Ingmar Bergman Biography and List of Works

Swedish movie and theatre director, playwright, and screenwriter. Although Bergman is widely known as a film director, he has also become one of the foreground figures of the modern Swedish theatre. Bergman's artistic career includes about a hundred stage performances, forty radio productions, fifty feature films and fifteen TV productions.

"I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then."
(Bergman in John Simon's book Ingmar Bergman Directs, 1972)

Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala. His father was a Lutheran minister and chaplain to the court of Sweden, his mother was a strong-willed person. Bergman was raised under strict discipline. From his traumatic childhood pressures Bergman later drew material for his plays and films. Many of Bergman's works have explored the father-god trauma, among them the films Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Winter Light (1963).

Bergman studied literature and art at the University of Stockholm. After graduation he became a trainee-director at a Stockholm theater. During this period he published a few short stories and wrote a number of plays including Kaspers död (1942) and Jack among the Actors (1946). At the age of twenty-six Bergman became the youngest theatre manager in Europe at the Hälsingborg City Theatre in Sweden. He secured his position through a large number of memorable and impressive works on stage, especially classical plays. Bergman was manager of the Helsingborg city theatre (1944-46), director at Gothenburg city theatre (1946-49), at Malmö city theatre (1953-60) and at the Dramaten in Stockholm (1960-66), the last three years as manager.

Bergman made his debut in film in 1944 as a screenwriter to the Alf Sjöberg film Hets (Frenzy). In 1949 he directed the film Fängelse (The Devil's Wanton). The artistic breakthrough came with the film Gycklarnas afton (1953, Sawdust and Tinsel). In this film Bergman describes an artist's life as despised and wasted. The background is a third class circus environment.

His first international success was Sommarnattens leende (1955, Smiles of the Summer Night), in which a country lawyer meets again a touring actress who was once his mistress, and accepts an invitation for him and his young wife to stay at her mother's country home for a weekend. Wild Strawberries (1957) is considered a landmark film in Bergman's career. It dealt with the subject of man's isolation, and like in several films, Bergman used a journey as a plot structure. The Seventh Seal (1957) won prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. It explored the individual's relationship with God and the idea of Death. In the story a knight challenges Death to a game of chess. Over the years Max von Sydow, the knight of the film, later came to be identified as Bergman's on-screen alter ego. Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, and Liv Ulman became Bergman's favorite actresses and Sven Nykvist his regular cameraman.

Recurrent themes in Bergman's films are the conflicts between the sexes, men's and women's inability to communicate with each other, the metaphysical question of the existence of God, and the need of human beings to humiliate one another. Already from his early play Jack among the Actors, Bergman showed his interest in the ambiguous tension between artist and public. Persona (1966) marked Bergman's departure from metaphysics toward the realm of human psychology.

Despite Bergman's international status, his films were not always positively received by critics in Sweden. In 1962 the director Bo Widerberg published a pamphlet attacking him for reinforcing national stereotypes and calling for a new and more socially conscious national cinema. On the other hand, Summer with Monika (1953) was attacked in the United States. Its prints were confiscated in Los Angeles, and a judge declared that the film appealed to potential sex murderers. Smiles of the Summer Night was promoted as "a Swedish smorgasbord of sex, sin and psychiatry..." In the 1970s and 1980s feminists criticized Bergman's portrayal of women, although he has been considered among the most sensitive interpreters of the inner world of women in Europe.

In 1976 Bergman was arrested by two policeman and charged with income-tax fraud. He suffered a nervous breakdown, closed his studio on the Baltic island of Fårö, and left Sweden in protest. The charges were later dropped. Bergman made his home in Munich, where he was a director at the Residenztheater. He also made films, such as The Serpent's Egg (1977), which dealt with the collapse of the German currency and other events of the 1920s that paved the way for the Nazis.

Bergman once noted that the cinema was like an exciting mistress to him, but the theatre was his faithful wife. As a film director his greatest international success was Fanny and Alexander (1983), which received the Oscar for best foreign film. (See also: Jörn Donner, exec. producer, Finnish writer, and director.) In the film a well-to-do Uppsala family comes together to celebrate Christmas 1907. In the film, statues come to life and the ghost of the departed mingle freely with the living. Alexander, a 10-year old boy, finds himself over-active, rebellious clashing with ironclad dogma and the icy Bishop Vergerus.

After returning to Sweden, Bergman wrote film scripts for Billie August and Daniel Bergman and directed at the Royal Swedish Theatre. The Swedish Film Institute launched a new Ingmar Bergman prize to be awarded annually. In 1988 appeared Bergman's autobiography, The Magic Lantern. It was followed by his film memoir Images: My Life in Film (1993). Bergman's novel The Best Intentions (1993) and the screenplay for the 1992 film on the same subject was based on his parents' lives .

