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Bergman is an auteur who takes a few films to really suss out his approach in any meaningful way, and only seeing his most visible films (Seventh Seal, Persona, etc) only leaves you with a partial view of his work. My recommendation would be to choose a given period and watch three or four of the films he made in chronologically close quarters to get an idea of how he executed variations and approaches on similar concerns. If after that you're still not feeling it, well, maybe he's not your guy. That's okay, you'd at least have given it a shot and no one says you have to like any director

I do think I'm going to give it a while before I tackle another film of his or attempt to re-watch something. I will say that I watched Persona (on a laptop, regrettably) and did love it. I loved the opening sequence, I read a little about it being a film he said he needed to make, perhaps he needed to prove his identity to himself? I loved the way the tension built between the two women, and I love how a movie really just between two people kept my attention so well.
I don't want to say I necessarily expect a good pay-off with films...but I guess there is a bit of frustration. Throughout Cries and Whispers, there are so many moments of near-humanity...where the sisters almost reconcile...but I found myself frustrated with their coldness. Again, this might be an important part of his films...and I would imagine that part of his familial/religious upbringing influenced this coldness...but personally I'm put off by it. I guess I need that humanity. I may still be missing the point...perhaps not appreciate what IS there enough...and hence while I'll leave it be for a while.

Drucker wrote:I guess I need that humanity. I may still be missing the point...perhaps not appreciate what IS there enough...and hence while I'll leave it be for a while.

There is quite a bit of humanity there between Agnes and Anna. They seem to be the only two who are able to rise above the temptation to be selfish and petty and who actually embrace genuine affection and human sympathy. They stand in sharp relief to the other characters. The shot near the end where Anna holds Agnes diary(?) when the sisters have cast it away in favour of more superficially valuable objects is particularly touching.

Steven H wrote:Bergman switched at birth. Adds an interesting layer to Karin's Face if true, huh.

According to today's papers, the DNA test was bungled and in fact proved nothing. To be continued, I'm sure.

ola t wrote:

Steven H wrote:Bergman switched at birth. Adds an interesting layer to Karin's Face if true, huh.

According to today's papers, the DNA test was bungled and in fact proved nothing. To be continued, I'm sure.

Got a link of the article?

ola t wrote:Bergman's DNA was lab technician's

Tack! I'm gonna have fun practising my Swedish!

How about Google Translate?

How about get to know stuff like foreign languages and stop reading fucking subtitles... (There was no sarcasm about having fun)

32 handwritten notes from Bergman to his housekeeper were sold at auction yesterday for about $6,500.

I've made rough translations of the ones shown in the article.

Ingmar Bergman wrote:This cheese was more dull. Let's go back.

Ingmar Bergman wrote:Note! Quilt should reach to HERE!

Ingmar Bergman wrote:Hey! If THAT cheese is a Jarlsberg then I'm Donald Duck!
Will be in the TV room from two thirty to four.
We need to solve the problem w the refrigerator!
I.

Ingmar Bergman wrote:A daemon last night
(drawing)

Hi!
Going to a movie 2.35 today
I.

Ingmar Bergman wrote:Hi Anita! The doctor says I have a POTASSIUM DEFICIENCY and must no longer drink RAMLÖSA which causes dehydration. Therefore only IMSDAL from now on!
Your friend
Ingmar
Ramlösa addict.

This one's partly rhymed, so the translation doesn't really do it justice:

Ingmar Bergman wrote:Old sick and grumpy Bergman
should be kept in a cage.
But ANITA kind and happy
never gets a bark or yap
No. ON THE CONTRARY!
Verse with hugs
from your FRIEND Ingmar

Ingmar Bergman wrote:ANITA!
Socks?
I.

Lemonade at 3.30 in here.
Dinner at 6.
I. again

Ingmar Bergman wrote:I like the REALLY THIN little gingerbread cookies very much.

Ingmar Bergman wrote:The new cheese is useless. No taste.

Ingmar Bergman wrote:Hugs!
HAPPY NEW YEAR

Maybe Woody Allen could write a sequel to this?

Ingmar Bergman's early '50's Bris soap commercials:

Episode 1, “Bris Soap,”

Episode 2, Tennis Girl

Episode 3, Gustavian

Episode 4, Operation

Episode 5, The Magic Show

Episode 6, The Inventor

Episode 7, The Rebus

Episode 8, Three-Dimensional

Episode 9, The Princess and the Swineherd

These were all made during a 1951 film industry strike protesting high taxes on entertainment. Bergman was 33 years old and with a family to provide for, so he made them and had this to say later about it:

Ingmar Bergman wrote:"Originally, I accepted the Bris commercials in order to save the lives of my self and my families. But that was really secondary. The primary reason I wanted to make the commercials was that I was given free rein with money and I could do exactly what I wanted with the product's message. Anyhow, I have always found it difficult to feel resentment when industry comes rushing toward culture, check in hand. My whole cinematic career has been sponsored by private capital. I have never been able to live on my beautiful eyes alone! As an employer, capitalism is brutally honest and rather generous - when it deems it beneficial. Never do you doubt your day-to-day value - a useful experience which will toughen you."

