Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter.
Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter. ◦ He directed more than 60 films and documentaries, most of which he also wrote, and also directed more than 170 plays, including periods as Leading Director of Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre. ◦ Among his most acclaimed works are *The Seventh Seal* (1957), *Wild Strawberries* (1957), *Persona* (1966) and *Fanny and Alexander* (1982). ◦ He forged creative partnerships with cinematographers Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist and a repertory company of actors including Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson. ◦ Bergman was raised in a devout Lutheran household; his father was a conservative parish minister with strict ideas of parenting, and Ingmar was locked up in dark closets for infractions such as wetting himself. ◦ He later stated that he lost his faith at age eight, and came to terms with this fact while making *Winter Light* in 1962. ◦ At the age of nine, Bergman traded a set of tin soldiers for a magic lantern, and within a year had created a private world by playing with this toy in which he felt completely at home, fashioning his own scenery, marionettes, and lighting effects and giving puppet productions of Strindberg plays in which he spoke all the parts. ◦ On 30 January 1976, while rehearsing Strindberg's *The Dance of Death* at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Bergman was arrested by plainclothes police and charged with income tax evasion; the impact was devastating, he suffered a nervous breakdown from the humiliation and was hospitalised in a state of deep depression. ◦ Many of his films from the 1960s were made on the island of Fårö, his adopted home. ◦
Bergman described himself as a 'conjurer': a sophisticated, technologically savvy magician whose raw material is nothing other than our 'incredible need to believe.' ◦ He wrote that it is his opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship, and that the ability to create was a gift. ◦ Asked the general purpose of his films, he replied that he wanted to be 'one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain... I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.' ◦ For him art had to be part of something deeper, grander, and more ancient, and the artist must transcend himself and leave his ego at the cinema door. ◦ He believed cinema reaches the viewer more directly than any other art. ◦ He held that what matters most of all in life is being able to make that contact with another human, and that if you can take that first step toward communication, toward understanding, toward love, then no matter how difficult the future may be, then you are saved. ◦ He wrote that his recurring subject matter deals with love, life and death, because nothing in fact is more important. ◦ He wrote that we make an idol of our fear and that idol we call God. ◦
Bergman followed strict daily rules and routines, taking a walk after breakfast, writing for three hours, having lunch and reading in the afternoon, because he was chaotic and struggled to be in control. ◦ He said he had always had the ability to attach his demons to his chariot, and they had been forced to make themselves useful. ◦ He poured his own experiences into his work: *Fanny & Alexander* (1982) drew on his life, with Alexander based on Bergman and the authoritarian widower bishop based on how Bergman viewed his own father. ◦ *Wild Strawberries* (1957), written while he was hospitalised for stress amid the breakdown of his third marriage, channels his reevaluation of his own childhood and ambivalent, cold mother through the character Isak. ◦ In the early 1960s he directed three films that explored faith and doubt in God — *Through a Glass Darkly* (1961), *Winter Light* (1962), and *The Silence* (1963) — which critics grouped as a trilogy; Bergman initially said he did not plan them as a trilogy and could not see common motifs, but he later seemed to adopt the notion with some equivocation. ◦ He said that for him 'theatre is like a faithful wife, film is... the expensive and demanding mistress.' ◦
Bergman believed that 'no art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.' ◦ He viewed the artist as someone who must transcend himself and leave his ego at the cinema door. ◦ He described the 'hour of the wolf' as the time between midnight and dawn when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most palatable, when the sleepless are pursued by their sharpest anxieties, when ghosts and demons hold sway, and also the hour when most children are born. ◦ He saw humanity as emotionally illiterate, stating that 'we're abysmally ignorant, about both ourselves and others.' ◦ He described himself as a 'conjurer' who uses 'an apparatus which is constructed to take advantage of a certain weakness, an apparatus with which I can sway my audience in a highly emotional manner.' ◦
Bergman directed more than 60 films and documentaries, most of which he also wrote, and also directed more than 170 plays, including periods as Leading Director of Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre. ◦ He forged creative partnerships with cinematographers Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist and a repertory company of actors including Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson. ◦ Many of his films from the 1960s were made on the island of Fårö, his adopted home. ◦
Meeting students at the American Film Institute on 31 October 1975, Bergman opened with characteristic candor and nervousness, stating, 'I am very nervous. I am almost fainting. I always feel very scared when I have to meet so many people... I will try to be as honest as possible.' ◦ His distinct sense of humility stood at ironic odds with his reputation as the quintessential auteur. ◦
Bergman lost his faith at age eight, yet he directed a trilogy exploring faith and doubt in God and maintained that art lost its basic creative drive when separated from worship. ◦ ◦ His distinct sense of humility stood at ironic odds with his reputation as the quintessential auteur. ◦ He described himself as a chaotic person who struggles to be in control, yet he enforced rigid rules and routines to maintain productivity. ◦ He initially said he did not plan the faith films as a trilogy and could not see common motifs, but later seemed to adopt the notion with some equivocation. ◦ He described film as a deceitful apparatus that takes advantage of audience weakness, while simultaneously seeking honesty and authentic human contact. ◦ ◦
Bergman indicated that he felt very scared when meeting many people and would try to be as honest as possible. ◦ He held that what matters most is being able to make contact with another human, and that taking the first step toward communication, understanding, and love is what saves us. ◦ He noted that demons do not like fresh air, and that for a person who is as chaotic as he is, following rules and routines is an absolute necessity. ◦