Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Hamish Hamilton Ltd (1988), 320 pages
Description
Den svenske filminstruktørs (f. 1918) erindringer om barndommen i præstefamilien, voksenlivets kærlighedsforhold og ikke mindst om hans mange teateropsætninger og filmindspilninger.
User reviews
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
The easiest insight into famed film director Ingmar Bergman is probably found through viewing his films. Better perhaps would be an opportunity to witness the many, many plays he staged over his long career, if that were possible. Somewhere in between, I think, lies this autobiography. At times
The autobiography is especially interesting on Bergman’s creative process. He appears to have been primarily gifted with a prodigious capacity for work and the self-discipline to take advantage of that. He seems to be constantly writing theatre plays, screenplays, radio dramas. And when he isn’t being directly creative with his pen, he is painstakingly producing notes towards the production of these plays, films, and dramas. The workload over such a long stretch becomes astonishing. And it confirms his oft-stated claim that he was merely a craftsman diligently working to produce something of use for his audience.
At times he is insightful but more often his vanity and pride blur insight. And with his early confession that he was, even as a boy, a committed liar, there is always a suspicion on the part of the reader that some this might be, well, imaginative. But even through lies we sometimes gain glimpses of truth, obliquely.
Certainly recommended.
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impressionistic, even fanciful. At times sentimental. At times full of anger as he recalls, usually, his childhood relationship with his father. Rarely systematic. Key incidents, such as the spurious tax investigation of his affairs which prompted him to later take up a self-imposed exile from his beloved Sweden, get a thorough airing. Others, such as his numerous marriages, births of his children, etc. barely register. An egoist through and through, but with a keen hope that his egoism might yet be translated into a universal humanism.The autobiography is especially interesting on Bergman’s creative process. He appears to have been primarily gifted with a prodigious capacity for work and the self-discipline to take advantage of that. He seems to be constantly writing theatre plays, screenplays, radio dramas. And when he isn’t being directly creative with his pen, he is painstakingly producing notes towards the production of these plays, films, and dramas. The workload over such a long stretch becomes astonishing. And it confirms his oft-stated claim that he was merely a craftsman diligently working to produce something of use for his audience.
At times he is insightful but more often his vanity and pride blur insight. And with his early confession that he was, even as a boy, a committed liar, there is always a suspicion on the part of the reader that some this might be, well, imaginative. But even through lies we sometimes gain glimpses of truth, obliquely.
Certainly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member vpfluke
This book, an autobiography of the great Swedish movie maker, Ingmar Brgman, was read in our Enneagram Meet-up group in New York City. Many did not find Bergman to be a very likable person even though may have liked his films. His great focus on his career led to many disappointments and
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disconnections in his family and love relations. His multiple marriages meant that he barely knew his children. Bergman is considered to be a Type 4 on the range of Enneagram personality types, very much of an Individualist, who gets drawn into ones self. But they can be great revealers of the forces that shape our lives and destinies as he was able to play them out in his theater production and his movies. Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
(Original Review, 2007)
Bergman devotes a number of pages to his experience as a 16 year old schoolboy on an exchange visit to a German family who were all ardent Nazis. He recalls attending a rally in Weimar, at which Hitler delivered a short speech, and being entirely caught up in “the eruption
While I’m sure that Bergman’s account of his experiences is entirely self-serving, the things that strike me are:
Firstly, that many middle-class Swedes in the 1930s and into the 1940s did think that the Nazis, vulgar and prone to regrettable excesses as they were, were infinitely preferable to the godless Bolshevik hordes in the east, and that geopolitical reality meant that it really was a choice between one or the other.
Secondly, I can easily imagine my sheltered 16 year old self, given the same situation as Bergman, having the same reaction. We all like to imagine that we would have been heroes of resistance in the Nazi era. Reality suggests this is a comforting illusion we afford ourselves (even if we’re lucky enough to write for the Socialist Review).
