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Ingmar Bergman

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Ingmar Bergman

Ernst Ingmar Bergmanⓘ (IPA: ['bær:jman] in Swedish) (born July 14, 1918) is a Swedish stage and film director who is one of the key film auteurs of the Twentieth Century.

Biography

Bergman was born in Uppsala, Sweden, to a Lutheran minister of Danish descent, Erik Bergman (later chaplain to the King of Sweden), and his wife, Karin (née Åkerblom). He grew up surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. He had a strict upbringing and was locked up in dark closets for infractions such as wetting the bed. Bergman performed two five-month stretches of mandatory military service and attended Stockholm High School and Stockholm University, not completing his course in literature and art but instead becoming interested in theatre and later in cinema (though he had become a "genuine movie addict"[1] by the early 1930s).

Although he grew up in a devout Lutheran household, Bergman states that he lost his faith at age eight but came to terms with this fact only when making Winter Light.[2]

Since the early sixties (with an interruption living in Germany), Bergman lived in Fårö, where he recorded a number of his films. Bergman subsequently moved to Munich, following a protracted battle with the Swedish government over alleged tax evasion, and did not return to make another film in Sweden until 1982, when he directed Fanny and Alexander. Bergman said this would be his last film, and that he would go on to direct theater. Since that time he has made a number of films for television.

Film Director

As a director, Bergman favored intuition over intellect, and chose to be unaggressive in dealing with actors. Bergman saw himself as having a great responsibility toward them, whom he viewed as collaborators in a psychologically vulnerable position. He states that a director must be both honest and supportive to allow others their best work.

His films usually deal with existential questions of mortality, loneliness, and faith; they also tend to be direct and not overtly stylized. Persona, one of Bergman's most famous films, is unusual among Bergman's work in being both existentialist and avant-garde.

Bergman usually wrote his own scripts, thinking about them for months or years before starting the actual process of writing, which he views as somewhat tedious. His earlier films are carefully structured, and are either based on plays or written with other authors, usually as a matter of convenience. Bergman states that in his later works, when his actors sometimes started wanting to do things differently from what he had intended, he let them, calling the results "disastrous" when he didsn't. Throughout his career, Bergman increasingly let his actors improvise their dialogue. In his latest films, he wrote just the ideas behind the dialogue, keeping in mind the general direction he thought it should take.

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, the late Ingrid Thulin, and Gunnar Björnstrand, each of whom appeared in at least five Bergman features. Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann was the last to join this group (in the 1966 film Persona), and ultimately became most closely associated with Bergman, both artistically and personally.

Bergman began working with Sven Nykvist, his cinematographer, in 1953. The two of them have sufficient rapport to allow Bergman not to worry about the composition of a shot until the day before it is filmed. On the morning of the shoot, he spoke to Nykvist briefly about the mood and composition he hoped for, and then leaves him to work without interruption or comment until they discuss the next day's work.

When viewing daily rushes, Bergman stressed the importance of being critical but unemotional, claiming that he asks himself not if the work is great or terrible, but if it is sufficient or if it needs to be reshot.

Bergman encourages young directors not to direct any film that does not have a "message," but to wait until one comes along that does, yet admits that he himself is not always sure of the message of some of his films. By Bergman's own accounts, he has never had a problem with funding. He cites two reasons for it: one, that he does not live in the United States, which he views as obsessed with box-office earnings; and two, that his films tend 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.) Bergman left Sweden for Munich when accused of tax evasion. Though he was later cleared of the charges, he remained in Munich and did not film again in Sweden until 1982. In 1982 he directed Fanny and Alexander. Bergman stated that the film would be his last, and that afterwards he would focus on directing theater. Since then he has directed a number of television specials and written several additional scripts, though he does continue to work in theater. In 2003, Bergman, at 84 years old, directed a new film, Saraband, that represents a departure from his previous works.

Although Bergman is universally famous for his contribution to cinema, he has been an active and productive stage director all his life, and has been manager and director of a number of the most prestigious theatres in Sweden, notably the Malmö city theatre in the 1950s and the Stockholm Royal Dramatic Theatre [the national stage of Sweden; executive director there 1963-66 and active as stage director into the 1990s] as well as the Residenz-Theater of Munich, Germany (1977-84). Many of his star actors are people with whom he began working on stage, and a number of people in the "Bergman troupe" of his 1960s films came from Malmö city theatre.

