Bergman on Bergman

by Ingmar Bergman, Torsten Manns, Stig Björkman, et al.

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671217194
• ISBN13: 9780671217198
• Release Date: July 1974
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Not always exciting, but always essential Bergman

After heaving read "Trier about von Trier", an interview also conducted by Stig Bjoerkman, it became unavoidable to read the Bergman book, too. So many references to Bergman's films, so huge a relevance he has for today's film-makers not just in Scandinavia, but all over the world. The Interview was conducted quite late, I think 1990, so many films are far and lost in the momories of an old man. He is also very humble about many films, pretending not to remember them propoerly or waving them off as unimportant. Those where he accepts the discussion must be wort seeing, however, and the comments by the two interview partners give you some exciting insight in what it must be like to experience them for the first time (in some repsect, this means, I can be glad that I have hardly seen any Bergman film so far, only "Snake's Egg", I think, and he does not seem to like that one). In particular, I think, the following ones should be on the shelf soon (and maybe seen in the order of initial release): (not sure about the respective English titles): "The Summer with Monika", "For one Summer", Wild Strawberries", "Scenes of a Marriage", "The Silence", "The Face","Hour of the Wolf:, "Light in Winter" "Persona", "Shame", "7th Seal", "Fanny and Alexander". And so on... There's a task at hand!

Essential but dated

Ingmar Bergman fans should all get to know this book. It's a series of interviews done in the late 1960s, in which he discusses his entire career in relevant but not excruciating detail. My local art house cinema just put on a big Bergman retrospective, and it was fun to be able to see the films and then read the director's comments on them. The photos are nice too; they include such famous sequences as the first dream from "Wild Strawberries" and the opening of "Persona."I have a couple of small objections. First, the book stops in 1970 (not that big a problem, as most of his really good films were made before that date). Second, there are some issues I wish he'd covered in more detail; sometimes the journalists direct the conversation too much. But these are minor flaws in an essential book on one of cinema's great directors.