Bergman goes on to note that when the truth of the holocaust came out he went through denial and into ‘despair and self-contempt’. Is that an apology? It doesn’t seem like an attempt to avoid self-criticism. He also notes that it left him with a conviction never again to get involved in politics – which links up with the generation of ’68 dismissing him as a bourgeois individualist dilettante.
Whatever. I’m still left with ‘The Seventh Seal’ and ‘Wild Strawberries’ being two of the most astonishing films I’ve ever seen (the former having gifted cinema one of the great character images of the last 100 years, imitated and parodied by everyone from Woody Allen to Bill and Ted). And with ‘Fanny and Alexander’, one of the few films to be genuinely Shakespearean in its embrace of the complications of what it means to be human. (Complications that seem to be entirely beyond the comprehension of our modern puritanical film-goers).
Dig up the corpse, put him on the scaffold, and ban all the films forever. It is about time to burn all those Caravaggios, a truly bad man by 2007 standards. Never mind that his art is unbeatable. Cinema is a voyeuristic, libidinal art-form inherent exploitative in exploiting the ecstatic potential of simulating a dream. This is why the wide screen is inherently myth-making for its ideals of human beauty and the dangers attached to it. In this sense, actors and actresses sign a pact with the devil for their immortality, whether this be the bad behaviour of an obsessive Hitchcock or a hyper bisexual avant-gardist like Fassbinder. A Hollywood that draws a line under the decadent power of cinema will soon let the American industry die out in favour of television and the field will be left to Asian auteurs or even the odd European in the guise of aesthetes like Sorrentino or Guadagnino. What I mean is please stop the cultural revisionism according to which titanic artistic figures are dragged through the mire of contemporary philistinism. It debases both the artists and the issues. The only cause it serves is the proliferation of idiocy, anti-intellectualism and an already far-advanced bout of puritanism. At the end of the day, well, women are mysterious, any woman will tell you that. Photography is problematic isn't it? And? Easy to finger point at people who explore life through a lens, branding them predatory and controlling rather than creative and honest. Isn't all cinema somewhat pornographic in the end? It's bloody weird whatever it is. Enjoyable though, often the more problematic the more enjoyable it is, though the days when directors were encouraged to use the medium in any authorial, creatively personal way really seems to have slowed to a dribble now.
Having said that, I just don't hero worship someone over directing a film, even if I like it. But I do like Bergman's films a lot.
Bergman devotes a number of pages to his experience as a 16 year old schoolboy on an exchange visit to a German family who were all ardent Nazis. He recalls attending a rally in Weimar, at which Hitler delivered a short speech, and being entirely caught up in “the eruption
Show More
of immense energy”. When he left to return to Sweden the family gave him a present of a photograph of Hitler.While I’m sure that Bergman’s account of his experiences is entirely self-serving, the things that strike me are:
Firstly, that many middle-class Swedes in the 1930s and into the 1940s did think that the Nazis, vulgar and prone to regrettable excesses as they were, were infinitely preferable to the godless Bolshevik hordes in the east, and that geopolitical reality meant that it really was a choice between one or the other.
Secondly, I can easily imagine my sheltered 16 year old self, given the same situation as Bergman, having the same reaction. We all like to imagine that we would have been heroes of resistance in the Nazi era. Reality suggests this is a comforting illusion we afford ourselves (even if we’re lucky enough to write for the Socialist Review).
Bergman goes on to note that when the truth of the holocaust came out he went through denial and into ‘despair and self-contempt’. Is that an apology? It doesn’t seem like an attempt to avoid self-criticism. He also notes that it left him with a conviction never again to get involved in politics – which links up with the generation of ’68 dismissing him as a bourgeois individualist dilettante.
Whatever. I’m still left with ‘The Seventh Seal’ and ‘Wild Strawberries’ being two of the most astonishing films I’ve ever seen (the former having gifted cinema one of the great character images of the last 100 years, imitated and parodied by everyone from Woody Allen to Bill and Ted). And with ‘Fanny and Alexander’, one of the few films to be genuinely Shakespearean in its embrace of the complications of what it means to be human. (Complications that seem to be entirely beyond the comprehension of our modern puritanical film-goers).
