ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film, theatre and television director, screenwriter and producer. He is recognized as one of the most accomplished and influential film directors of all time. He was born in Uppsala, Sweden. Bergman’s interest in theatre and film began at an early age, when he was nine years old. In 1937, he enrolled in the study of art and literature at Stockholm University. He spent most of his time in the student theatre and became a “true film addict.” Although he did not graduate, he wrote numerous plays as well as operas, and became an assistant theatre director. In 1942, he was offered the opportunity to direct one of his own plays, Caspar’s Death. The production was seen by members of the Svensk Filmindustri production company, who subsequently offered Bergman a position as a screenwriter. In 1943, he married Elsa Fischer.

Bergman’s film career began in 1941 with his revised screenplays, but his first success came in 1944, when he wrote the screenplay for Torment, a film directed by Alf Sjöberg. Over the following decade, he directed and wrote more than ten films, including Prison (1949), Sawdust and Tinsel and Summer with Monika, both released in 1953.

Bergman’s first major international success was Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), which received the Best Poetic Humor award and was nominated for the Palme d’Or the following year. This success was followed by The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, both released in Sweden in 1957. From the early 1960s onward, he spent much of his life on the Swedish island of Fårö, where he filmed several of his works.

In the early 1960s, he directed three films exploring the themes of faith and doubt in God: Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1962) and The Silence (1963). In 1964, he made All These Women, a parody of 8½. In 1966, he directed Persona, a film he considered one of his most significant works. Although this shockingly experimental film received several awards, many consider it his masterpiece.

Following his arrest in 1976 on charges of tax evasion, Bergman stated that he would no longer make films in Sweden. He closed his film studio on the island of Fårö and went into exile. He briefly considered working in the United States, and his next film, The Serpent’s Egg (1977), was a German-American production and his second film in English (the first being The Touch in 1971). A year later, he made Autumn Sonata, starring Ingrid Bergman. His next film was From the Life of the Marionettes (1980), a British-German production. In 1982, he temporarily returned to his homeland to direct Fanny and Alexander.

Bergman assembled a personal “repertory company” of Swedish actors whom he frequently cast in his films. Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann, who appeared in nine of Bergman’s films and in one television film (Saraband), was the last to join the company, in Persona (1966), and later became Bergman’s closest collaborator, both artistically and personally. Together they had a daughter, Linn Ullmann (born in 1966).

Although Bergman is best known for his contribution to cinema, he remained active and prolific as a theatre director throughout his life. During his studies at Stockholm University, he became active in the student theatre, where he soon established a reputation for himself. After leaving university, he first worked as a trainee director at the Stockholm City Theatre. At the age of 26, he became the youngest theatre manager in Europe, at the Helsingborg City Theatre. He remained in Helsingborg for three years, after which he became a director at the Gothenburg City Theatre, where he worked from 1946 to 1949. In 1953, he became director of the Malmö City Theatre, where he remained for the next seven years.

After leaving Sweden following the tax-evasion incident, he became director of the Residenztheater in Munich (1977–1984). He remained active in theatre throughout the 1990s, and his final production was Ibsen’s The Wild Duck at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 2002. He retired from directing at the end of 2003.

In October 2006, he was recovering from hip surgery. He died peacefully in his sleep at his home on Fårö on 30 July 2007, at the age of 89, on the same day as another renowned director, Michelangelo Antonioni. He was buried on the island on 18 August 2007 in a private ceremony.