Ingmar Bergman

Background

Ingmar Bergman was brought up with his elder brother Dag and sister Margareta in a religious family. Ingmar

had a strict father, who was a conservative parish minister with strict parenting ideas. Ingmar was locked up

in the dark closet for "violations" like wetting the bed.

Being 9 years old, Ingmar sold a set of tin soldiers for a magic lantern, a possession that changed his further

life. He created his own scenery, puppets, and lighting effects and performed puppet productions of

Strindberg plays in which he dubbed all the parts.

In 1934 at the age of 16, he was sent to Germany for the summer vacation with the friends of his family. He visited a Nazi rally in Weimar at which he saw Adolf Hitler. Bergman did two five-month periods of mandatory military service.

Education

• He studied in the secondary Palmgrenska school.
• During his studies at the university, Bergman spent most of his time involved in a student theatre and then became a
  
  so-called "genuine movie addict". At the same time there was a break with his father that lasted for years due to the Ingmar’s romantic involvement. Although he did not graduate, he wrote a number of plays, as well as an opera, and became an assistant director at a theater.

Career

• After seeing the Caspar's Death members
  
  of Svensk Filmindustri offered Bergman a position of a script writer.
  
  Bergman's film career began in 1941 with his
  
  rewriting of scripts. However, Ingmar made his first success in 1944 when he
  
  wrote the screenplay for Torment/Frenzy (Hets), a film
  
  directed by Alf Sjöberg. Ingmar
  
  was also given a position of an assistant director to the film, though he continued
  
  to write the screenplay. In his second autobiographical work, Images:
  
  My Life in Film, Bergman considered that his actual film directorial debut
  
  was the filming of the exteriors. Bergman's first opportunity to direct was
  
  given to him a year later due to the international success of this film.
  
  In the next ten years, he wrote and
  
  directed more than a dozen films. Bergman
  
  didn’t lose his efficiency for the next two decades. From the early 1960s, he
  
  lived mainly on the Swedish island of Fårö. He made several films there. In the early 1960s he directed three
  
  films that focused on the theme of faith and doubt in God existence. During the
  
  60s and 70s Bergman took a position of a director and producer for Swedish television (Scenes
  
  from a Marriage and The Magic Flute).
  
  Bergman swore he would never again make films in Sweden
  
  after his arrest in 1976 for tax evasion. He shut down his film studio on the
  
  island of Fårö and briefly thought over the opportunity to work in America.
  
  In 1982, he temporarily returned to his homeland to direct Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander).
  
  Bergman claimed that the film is his last, and that after that he would concentrate on directing theatre plays. Since then, he created several film scripts and directed a poll of television specials. As in similar case with
  
  previous work for television, some of these productions were performed in
  
  theatres later. Among them was on of the latest works, Saraband (2003),
  
  a sequel to Scenes from a Marriage which was directed by
  
  Bergman.
  
  After leaving Sweden, Bergman became a director of the Residenz Theatre of Munich,
  
  Germany (1977–84).
  
  
  
  He directed over sixty films and documentaries for cinematic release and for television, most of which he also wrote. He also directed over one hundred and seventy plays. Among his company of actors were Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin and Max von Sydow. Most of his films were set in the landscape of Sweden. His major subjects were death, illness, faith, betrayal, and insanity.
  
  The Seventh Seal won a special jury prize and was nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes and Wild Strawberries won numerous awards for Bergman and its star, Victor Sjöström.
  
  Bergman's films usually deal with existential questions of mortality, loneliness, and religious faith. While these topics could seem cerebral, sexual desire found its way to the foreground of most of his films.
  
  He remained active in theatre during the 1990s and made his final production on stage with Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 2002. Bergman stayed in Munich until 1984.
  
  Bergman retired from filmmaking in December 2003.

Achievements

• Bergman won a great deal of awards for his works. Besides mentioned in the list, he got a title of Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1961) and got The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (1995).
  
  Above all, Bergman led a personal "repertory company" of Swedish actors whom he cast in his films
  
  repeatedly. This company consisted of Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Erland Josephson, Ingrid
  
  Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom, Bengt Ekerot, Anders Ek and Gunnar Björnstrand, each of whom appeared in at least five Bergman works.

• Bergman directed over 60 films and documentaries for the cinema and for television. He also wrote scripts for most of them himself. He also directed over 170 plays. The majority of his films were screened in the landscape of Sweden. His major subjects were death, illness, faith, betrayal, and insanity.

Views

Politics

Religion

Personality

Works

• Torment(1944) Script
• Caspar's Death(1942) Script
• The Devil's Wanton/Prison, 1949 Film
• The Naked Night/Sawdust and Tinsel , 1953 Film
• Summer with Monika, 1953 Film
• The Seventh Seal, 1957 Film
• Wild Strawberries , 1957 Film
• Through a Glass Darkly, 1960 Film
• Winter Light, 1962 Film
• The Silence, 1963 Film
• All These Women, 1964 Comedy Film
• d Persona,, 1966 Film
• The Virgin Spring, 1960 Film
• Hour of the Wolf , 1968 Film
• Shame, 1968 Film
• A Passion/The Passion of Anna, 1969 Film
• Scenes from a Marriage, 1973 TV series
• The Magic Flute, 1975 film version of opera
• The Serpent's Egg (1977) Film
• Autumn Sonata(1978) Film
• From the Life of the Marionettes(1980) Film
• Fanny and Alexander(1982) drama film
• Saraband (2003) sequel

Connections

• Father: Erik Bergman - Sweden - Lutheran minister, later-chaplain to the King of Sweden
• Mother: Karin Akerblom - nurse
• colleague: Sven Nykvist
  cinematographer