal and the Performance of the Soul, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2010, especially chapter 3, "Bergman, Strindberg and the Territories of Imagination".
- ^ Steene 2005, p. 33.
- ^ a b Gado 1986, p. 59.
- ^ Macnab, Geoffrey (2009). Ingmar Bergman: The Life and Films of the Last Great European Director. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0857713575.
- ^ Vermilye, Jerry (2001). Ingmar Bergman: His Life and Films. p. 6.; see also Bergman's autobiography, Laterna Magica.
- ^ Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern (transl. from Swedish: Laterna Magica), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007; ISBN 978-0-226-04382-1.
- ^ a b "Bergman admits Nazi past". BBC News. 7 September 1999. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
- ^ Peter Ohlin. (2009.) "Bergman's Nazi Past", Scandinavian Studies, 81(4):437-74.
- ^ Vermilye, Jerry (2001). Ingmar Bergman: His Life and Films. p. 6.
- ^ Ingmar Bergman, Images : my life in film (translated from the Swedish by Marianne Ruuth), London: Bloomsbury, 1994. ISBN 0-7475-1670-7.
- ^ Bergman, Ingmar. in the Aftonbladet (9 October 1944) (translated from Swedish)
- ^ Fristoe, Roger. "Torment (1944)". Turner Classic Movies, Inc. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
- ^ Stated in Marie Nyreröd's interview series (the first part named Bergman och filmen) aired on Sveriges Television Easter 2004.
- ^ In contrast, in 1964 Bergman had the three scripts published in a single volume: "These three films deal with reduction. Through a Glass Darkly – conquered certainty. Winter Light – penetrated certainty. The Silence – God's silence — the negative imprint. Therefore, they constitute a trilogy." The Criterion Collection groups the films as a trilogy in a boxed set. In the 1963 documentary Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie, about the making of Winter Light, supports the idea that Bergman did not plan a trilogy. In the interview with Bergman about writing the script of Winter Light, and the interviews made during the shooting of it, he hardly mentions Through a Glass Darkly. Instead, he discusses the themes of Winter Light, in particular the religious issues, in relation to The Virgin Spring.
- ^ Theall, Donald F. (1995). Beyond the Word: reconstructing sense in the Joyce era of technology, culture, and communication. University of Toronto Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780802006301.
- ^ "The 46th Academy Awards (1974) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 15 March 2015. Retrieved 31 December 2011.
- ^ Åtal mot Bergman läggs ned [Charges against Bergman dropped]. Rapport (in Swedish). Sveriges Television. 23 March 1976. Archived from the original (News report) on 21 November 2011.
- ^ Generaldirektör om Bergmans flykt [The Director General about Bergman's escape]. Rapport (in Swedish). Sveriges Television. 22 April 1976. Archived from the original (News report) on 4 September 2011.
- ^ Harry Schein om Bergmans flykt [Harry Schein about Bergman's escape]. Rapport (in Swedish). Sveriges Television. 22 April 1976. Archived from the original (News report) on 20 November 2011.
- ^ Ephraim Katz, The Film Encyclopedia, New York: HarperCollins, 5th ed., 1998.
- ^ Ingmar Bergman: Samtal på Fårö [Ingmar Bergman: Talks on Fårö] (in Swedish), Sveriges Radio, 28 March 2005
- ^ "Bergman was buried in a quiet ceremony". BBC News. London. 18 August 2007. Retrieved 5 January 2010.
- ^ "Film Great Ingmar Bergman Dies at 89". 30 July 2007. Archived from the original on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
- ^ "Images: My Life in Film". Ingmar Bergman official site. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
- ^ a b American Film Institute seminar, 1975, on The Criterion Collection's 2006 DVD of The Virgin Spring.
- ^ "THE SCREEN: I Am A Conjurer". Time. 14 March 1960. Archived from the original on 2 December 2007. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
- ^ Koskinen, Maaret (1 April 2010). Ingmar Bergman's The Silence: Pictures in the Typewriter, Writings on the Screen. University of Washington Press. ISBN 9780295801957.
- ^ Bergman on Bergman: Interviews with Ingmar Bergman. By Stig Björkman, Torsten Manns, and Jonas Sima; translated by Paul Britten Austin. Simon & Schuster, New York. p. 176-178. Swedish edition copyright 1970; English translation 1973.
- ^ "Winter Light". 2005.
- ^ Steene 2005.
