The Bergman Century
The Bergman Century
May 25 - June 7
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ingmar Bergman's birth, the Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul proudly brings 16 of his greatest films to the Twin Cities. Spanning three decades, The Bergman Century features his greatest achievements (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Cries and Whispers) and some of his lesser-known, though equally remarkable, films (Port of Call, Shame, The Touch.) A must-see for fans of the Swedish auteur. Co-sponsored by the Embassy of Sweden and the American Swedish Institute.
All films in Swedish w/English subtitles unless otherwise noted
Text by Peter Cowie
EARLY LIFE AND PATH TO THE THEATER Ingmar Bergman was born on July 14, 1918, during the final year of the Great War, which also saw the population of Europe ravaged by the Spanish flu, and Sweden in particular suffering from severe food shortages due to the disastrous harvest of 1917. Frail from the outset, Bergman would for the rest of his life be prone to hypochondria. His father, a Lutheran pastor who rose to become chaplain to the Royal Court and a favorite of the Swedish Queen Victoria, treated his children with sometimes alarming severity. Ingmar, an imaginative boy, sought escape from this harsh regime. He built a puppet playhouse in the nursery, and acquired a magic lantern from his elder brother, Dag, in exchange for a collection of toy soldiers. He bestowed his inherent affections on his maternal grandmother, who lived in a rambling apartment in Uppsala, some forty miles north of Stockholm. (He would later recreate this mysterious, richly furnished apartment in 1982’s Fanny and Alexander, one of the many films for which he drew directly from his own early years.) Ingmar also enjoyed the family’s summer holidays in the province of Dalarna, where his father had when young helped to construct the local railway. Here he could indulge his daydreaming, a habit he retained throughout his adult life. Indeed, no greater fantasist has graced the Scandinavian cinema. While enrolled at university, he finally rebelled against the often crushing discipline meted out by his parents, striking his father during an argument at home and then fleeing to Stockholm’s Old Town, where he slept rough and flung himself into stage production. By the age of twenty, he was directing one student production after another. Even well after he started making films, Bergman remained involved in the theater and achieved a mastery of the form. He came to use lighting brilliantly and paid great attention to production design. When he brought Goethe’s Urfaust to London in 1959, a young Max von Sydow as Faust entered a theater plunged in darkness, apart from a single spotlight on his face. In his 1970 production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, the deep crimson of Bergman’s decor and costumes created |
what one British drama critic called “a bloodshot, brooding nightmare.” A CAREER IN THE CINEMA In 1942, following the premiere of his play The Death of Punch, Bergman was contacted by Svensk Filmindustri and offered a position in the studio’s script department. By 1944, the veteran Alf Sjöberg had agreed to direct Bergman’s screenplay for Torment, and the film’s eventual success led to SF offering Bergman the chance to make his own first film, Crisis (1946). Thus began a career governed by two irrepressible forces. One was a work ethic that insisted that every hour of every day should have its appointed task, which helps explain his remarkable level of productivity. The other was his creative partnerships, including regular collaborations with actors such as Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, and Harriet Andersson. (Bergman, who would marry five times, also became romantically involved with the latter three.) Although the films of the 1940s remained largely unseen outside his home country, the 1950s forged Bergman’s reputation, yielding a stream of masterpieces that responded to the zeitgeist. This decade gave us lyrical films like Summer with Monika (1953), which became a hit in the United States after it was reedited by its distributor into a shorter and more sensational form, and Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), which was Bergman’s first film in competition at Cannes. The director finally achieved worldwide fame thanks to the triumph of the more philosophical The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries (both 1957), with the latter’s screenplay earning him the first of many Oscar nominations. By March 1960, Time magazine featured Bergman on its cover. Bergman’s Nordic austerity, in the tradition of Søren Kierkegaard, Edvard Munch, and Carl Dreyer, offered a sober alternative to the freewheeling works of the French New Wave and British kitchen-sink realism. He became known for tackling a range of subjects in a wide variety of tones—turning to nineteenth-century mesmerism for the clever The Magician (1958), for example, and conjuring up the mood of medieval Sweden in the harrowing The Virgin Spring |