Bergman's influence on other directors: Woody Allen, Andrei Tarkovsky - see under Arkady Strugatski - Note: Eino Kaila's Persoonallisuus (translated into Swedish under the title Personlighetens psykologi) was among the works, that the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman highly valued. - Selected films - and bibliography: for a very complete site for Ingmar Bergman see: http://hem.passagen.se/vogler/ Text in Swedish and in Canadian. - For further reading: Ingmar Bergman: Magician and Prophet by Mark Gervais (1999); Ingmar Bergman: His Films and Career by Jerry Vermilye (1998); Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman by Marilyn Johns Blackwell (1997); Between stage and Screen by Egil Tornqvist (1996); Ingmar Bergman by Maaret Koskinen (1993); Ingmar Bergman by Peter Cowie (1992), Ingmar Bergman by Lise-Lote Marker and Frederick J. Marker (1992); The Influence of Existentialism on Ingmar Bergman by Charles B. Ketcham (1988); Ingmar Bergman: A guide to References and Resources by Birgitta Steene (1982); Ingmar Bergman by Peter Cowie (1982); Ingmar Bergman Directs by John Simon (1972); Djävulens ansikte by Jörn Donner (1962)

Plays, memoirs:

• KASPERS DÖD, 1942
• JACK HOS SKÅDESPELARNA, 1946
• MIG TILL SKRÄCK..., 1947
• KAMMA NOLL, 1948
• MORALITETER, 1948 (the three morality plays include Rakel och biografivaktmästaren, Dagenslutar tidigt and Mig till Skräck...)
• STADEN, 1950-51
• MORDET I BARJÄRNA, 1952
• TRÄMÅLNING, 1954
• BERGMAN OM BERGMAN, 1970 (ed. by Stig Björkman)
• EN PASSION, 1972
• UR MARIONETERNAS LIV, 1980
• LATERNA MAGICA, 1987 - The Magic Lantern (autobiography)
• BILDER, 1990 - Images: My Life in Film
• The Best Intentions, 1993 (novel, written as a script for the film by Billie August, which won the Golden Palm Award at Cannes in 1992. Translated by Joan Tate)
• Sunday's Children, 1994 (translated by Joan Tate)
• ENSKILDA SAMTAL, 1996

HETS, (1944)
KRIS, (1946)
DET REGNAR PÅ VÅR KÄRLEK, (1946)
SKEPP TILL INDIALAND, (1947)
KVINNA UTAN ANSIKTE, (1947)
EVA, (1948)
MUSIK IN MÖRKER, (1948)
HAMNSTAD, (1948)
FÄNGELSE, (1949)
TILL GLÄDJE, (1949)
SÅNT HÄNDER INTE HÄR, (1950)
MEDAN STADEN SOVER, (1950)
FRÅNSKILD, (1951)
SOMMARLEK, (1951)
KVINNORS VÄNTAN, (1952)
SOMMAREN MED MONIKA, (1953)
GYCKLARNAS AFTON, (1953)
EN LEKTION I KÄRLEK, (1954)
SOMMARNATTENS LEENDE, (1955)
KVINNODRÖM, (1955)
SISTA PARET UT, (1956)
DET SJUNDE INSEGLET, (1957)
SMULTRONSTÄLLET, (1957)
NÄRA LIVET, (1958)
ANSIKTET, (1958)
JUNGFRUKÄLLAN, (1960)
DJÄVULENS ÖGA, (1960)
LUSTGARDEN, (1961)
SÅSOM I EN SPEGEL, (1961)
NATTVARDSGÄSTERNA, (1962)
TYSTNADEN, (1963)
FÖR ATT INTE TALA OM ALLA DESSA KVINNOR, (1964)
PERSONA, (1966)
STIMULANTIA, (1967)
VARGTIMMEN, (1968)
SKAMMEN, (1968)
RITEN, (1969)
FÅRÖDOKUMENT, (1969)
BERÖRINGEN, (1971)
VISKNINGAR OCH ROP, (1972)
SCENER UR ETT ÄKTENSKAP, (1973)
TROLLFLÖJTEN, (1974)
ANSIKTE MOT ANSIKTE, (1975)
HÖSTSONATEN, (1978)
AUS DEM LEBEN DER MARIONETTEN, (1980)
FANNY OCH ALEXANDER,, (1983)
EFTER EN REPETITIONEN, (1983)
BERGMAN'S LIST, (1995)
DE TVÅ SALIGA, (1986)
DOKUMENT FANNY OCH ALEXANDER, (1986)
KARINS ANSIKTE, (1985)
THE BEST INTENTIONS, (1992)
screenplay: TROLÖSAN, (2000)
KASPERS DÖD, (1942)
JACK HOS SKÅDESPELARNA, (1946)
MIG TILL SKRÄCK..., (1947)
KAMMA NOLL, (1948)
MORALITETER, (1948)
STADEN, (1950)
MORDET I BARJÄRNA, (1952)
TRÄMÅLNING, (1954)
BERGMAN OM BERGMAN, (1970)
EN PASSION, (1972)
UR MARIONETERNAS LIV, (1980)
LATERNA MAGICA, (1987)
BILDER, (1990)
The Best Intentions, (1993)
Sunday's Children, (1994)
ENSKILDA SAMTAL, (1996)