More information on these commercials can be found here and here and viewed here.

Cinematography on all of them is by Gunnar Fischer.

These ads are pretty amazing. The mise-en-scène is startlingly creative and, by going "meta" through acknowledging the making of the soap commercial within the soap commercial, Bergman shows he was a good 50 to 60 years ahead of the ironic detachment trend now favored by TV ads.

I just saw Bergman's All These Women, known as one of his biggest failures. It isn't - it is underrated, not as witty or touching as his other underrated comedy, A Lesson in Love, but then again it doesn't necessarily try to be witty and it certainly doesn't aim to be touching. Actually, the funniest thing about it is how not funny it is in the moment, and how this lack of immediate humour functions as a direct component of its concept and 'message'. All These Women is a trifle - a joke, an attack on Bergman's critics (and over-the-top fans - there are numerous riffs on Godard) and even Bergman himself - but one with real, blistering bile at its centre. Bergman casts Jarl Kulle (very game) as a ridiculously pretentious music critic who arrives at the estate of the 'Maestro', a famous cellist (who is never seen) hoping to write his biography and rope him into performing a composition. There he is confused (and aroused) by the Maestro's harem of women (played by a catalogue of famously 'Bergman' actresses including the Anderssons, Eva Dahlbeck, Barbro Hiort af Ornas and Gertrud Fridh) who sleep with the cellist on a rotating basis. In responding to his critics he presents them with a film diametrically opposed in style to those he was known for - in this case a goofy slapstick with Minnelli-gone-rococo sets that periodically moves into serial-style sepia melodrama or musical interludes to the tune of 'Yes, We Have No Bananas'. It is batty, bitter and a LOT of fun, and tremendous visually - Bergman and Nykvist attacks colour with both irony and a sense of fun and really let loose. The highlight for me is an insane, fractured 'fireworks' sequence that anticipates both Pierrot le fou (which it may well have influenced) and Daisies.

Finally, someone besides me admits to liking this movie and for most of the same reasons.

While I didn't phrase well I'm the third.

I still hate it.

Once you get over the fact that it's not even a little bit funny, yeah, it's alright

To prove that absolute subjectivity of comedy I find it hilarious, one of the funniest films in fact. Than again I am a Doran William Cannon fan.

I'm pretty positive that the stilted and awkward slapstick was wholly meant to be that way - but I did crack up over Gertrud Fridh's melodramatic shooting sprees.

Swedish television is broadcasting a series about Bergmans VHS collection. He had a large collection of films on film, but also a large collection of VHS (around 1700), ranging from Ghostbusters to Tarkovsky. The program talks to some of the filmmakers that are included in the collection and their relation to Bergman, like Woody Allen and Lars von Trier. It will probably be possible to see the series via the exellent http://www.svtplay.se. A lot of swedish is ecpected but inteview with Allen is of course in english.

http://www.svt.se/bergmans-video/

The series start August 22.

Now a trailer for the series is up on Swedish televisions homepage, http://www.svt.se/bergmans-video/titta- ... deosamling!

The series about Bergman's video collection could be pretty interesting. Unfortunately I can't watch the first episode tonight but I'll definetely watch one of its many repeats during the next few days. First episode is about humour (featuring Tomas Alfredson).

There are many videos on the Swedish televisions homepage with people like Charles Chaplin, Wes Anderson, Robert De Niro (although geo-restricted).

This actually sounds like a fantastic idea. It reminds me of the tidbits Woody Allen wrote in the NYTimes about Bergman's viewing habits. "He screened movies for himself every day and never tired of watching them. All kinds, silents and talkies. To go to sleep he’d watch a tape of the kind of movie that didn’t make him think and would relax his anxiety, sometimes a James Bond film."

(FWIW, right after Bergman and Antonioni died on the same day, the NYTimes came up with the brilliant idea of having Allen write an appreciation of Bergman and Scorsese an appreciation of Antonioni - both pieces ran side-by-side in the print edition.)

I saw someone on the forums recently (can't remember where) use Bergman's work as an example of a body of work that is easy to lisence- due to the fact that he made all his movies for the same company, obtaining rights en masse is much easier. If this is the case, then how did Criterion miss out on the rights to Persona?