(1960). The 1960s saw Bergman paring his technique even further to the bone in stark, unadorned chamber dramas like Winter Light (1962) and The Silence (1963). Persona (1966), a psychological duel between two women, struck Bergman’s followers like a blow to the solar plexus. Only eighty-three minutes in length, Brechtian in its distancing effects, and perplexing in its intuitive attitude toward human relations, Persona showed that the director could experiment with the medium to stunning effect. TELEVISION WORK AND RETIREMENT FROM FILM It was at this juncture that Bergman turned to television, creating with Scenes from a Marriage (1973) one of the finest and most popular European miniseries of all time, and with The Magic Flute (1975) arguably the best screen rendition of Mozart’s opera. When he was unjustly accused of evading taxes, he went into self-imposed exile in Munich, producing several plays and directing films that reflected his anxieties and frustration. The Serpent’s Egg (1977) was set during the catastrophic collapse of German society in the 1920s and the ominous rise of Nazism, and From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) dwelt on the murder of a prostitute by a businessman and has a jagged intensity born of Bergman’s unhappy situation outside his home country. With the fiscal charges against him dismissed, Bergman returned to Sweden to make a crowning masterpiece, Fanny and Alexander, which won four Academy Awards, including one for Bergman’s longtime cinematographer, Sven Nykvist. “Retiring” officially from the cinema, Bergman then devoted his energies to the theater and television in equal measure, starting with the compelling chamber work After the Rehearsal (1984). His swan song came in 2003 with Saraband, a sequel to Scenes from a Marriage made for Swedish TV but released in cinemas abroad. Bergman’s final decades were spent in almost monastic isolation on the island of Fårö, north of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. He had discovered the island while seeking locations for Through a Glass Darkly in 1960, and its bleak, rocky shores brought him the peace he needed to write until the very end of his life. He died there on July 30, 2007. |
Individual Tickets | |
Film Society / ASI Members | $5.00 |
General Admission | $9.50 |
General Matinee (before 5pm) | $6.75 |
Students | $6.00 |
Persona | Friday, May 25, 4:00pm |
Port of Call | Friday, May 25, 7:00pm |
Hour of the Wolf | Friday, May 25, 9:30pm |
The Touch | Saturday, May 26, 1:00pm |
Summer with Monika | Saturday, May 26, 4:00pm |
Sawdust and Tinsel | Saturday, May 26, 7:00pm |
Through the Glass Darkly | Saturday, May 26, 9:30pm |
Shame | Sunday, May 27, 1:00pm |
Cries and Whispers | Sunday, May 27, 4:00pm |
Smiles of a Summer Night | Sunday, May 27, 7:00pm |
The Virgin Spring | Sunday, May 27, 9:30pm |
Autumn Sonata | Monday, May 28, 1:00pm |
The Magic Flute | Monday, May 28, 4:00pm |
The Seventh Seal | Monday, May 28, 7:00pm |
Persona | Monday, May 28, 9:30pm |
The Virgin Spring | Tuesday, May 29, 4:00pm |
Wild Strawberries | Tuesday, May 29, 7:00pm |
Shame | Tuesday, May 29, 9:30pm |
Sawdust and Tinsel | Wednesday, May 30, 4:00pm |
The Magician | Wednesday, May 30, 7:00pm |
Autumn Sonata | Wednesday, May 30, 9:30pm |
The touch | Thursday, May 31, 4:00pm |
The Virgin Spring | Thursday, May 31, 7:00pm |
Summer With Monika | Thursday, May 31, 9:30pm |
Smiles of a Summer Night | Friday, June 1, 4:00pm |
Through the Glass Darkly | June 1, Friday, 7:00pm |
Cries and Whispers | Friday, June 1, 9:30pm |
The Magic Flute | Saturday, June 2, 1:00pm |
Port of Call | Saturday, June 2, 4:00pm |
Hour of the Wolf | Saturday, June 2, 7:00pm |
Sawdust and Tinsel | Saturday, June 2, 9:30pm |
Wild Strawberries | Sunday, June 3, 1:00pm |
The Seventh Seal | Sunday, June3, 4:00pm |
Shame | Sunday. June 3, 7:00pm |
The Magician | Monday, June 4, 4:00pm |
The Touch | Monday, June 4, 7:00pm |
Port of Call | Monday, June 4, 9:30pm |
Through the Glass Darkly | Tuesday, June 5, 4:00pm |
Cries and Whispers | Tuesday, June 5, 7:00pm |
The Seventh Seal | Tuesday, June 5, 9:30pm |
Wild Strawberries | Wednesday, June 6, 7:00pm |
Smiles of a Summer Night | Wednesday, June 6, 9:30pm |
Hour of the Wolf | Thursday, June 7, 4:00pm |
Autumn Sonata | Thursday, June 7, 7:00pm |
The Magician | Thursday, June 7, 9:30pm |
FILM LINEUP
In chronological order of original release year
Port of Call (Hamnstad)
1948 | 97 min
Friday, May 25 at 7:00pm, Saturday, June 2 at 4:00pm, Monday, June 4 at 9:30pm
Berit, a suicidal young woman living in a working-class port town, unexpectedly falls for Gösta, a sailor on leave.
READ MORESawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas Afton)
1953 | 92 min
Saturday, May 26 at 7:00pm, Wednesday, May 30 at 4:00pm, Saturday, June 2 at 9:30pm
The story of the charged relationship between a turn-of-the-century traveling circus owner and his performer girlfriend features dreamlike detours and twisted psychosexual power plays.