When asked about his movies, he says he holds Winter Light [1], Persona, and Cries and Whispers in the highest regard, though in an interview in 2004, Bergman said that he is 'depressed' by his own films and cannot watch them anymore. [2] In these films, he says, he managed to push the medium to its limit. While he has denounced the critical classification of three of his films (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence) as a predetermined trilogy, saying he had no intention of connecting them and cannot see any common motifs in them,[3] this contradicts the introduction Bergman himself wrote in 1964 when he 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." Clearly, The Criterion Collection sees the films as a trilogy: they have released all three on DVD individually and as a boxed set. It should be noted that Bergman, like many creative artists, is sometimes apt to express himself in a sweeping way, even on his own work, and he has stated on numerous occasions (for example in the interview book Bergman on Bergman) that The Silence meant the end of an era when religious questions were a major concern in his films.

Family Life

Bergman has been married five times:

The first four marriages ended in divorce, while the last ended when his wife died of stomach cancer.

His daughter Eva Bergman (born 1945), is also a director, as is his son Daniel Bergman. He is also the father of writer Linn Ullmann, with actress Liv Ullmann. In all, Bergman has nine (acknowledged) children, of whom only two were given birth to by wives of his–Daniel by his penultimate wife and Maria von Rosen by his last wife, who gave birth to her twelve years before she married Bergman. Other children include actress Anna Bergman, actor Mats Bergman, and airline captain Ingmar Bergman, Jr.

Awards

In 1971, Bergman received The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Academy Awards ceremony. Three of his films have won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Virgin Spring in 1961; Through a Glass Darkly in 1962; and Fanny and Alexander in 1984.

Six more of his films have received Academy Award nominations:

  • Wild Strawberries (1959) Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written directly for the screen
  • Through a Glass Darkly (1962) Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written directly for the screen
  • Cries and Whispers (1973) Best Picture (nominated as producer), Director and Writing - Story and Screenplay based on factual material or material not previously published or produced
  • Face to Face (1976) Best Director
  • Autumn Sonata (1978) Best Writing, Screenplay written directly for the screen
  • Fanny and Alexander (1982) Best Director and Writing - Screenplay written directly for the screen

A number of filmmakers worldwide, including Americans Woody Allen and Robert Altman, and Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, have cited the work of Bergman as a major influence on their work.

Filmography

Screenwriting works

Stage productions and radio theatre credits

List of plays that Ingmar Bergman has directed for the stage and/or radio theatre; source IngmarBergman.se.

Documentary works

See also

References

  1. ^ Ingmar Bergman: His Life and Films, by Jerry Vermilye, 2001, p. 6
  2. ^ The Films of Ingmar Bergman, by Jesse Kalin, 2003, p. 193
  3. ^ Stated in Marie Nyreröd's interview series (the first part named Bergman och filmen) aired on Sveriges Television easter 2004.

Bibliography

  • 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
  • The Magic Lantern, Ingmar Bergman, Translated by Joan Tate New York, Viking Press, 1988, ISBN 0-670-81911-5

All of Bergman's original screenplays for films directed by himself, from Through A Glass Darkly onwards - and the screenplays he has penned since the 1980s for other directors - have been published in Swedish and most of them translated into English and other languages. Some of his screenplays have also come to use in stage theatre, often without the knowledge or license of the author (e.g. Scenes from a Marriage, Smiles of a Summer Night, After the Rehearsal).

In 1968, when the Swedish film magazine Chaplin published an "anti-Bergman issue" to clear the air from the slightly suffocating presence of the genius director, who was collecting Oscars and Palmes d'Or by the handful, Bergman secretly contributed one of the more acerbic pieces, signed by "the French film critic Ernest Riffe". The word soon began to spread that he was the author himself, and though he half-heartedly denied this, in Bergman on Bergman he admits to the truth of the allegation.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Ingmar Bergman.

Overviews

Interviews

Bibliographies

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