Bergman on Bergman: Interviews with Ingmar Bergman

by Ingmar Bergman, Stig Björkman (Collaborator), Torsten Manns (Collaborator)

Ingmar Bergman, an undisputed giant of modern cinematic art, here talks frankly and extensively about himself and his films. This discussion with the great Swedish director ranges from Bergman's childhood memories to his admiration for Strindberg to his relationship with the stars whom he made famous - Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson, among others. Originally published in 1973, this work covers Bergman's career from his early films through the "The Seventh Seal", "Wild Strawberries", "Persona", "The Passion of Anna".

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Biography, Literature, Memoir

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a nine-time Academy Award-nominated Swedish film, stage, and opera director. He depicted bleakness and despair as well as comedy and hope in his explorations of the human condition. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in cinematic history.

He directed 62 films, most of which he wrote, and directed over 170 plays. Some of his internationally known favorite actors were Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, and Max von Sydow. Most of his films were set in the stark landscape of his native Sweden, and major themes were often bleak, dealing with death, illness, betrayal, and insanity.

Bergman was active for more than 60 years, but his career was seriously threatened in 1976 when he suspended a number of pending productions, closed his studios, and went into self-imposed exile in Germany for eight years following a botched criminal investigation for alleged income tax evasion.

Reviews

[Nima Eghtedari · Rating 4 out of 5]

مداوم در رویاهایم زندگی می کنم و هر از گاهی حمله ای کوتاه به واقعیت دارم... همیشه تنشی در من است بین تمایلم در جهت ویران کردن و اراده ام برای زیستن.این یکی از بنیادی ترین تنشهای من،هم در شیوه آفرینشم و هم در هستی مادی ام است.هر بامداد با خشمی تازه،سوظنی جدید و آرزویی نو برای زیستن از خواب بیدار می شوم.
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برگمان سینماگر بزرگی است که با آثارش بیش از چهل سال بر سینمای سوئد تسلط داشته و فیلم های مهمی از تاریخ سینمای جهان را ساخته است. او توانسته سینمایی ناب پر از نمادهای فلسفی، هنری، عاطفی و عواطف انسانی بیافریند. سینمایی که فقط مال خود اوست. نمی توان از سینمای برگمان با واژگان متعارف سخن گفت. برای همین سه سینماگر در این کتاب با این هنرمند بزرگ به گفت وگو نشسته اند تا برگمان با دست خویش از هویت انسانی و هنری اش پرده بردارد تا سینمای او برای ما دست یافتنی تر شود. کتاب «برگمان به روایت برگمان» مجموعه مصاحبه های برگمان بین سالهای 1968 تا 1970 و به تالیف استیگ بیورکمان، تورستن مانس و یوناس سیما با ترجمه دکتر مسعود اوحدی است.«برگمان به روایت برگمان» هنوز مهم‌ترین کتابی است که درباره این هنرمند بزرگ به نگارش درآمده است. با آنکه کتاب، از برگمانِ این سال‌ها سخن نمی‌گوید، اما بررسی آثار اخیرش نشان می‌دهد که سینمای امروز او نیز همچنان بازتاب ذهن و نگاره‌های خیره کننده آن دنیای برگمانی است که در همه ابعاد خود در این کتاب تصویر شده است.یکی از جذابیت‌های کتاب حاضر این است که به سبک پرسش و پاسخ تدوین شده و نویسندگان آن سعی کردند بدون هیچ دخل و تصرفی تمام صحبت‌ها و نظرات این فیلمساز بزرگ را بیان کنند.

[Farzad Saffari · Rating 3 out of 5]

خیلی به این نوع کتاب ها علاقه ندارم چرا که به نظرم مولف نباید خودش رو به آثارش پیوست کنه. تفاوت یک اثر علمی و هنری در همینه. اگر یک کار علمی پیوست های زیادی داشته باشه و مولف تا مدت ها راجع به اون صحبت کنه، این کار کمک میکنه تا مفهوم علمی پخته تر و در برابر سوبرداشت ها مقاوم تر بشه. اما در یک کار هنری، مولف مسئولیتی در برابر مخاطبش نداره و مخاطب میتونه هر خوانشی از اثر داشته باشه، مستقل از مولف اثر. چنانچه این گفتگوها تبدیل بشه به سوال پیچ کردن مولف تا چیزی ازش بیرون کشیده بشه تا بر روی درک مخاطب اثر بذاره، این کار مطلقا بیهودست. مخاطب حق هر گونه خوانشی رو از اثر داره حتی اگر ذره ای با آنچه که مولف در نظرش بوده قرابت نداشته باشه. چرا که اثر هنری نه صرفا با خودآگاه، که با ناخودآگاه انسان بیشتر در ارتباطه و ممکنه مخاطب برداشتی رو داشته باشه که مولف آنچنان متوجهش نباشه. هر چند این عیار این خوانش ها در ارجاعات به متنه تا از شر توهم خلاص بشه.
با این حال، این کتاب تا حدی متفاوت بود چرا که خود برگمان هم به این مسئله اشاره کرد که نیازی نیست آنچنان راجع به مفهوم کاراش صحبت کنه چرا که اکثرا اتفاقی و تحت تاثیر شرایط به وجود میان تا یک برنامه از پیش تعیین شده منسجم. هر چند که صحبت های جالبی راجع به ایده اولیه کاراش انجام میشه.
شخصا اون قسمت از کتاب رو بهش علاقه داشتم که برگمان یکسره با برداشتهای تحمیلی از سمت منتقدینش مخالفت میکنه که خوانش های بعضا پیچیده و تخیلی از آثارش دارن و از همه مهمتر سعی میکنن این برداشت ها رو به عنوان نیت های اصلی مولف به مخاطب تحمیل کنند.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read a ton of these books, but of the ones I have, this ranks up there as one of the best (the best in my mind so far being Hitchcock/Truffaut). For the most part the three interviewers compliment each other's questions well, and even when interjecting personal experiences or thoughts, they never seem to step over Bergman. As for Bergman....I think we already know that he is arguably one of the greatest filmakers ever. I find this sort of book to be very interesting when the subjects seem to really be thinking about what they're saying and not answering by rote. His reflection on certain films and how they were made, as well as the actors he used is fascinating.