- ^ "Bergman 'depressed' by own films". BBC News. London. 10 April 2004. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
- ^ Simonson, Robert (10 June 2003). "Swedish Swan Song: Ingmar Bergman's Final Stage Effort, Ghosts, Plays BAM June 10–14". Playbill. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
- ^ "Ingmar Bergman:The messy life of a magic filmmaker". INDEPENDENT. 25 January 2019.
- ^ Bergman, Ingmar (2000). Ingmar Bergman: Reflections on Life, Death, and Love with Erland Josephson (DVD) (in Swedish). The Criterion Collection. 45 minutes in.
- ^ Max von Sydow on Charlie Rose, 2012.
- ^ "Exploring the lesser-known Nazi past of Ingmar Bergman". faroutmagazine.co.uk. 19 February 2022. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
- ^ "The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
- ^ Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern (transl. from Swedish: Laterna Magica), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007; pg. 62 ISBN 978-0-226-04382-1.
- ^ "Awards 1958: All Awards". festival-cannes.fr. Archived from the original on 25 December 2013.
- ^ "PRIZES & HONOURS 1958". berlinale.de. Archived from the original on 15 October 2013. Retrieved 7 June 2014.
- ^ "Why Ingmar Bergman Mattered". TIME. 30 July 2007.
- ^ "Ingmar Bergman Mar. 24 1960". TIME.
- ^ a b "Greatest Film Directors and Their Best Films". Filmsite.org. Archived from the original on 19 April 2015. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ "Greatest Film Directors". filmsite.org.
- ^ "Sight & Sound | Modern Times". BFI. 25 January 2012. Archived from the original on 13 October 2018. Retrieved 9 September 2012.
- ^ "The 25 Most Influential Directors of All Time". MovieMaker. 7 July 2002.
- ^ "The Greatest Directors Ever by Total Film Magazine". Filmsite.org. Archived from the original on 2 July 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ "The 100 Best Screenwriters of All Time". vulture.com. 27 October 2017.
- ^ "Kubrick letter". www.ingmarbergman.se (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 27 December 2020. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
- ^ French, Philip (5 August 2007). "Twin visionaries of a darker art". The Observer. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
- ^ Mercury (9 May 2010). "Philosophy of Science Portal: Film maker on film maker...Martin Scorsese on Ingmar Bergman". Philosophy of Science Portal. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
- ^ Rafferty, Terrence (8 February 2004). "FILM; On the Essential Strangeness of Bergman". The New York Times. p. 13.
- ^ "The "greatest film-maker who ever lived"". BBC. 31 July 2017.
- ^ "Bergman's Influence on Woody Allen". 5 June 2014.
- ^ "Vinterberg: "The Commune is about the loss of innocence and love"". Nordisk Film & TV Fond. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
- ^ Petridis, Alexis (15 January 2011). "Richard Ayoade: Meet Mr Modest". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
- ^ "BFI announces further details of Ingmar Bergman centenary celebrations" (PDF). BFI. 28 November 2017. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
- ^ a b Jacobsson, Cecilia (28 May 2012). "Ingmar Bergmans ratade texter blev ny pjäs" [Ingmar Bergman's rejected texts became new play]. Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2 October 2019.
- ^ Kenny, Glenn (20 November 2018). "Viewing Ingmar Bergman Through a Glass Less Darkly". The New York Times.
- ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan (August 2007). "Scenes From an Overrated Career". The New York Times.
- ^ "Here are the winners at Göteborg Film Festival 2022!". Göteborg Film Festival. 5 February 2022. Retrieved 1 May 2022.
Bibliography
[edit]- Bergman on Bergman: Interviews with Ingmar Bergman. By Stig Björkman, Torsten Manns, and Jonas Sima; translated by Paul Britten Austin. Simon & Schuster, New York. Swedish edition copyright 1970; English translation 1973.
- Filmmakers on filmmaking: the American Film Institute seminars on motion pictures and television (edited by Joseph McBride). Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1983.
- Images: my life in film, Ingmar Bergman. Translated by Marianne Ruuth. New York, Arcade Pub., 1994, ISBN 1-55970-186-2
- Steene, Birgitta (1 January 2005). Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 9789053564066.
- The Magic Lantern, Ingmar Bergman. Translated by Joan Tate New York, Viking Press, 1988, ISBN 0-670-81911-5
- The Demons of Modernity: Ingmar Bergman and European Cinema, John Orr, Berghahn Books, 2014.
- Gado, Frank (1986). The Passion of Ingmar Bergman. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822305860.
External links
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- Ingmar Bergman Foundation
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- Ingmar Bergman, film on The Guardian
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- Ingmar Bergman all posters Archived 19 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine
- The Guardian/NFT interview with Liv Ullmann by Shane Danielson, 23 January 2001
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