Film Director Ingmar Bergman Dies
The Associated Press
Monday, July 30, 2007; 5:26 AM
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, an iconoclastic filmmaker widely regarded as one of the great masters of modern cinema, died Monday, local media reported. He was 89 years old.
Bergman died at his home in Faro, Sweden, Swedish news agency TT said, citing his daughter Eva Bergman. A cause of death wasn't immediately available.
Through more than 50 films, Bergman's vision encompassed all the extremes of his beloved Sweden: the claustrophobic gloom of unending winter nights, the gentle merriment of glowing summer evenings and the bleak magnificence of the island where he spent his last years.
Bergman, who approached difficult subjects such as plague and madness with inventive technique and carefully honed writing, became one of the towering figures of serious filmmaking.
He was "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera," Woody Allen said in a 70th birthday tribute in 1988.
Bergman first gained international attention with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."
"The Seventh Seal," released in 1957, riveted critics and audiences. An allegorical tale of the medieval Black Plague years, it contains one of cinema's most famous scenes _ a knight playing chess with the shrouded figure of Death.
"I was terribly scared of death," Bergman said of his state of mind when making the film, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the best picture category.
The film distilled the essence of Bergman's work _ high seriousness, flashes of unexpected humor and striking images.
In an interview in 2004 with Swedish broadcaster SVT, the reclusive filmmaker admitted that he was reluctant to view his work.
"I don't watch my own films very often. I become so jittery and ready to cry ... and miserable. I think it's awful," Bergman said.
Though best known internationally for his films, Bergman was also a prominent stage director. He worked at several playhouses in Sweden from the mid-1940s, including the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm which he headed from 1963 to 1966. He staged many plays by the Swedish author August Strindberg, whom he cited as an inspiration.
i was hoping to post death first. that's what i get for sleeping in. the seventh seal is one of my favorites as well. beta did you check the history of this ever evolving game. it may have been that in the middle ages the black square was in the lower right hand corner?
Have to make my list in this order:
-Smultronstället
-Sjunde sigillet
-Viskningar och rop
and I totally love his take on relationship-tv-drama "Scener ur ett äktenskap" - with Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson.
Thought he would make a new film after Saraband... well. I guess he more than did his share allready.
Aug 1, 07 6:22 am ·
·
[coincidental reading within the last hour...]
... This is why cinima is the most alive, the most exciting, the most important of all art forms right now. Perhaps the way one tells how alive a particular art form is is by the latitude it gives for making mistakes in it and still being good. For example, a few of the films of Bergman--though crammed with lame messages about the modern spirit, thereby inviting interpretations--still triumph over the pretentious intentions of their director. In Winter Light and The Silence, the beauty and visual sophistication of the images subvert before our eyes the callow pseudo-intellectuality of the story and some of the dialogue. (The most remarkable instance of this sort of discrepancy is the work of D.W. Griffith.) In good films, there is always a directness that entirely frees us from the itch to interpret. Many old Hollywood films, like those of Cukor, Walsh, Hawks, and countless other directors, have this liberating anti-symbolic quality, no less than the best work of the new European directors, like Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim, Godard's Breathless and Vivre Sa Vie, Antonioni's L'Avventura, and Olmi's The Fiances.
--Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation" (1964).
I wonder what the Sontag, Bergman and Antonioni are discussing right now. No doubt something beyond the status quo, perhaps even beyond interpretation.
Aug 2, 07 11:00 am ·
·
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Film Director Ingmar Bergman Dies
Film Director Ingmar Bergman Dies
The Associated Press
Monday, July 30, 2007; 5:26 AM
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, an iconoclastic filmmaker widely regarded as one of the great masters of modern cinema, died Monday, local media reported. He was 89 years old.
Bergman died at his home in Faro, Sweden, Swedish news agency TT said, citing his daughter Eva Bergman. A cause of death wasn't immediately available.
Through more than 50 films, Bergman's vision encompassed all the extremes of his beloved Sweden: the claustrophobic gloom of unending winter nights, the gentle merriment of glowing summer evenings and the bleak magnificence of the island where he spent his last years.
Bergman, who approached difficult subjects such as plague and madness with inventive technique and carefully honed writing, became one of the towering figures of serious filmmaking.
He was "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera," Woody Allen said in a 70th birthday tribute in 1988.
Bergman first gained international attention with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."
"The Seventh Seal," released in 1957, riveted critics and audiences. An allegorical tale of the medieval Black Plague years, it contains one of cinema's most famous scenes _ a knight playing chess with the shrouded figure of Death.
"I was terribly scared of death," Bergman said of his state of mind when making the film, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the best picture category.
The film distilled the essence of Bergman's work _ high seriousness, flashes of unexpected humor and striking images.
In an interview in 2004 with Swedish broadcaster SVT, the reclusive filmmaker admitted that he was reluctant to view his work.
"I don't watch my own films very often. I become so jittery and ready to cry ... and miserable. I think it's awful," Bergman said.
Though best known internationally for his films, Bergman was also a prominent stage director. He worked at several playhouses in Sweden from the mid-1940s, including the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm which he headed from 1963 to 1966. He staged many plays by the Swedish author August Strindberg, whom he cited as an inspiration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/30/AR2007073000247.html?nav=rss_artsandliving/entertainmentnews
one of my all time fave films...
...sad. hey, the chess board in the second image is set up wrong. love the film though.
i was hoping to post death first. that's what i get for sleeping in. the seventh seal is one of my favorites as well. beta did you check the history of this ever evolving game. it may have been that in the middle ages the black square was in the lower right hand corner?
sad news...i also love "persona"...a fantastic bergman film...elizabeth cuts her foot, and the film/plot begins to deconstruct itself...
although cinema has lost one of its masters, i am sure his films will continue to inspire many...
fanny & alexander .. a brilliant and under-watched bergman classic.
Have to make my list in this order:
-Smultronstället
-Sjunde sigillet
-Viskningar och rop
and I totally love his take on relationship-tv-drama "Scener ur ett äktenskap" - with Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson.
Thought he would make a new film after Saraband... well. I guess he more than did his share allready.
[coincidental reading within the last hour...]
... This is why cinima is the most alive, the most exciting, the most important of all art forms right now. Perhaps the way one tells how alive a particular art form is is by the latitude it gives for making mistakes in it and still being good. For example, a few of the films of Bergman--though crammed with lame messages about the modern spirit, thereby inviting interpretations--still triumph over the pretentious intentions of their director. In Winter Light and The Silence, the beauty and visual sophistication of the images subvert before our eyes the callow pseudo-intellectuality of the story and some of the dialogue. (The most remarkable instance of this sort of discrepancy is the work of D.W. Griffith.) In good films, there is always a directness that entirely frees us from the itch to interpret. Many old Hollywood films, like those of Cukor, Walsh, Hawks, and countless other directors, have this liberating anti-symbolic quality, no less than the best work of the new European directors, like Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim, Godard's Breathless and Vivre Sa Vie, Antonioni's L'Avventura, and Olmi's The Fiances.
--Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation" (1964).
I wonder what the Sontag, Bergman and Antonioni are discussing right now. No doubt something beyond the status quo, perhaps even beyond interpretation.
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