Dig up the corpse, put him on the scaffold, and ban all the films forever. It is about time to burn all those Caravaggios, a truly bad man by 2007 standards. Never mind that his art is unbeatable. Cinema is a voyeuristic, libidinal art-form inherent exploitative in exploiting the ecstatic potential of simulating a dream. This is why the wide screen is inherently myth-making for its ideals of human beauty and the dangers attached to it. In this sense, actors and actresses sign a pact with the devil for their immortality, whether this be the bad behaviour of an obsessive Hitchcock or a hyper bisexual avant-gardist like Fassbinder. A Hollywood that draws a line under the decadent power of cinema will soon let the American industry die out in favour of television and the field will be left to Asian auteurs or even the odd European in the guise of aesthetes like Sorrentino or Guadagnino. What I mean is please stop the cultural revisionism according to which titanic artistic figures are dragged through the mire of contemporary philistinism. It debases both the artists and the issues. The only cause it serves is the proliferation of idiocy, anti-intellectualism and an already far-advanced bout of puritanism. At the end of the day, well, women are mysterious, any woman will tell you that. Photography is problematic isn't it? And? Easy to finger point at people who explore life through a lens, branding them predatory and controlling rather than creative and honest. Isn't all cinema somewhat pornographic in the end? It's bloody weird whatever it is. Enjoyable though, often the more problematic the more enjoyable it is, though the days when directors were encouraged to use the medium in any authorial, creatively personal way really seems to have slowed to a dribble now.
Having said that, I just don't hero worship someone over directing a film, even if I like it. But I do like Bergman's films a lot.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bibliothecarivs
Like his films, Bergman's memoir dokuments the varieties of human life in an artistically honest way, even the elements we typically avoid or don't acknowledge.
Having closed the book a few minutes ago, my overwhelming feeling is of a warm kinship with young Ingmar. In a different time and place, I
I sometimes find myself grieving that I only discovered Bergman soon after he died- that I couldn't love him while he was alive. It's a feeling I commonly have for historical figures that I'm interested in but in this case the proximity of his life to mine makes it particularly acute. Knowing the outline of my grandfather's life helps me place Bergman's life in recent history. He was born in 1918, as was my grandfather. After a long career, in 1980 Bergman announced the production of Fanny and Alexander, which would become his last film and one of his most beloved, a couple months after I was born. He died in 2007 and I discovered his work when I viewed The Seventh Seal for the first time in 2009, just before my grandfather died.
At least Bergman's legacy lives on through his films, books (including those written by his lovers, family, admirers, and critics), interviews, and the foundation (ingmarbergman.se/en).
Having closed the book a few minutes ago, my overwhelming feeling is of a warm kinship with young Ingmar. In a different time and place, I
Show More
think I would have been the best of friends with him.I sometimes find myself grieving that I only discovered Bergman soon after he died- that I couldn't love him while he was alive. It's a feeling I commonly have for historical figures that I'm interested in but in this case the proximity of his life to mine makes it particularly acute. Knowing the outline of my grandfather's life helps me place Bergman's life in recent history. He was born in 1918, as was my grandfather. After a long career, in 1980 Bergman announced the production of Fanny and Alexander, which would become his last film and one of his most beloved, a couple months after I was born. He died in 2007 and I discovered his work when I viewed The Seventh Seal for the first time in 2009, just before my grandfather died.
At least Bergman's legacy lives on through his films, books (including those written by his lovers, family, admirers, and critics), interviews, and the foundation (ingmarbergman.se/en).
Show Less
Awards
Original language
Swedish
Original publication date
1987 (Swedish)
Physical description
320 p.; 1 inches
ISBN
0241121477 / 9780241121474
DDC/MDS
| 791.430233092 |