Cinema Science

This is taken from The New York Times.

Ingmar Bergman died today, at 89.

There have been plenty of books written about him. But Bergman’s own autobiography, “The Magic Lantern,” was published in 1988, in a translation by Joan Tate. It was reviewed in The Book Review by Woody Allen.

“Less than ennobling,” Allen wrote, “was the motive for seeing my first Ingmar Bergman movie. The facts were these: I was a teen-ager living in Brooklyn, and word had got around that there was a Swedish film coming to our local foreign film house in which a young woman swam completely naked. Rarely have I slept overnight on the curb to be the first on line for a movie, but when ‘Summer With Monika’ opened at the Jewel in Flatbush, a young boy with red hair and black-rimmed glasses could be seen clubbing senior citizens to the floor in an effort to insure the choicest, unobstructed seat.”

Allen continued:

I never knew who directed the film nor did I care, nor was I sensitive at that age to the power of the work itself - the irony, the tensions, the German Expressionist style with its poetic black-and-white photography and its erotic sadomasochistic undertones. I came away reliving only the moment Harriet Andersson disrobed, and although it was my first exposure to a director who I would come to believe was pound for pound the best of all film makers, I did not know it then.

…

Only in the late 50’s, when I took my then wife to see a much talked about movie with the unpromising title ‘’Wild Strawberries,'’ did I lock into what was to become a lifelong addiction to the films of Ingmar Bergman. I still recall my mouth dry and my heart pounding away from the first uncanny dream sequence to the last serene close-up. Who can forget such images? The clock with no hands. The horse-drawn hearse suddenly becoming stuck - the blinding sunlight and the face of the old man as he is being pulled into the coffin by his own dead body. Clearly here was a master with an inspired personal style; an artist of deep concern and intellect, whose films would prove equal to great European literature. Shortly after that I saw ‘’The Magician,'’ an audacious black-and-white dramatization of certain Kierkegaardian ideas presented as an occult tale and spun out in an original, hypnotic camera style that reached its crescendo years later in the dreamlike ‘’Cries and Whispers.'’ Lest the Kierkegaardian reference make the movie sound too dry or didactic, please be assured, ‘’The Magician,'’ like most of Bergman’s films, had one foot brilliantly planted in show business.

In addition to all else - and perhaps most important - Bergman is a great entertainer; a storyteller who never loses sight of the fact that no matter what ideas he’s chosen to communicate, films are for exciting an audience. His theatricality is inspired. Such imaginative use of old-fashioned Gothic lighting and stylish compositions. The flamboyant surrealism of the dreams and symbols. The opening montage of ‘’Persona,'’ the dinner in ‘’Hour of the Wolf'’ and, in ‘’The Passion of Anna,'’ the chutzpah to stop the engrossing story at intervals and let the actors explain to the audience what they are trying to do with their portrayals, are moments of showmanship at its best.

After a while, Allen finally got around to talking about Bergman’s memoir:

It’s a lot about stomach problems. But it’s interesting. It’s random, anecdotal. It’s not chronological, as one’s life story should be. There is no building saga of how he began and gradually worked himself up to dominate the Swedish stage and screen. The story skips around, back and forth, apparently depending on the author’s spontaneity. It includes odd tales and sad feelings. An odd tale: as a young boy being locked inside a mortuary and becoming fascinated by the naked corpse of a young woman. A sad feeling: ‘’My wife and I live near each other. One of us thinks and the other answers, or the other way round. I have no means of describing our affinity. One problem is insoluble. One day the blow will fall and separate us. No friendly god will turn us into a tree to shade the farm.'’ It leaves out things you’d bet he’d discuss. His films, for instance. Well, maybe he doesn’t leave them out exactly but there’s much less than you’d expect, considering he’s made over 40. There’s also not much about his wives in this book. He’s had plenty. (And lots of children too, though they’re hardly mentioned.) That includes Liv Ullmann, who lived with him for years and was the mother of one of his children and a great star in his pictures. But there’s not much about any of the actors and actresses in his films.

So what is there? Well, many gripping revelations, but they’re mostly about his childhood. And about his theater work. Interestingly he draws a picture of every single scene before he stages it. And there is a moving account of how he directed Anders Ek, an actor in several films, who had developed leukemia and was using his own fear of approaching death to portray a Strindberg character. Bergman loves the theater. It’s his real family. In fact, the warm, lovable family in ‘’Fanny and Alexander'’ didn’t exist for real - they were meant to symbolize the theater. (This isn’t in the book. I happen to know it.) He writes too of his maladies: ‘’I suffered from several indefinable illnesses and could never really decide whether I wanted to live at all.'’ His weak bodily functions: ‘’In all the theatres I have worked in for any length of time, I have been given my own lavatory.'’

His breakdown is in there too, over the income tax scandal. It’s mesmerizing to read about it. In 1976, Bergman was crudely snatched from a rehearsal and taken to police headquarters over money owed the Government because of his mishandling of income tax payments. It was not unlike the type of thing that occurs so frequently where one hires an accountant, presumes he will handle everything brilliantly and aboveboard and finds later one has trustingly signed papers without understanding them or even reading them. The fact that he was innocent of willful dishonesty and a national treasure did not prevent the authorities from dealing with him harshly and boorishly. The result was a nervous breakdown, hospitalization and self-imposed exile to Germany with profound feelings of rage and humiliation.

Finally, the picture one gets is of a highly emotional soul, not easily adaptable to life in this cold, cruel world, yet very professional and productive and, of course, a genius in the dramatic arts. In the translation by Joan Tate, Bergman writes quite well and one is often caught up and moved by his descriptions. I lapped up every page, but I’m no test because I have a great interest in this particular artist. It was hard for me to believe he has already turned 70. In his book he recalls when at 10 he was given a magic lantern, which projected shadows on the wall. It stimulated a love affair with movies that is touching in its depth of feeling. Now that he is world-renowned and retired from cinema, he writes the following: ‘’My chair is comfortable, the room cosy, it grows dark and the first trembling picture is outlined on the white wall. It is quiet, the projector humming faintly in the well-insulated projection room. The shadows move, turning their faces towards me, urging me to pay attention to their destinies. Sixty years have gone by but the excitement is still the same.'’