[Žiga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very insightful book into the mind of one of the most celebrated directors. However, I prefer the book Hitchcock/Truffaut, which follows the same interview format. I had a feeling like the interviewers of Bergman weren’t asking the right questions, I think we could’ve gotten an even better insight with a different set of questions. Truffaut and Hitchcock also seemed to me to have a better chemistry which led to a more insightful conversation.
The book about Bergman focuses more on psychology of the films rather than technical aspects - which is a good thing but I just had the feeling that the interviewers focused on the wrong parts of movies, they were to analytical. Even Bergman at times didn’t understand the questions.
Still, a book worth reading.

[Keith B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ingmar Bergman, died in july of last year...this is a great book with wonderful insights of a very honest filmmaker. He was someone i believe made some very effective movies, with stunning imagery (red and white in 'Cries and Whispers', long close ups in Persona, max von syndow pulling on that thin tree in 'The Virgin Spring'...and many more)...this book covers his very early works as a director up to Cries and Whispers i think.
anyway, what i've learned from reading this book is to totally honest with oneself, and don't ever stop doing what you love. Ingmar did his first films in the 40's, and never slowed down, pretty amazing...i certainly don't agree with his outlook on who God is, he was a man who defiantely made the films he wanted to make, he had a 'freedom' in the film industry that very few have had like him.

there are 3 interviewers, they seem to ask the right questions most of the time, and Bergman gives good answers...and i love the part at the end of one of the chapters, when he says it takes every cell your body to direct a film...' it's so true.

[ZaRi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In our family we had a well-to-do aunt who always gave us magnificent Christmas presents. She was so much part of the family that we even included her in our prayers at bedtime... I suppose I must have been nine or ten years old at the time. Suddenly Aunt Anna's Christmas presents were lying there too, and among them a parcel with 'Forsner's on it. So of course I instantly knew it contained a projector. For a couple of years I'd been consumed with a passionate longing to own one, but had been considered too small for such a present... I was incredibly excited. Because my father was a clergyman we never got our presents on Christmas Eve, like other Swedish children do. We got them on Christmas Day... Well, you can imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be my older brother — he's four years older than myself — who got the projector — and I was given a teddy bear. It was one of my life's bitterest disappointments. After all, my brother wasn't a scrap interested in cinematography. But both of us had masses of lead soldiers. So on Boxing Day I bought the projector off him for half my army and he beat me hollow in every war ever afterwars. But I'd got the projector, anyway."

"My basic view of things is — not to have any basic view of things. From having been exceedingly dogmatic, my views on life have gradually dissolved. They don't exist any longer... I've a strong impression that our world is about to go under. Our political systems are deeply compromised and have no further uses. Our social behavior patterns — interior and exterior — have proved a fiasco. The tragic thing is, we neither can nor want to, nor have the strength to alter course. It's too late for revolutions, and deep down inside ourselves we no longer even believe in their positive effects. Just around the corner an insect world is waiting for us — and one day it's going to roll in over our ultra-individualized existence. Otherwise I'm a respectable social democrat. "

"One of the strongest feelings I remember from my childhood is, precisely, of being humiliated; of being knocked about by words, acts, or situations.
Isn't it a fact that children are always feeling deeply humiliated in their relations with grown-ups and each other? I have a feeling children spend a good deal of their time humiliating one another. Our whole education is just one long humiliation, and it was even more so when I was a child. One of the wounds I've found hardest to bear in my adult life has been the fear of humiliation, and the sense of being humiliated. . . Every time I read a review, for instance — whether laudatory or not — this feeling awakes. . . To humiliate and be humiliated, I think, is a crucial element in our whole social structure. It's not only the artist I'm sorry for. It's just that I know exactly where he feels most humiliated. Our bureaucracy, for instance. I regard it as in high degree built up on humiliation, one of the nastiest and most dangerous of all poisons. "

"People think there's a solution... If everything is distributed in the proper quarters, put into the right pigeonholes, everything will be fine. But I'm not so sure. … Nothing, absolutely nothing at all has emerged out of all these ideas of faith and scepticism, all these convulsions, these puffings and blowings. For many of my fellow human beings on the other hand, I'm aware that these problems still exist — and exist as a terrible reality. I hope this generation will be the last to live under the scourge of religious anxiety. "

[Katrinka]

Don't know how to classify this one; I have a hard time doing that with interviews. I do appreciate-- tremendously-- Bergman's fending off (at the time at least) the psychological, symbolic, etc., etc., motivations that the critics would like to attribute to much of his work.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad to have new ammunition to re-attack Bergman's canon of work, which has yet mystified me.

[Jatham Moses · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius. An exploration into genius!!!