READ MORESummer With Monika (Sommaren Med Monika)
1953 | 97 min
Saturday, May 26 at 4:00pm, Thursday, May 31 at 9:30pm
A girl and boy from working-class families in Stockholm run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities.
READ MORESmiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens Leende)
1955 | 108 min
Sunday, May 27 at 7:00pm, Friday, June 1 at 4:00pm, Wednesday, June 6 at 9:45pm
During a weekend in the country, four women collude to force their four men to confront matters of the heart, exposing everyone’s pretensions and insecurities.
READ MOREThe Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet)
1957 | 96 min
Monday, May 28 at 7:00pm, Sunday, June 3 at 4:00pm, Tuesday, June 5 at 9:30pm
Disillusioned and exhausted after a decade of battling in the Crusades, a knight encounters Death on a desolate beach and challenges him to a fateful game of chess.
READ MOREWild Strawberries (SmultronstäLlet)
1957 | 92 min
Tuesday, May 29 at 7:00pm, Sunday, June 3 at 1:00pm, Wednesday, June 6 at 4:00pm
Traveling to accept an honorary degree, Professor Isak Borg is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and make peace with the inevitability of his approaching death.
READ MOREThe Magician (Ansiktet)
1958 | 101 min
Wednesday, May 30 at 7:00pm, Monday, June 4 at 4:00pm, Thursday, June 7 at 9:30pm
Dr. Vogler, a nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions, finds his magic put to the test in Stockholm by the cruel, eminently rational royal medical adviser Dr. Vergérus, in this diabolical battle of wits.
READ MOREThe Virgin Spring (JungfrukäLlan)
1960 | 90 min
Sunday, May 27 at 9:30pm, Tuesday, May 29 at 4:00pm, Thursday, May 31 at 7:00pm
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, The Virgin Spring is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden.
READ MOREThrough a Glass Darkly (SåSom I en Spegel)
1961 | 91 min
Sunday, May 26 at 9:30pm, Friday, June 1 at 7:00pm, Tuesday, June 5 at 4:00pm
While vacationing on a remote island retreat, a family’s already fragile ties are tested when daughter Karin discovers her father has been using her schizophrenia for his own literary means. Winner of the 1962 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
READ MOREPersona
1966 | 83 min
Friday, May 25 at 4:00pm, Monday, May 28 at 9:30pm
A famous actress has gone mute. When a young nurse begins caring for her in a remote island cottage, the women perform a mysterious spiritual and emotional transference that proves to be one of cinema’s most influential creations.
READ MOREHour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen)
1968 | 88 min
Friday, May 25 at 9:30pm, Saturday, June 2 at 7:00pm, Thursday, June 7 at 4:00pm
A haunted painter living in voluntary exile with his wife are invited to a nearby castle for dinner, and things start to go wrong with a vengeance, as a coven of sinister aristocrats hastens the artist’s psychological deterioration.
READ MOREShame (Skammen)
1968 | 103 min
Sunday, May 27 at 1:00pm, Tuesday, May 29 at 9:30pm, Sunday, June 3 at 7:00pm
A pair of musicians are living in quiet retreat on a remote island farm, when the civil war that drove them from the city catches up with them, driving them toward uncomfortable moral choices.
READ MOREThe Touch (BeröRingen)
1971 | 115 min
Saturday, May 26 at 1:00pm, Thursday, May 31 at 4:00pm, Monday, June 4 at 7:00pm
A chance encounter between seemingly contented housewife Karin and intense American archaeologist David leads to the initiation of a torrid and tempestuous affair, one that eventually threatens the stability of her life with a respected local surgeon.
READ MORECries and Whispers (Viskningar Och Rop)
1972 | 91 min
Sunday, May 27 at 4:00pm, Friday, June 1 at 9:30pm, Tuesday, June 5 at 7:00pm
Two sisters, Karin and Maria, are keeping vigil for a third, Agnes, who is dying of cancer and can find solace only in the arms of a beatific servant. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
READ MOREThe Magic Flute (TrollflöJten)
1975 | 135 min
Monday, May 28 at 4:00pm, Sunday, June 2 at 1:00pm, Wednesday, June 6 at 7:00pm
The Magic Flute stars Josef Köstlinger as Tamino, the young man determined to rescue a beautiful princess from the clutches of parental evil in this rousing cinematic adaptation of Mozart’s famed opera.
READ MOREAutumn Sonata (Höstsonaten)
1978 | 93 min
Monday, May 28 at 1:00pm, Wednesday, May 30 at 9:30pm, Thursday, June 7 at 7:00PM
Ingrid Bergman is an icy concert pianist; Liv Ullmann isher eldest daughter, and over the course of a day and a long, painful night the pair confront the bitter discord of their relationship.
READ MORE