All language subtitles for Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie - Part 1 - The Script

INGMAR BERGMAN MAKES A MOVIE

THE SCRIPT

The reason for visiting
Ingmar Bergman at the Baltic sea,

on the island where he and K�bi Laretei
rented a summer cottage,

stemmed from my theatrical studies
15 years earlier.

I dreamed oflearning
how a film director worked.

I knew Bergman was writing

a new film about a priest.

I would rather put him in front of
a camera in the very act of writing,

but what writer would have
the nerve for that?

I had to wait
until he had finished the script.

That was August 11, 1961.

Winter Light begins with a service
in a desolate provincial church.

After the mass, the priest is visited
by a fisherman and his wife.

Jonas Persson is an introverted man,
anxious about the nuclear bomb.

With the best literary intentions,

I ask how Bergman the writer
came upon that story.

Well, it so happens

I know a priest in the countryside

living in a distant congregation.

I visited him and he was very sad -

The idea had been tucked away
inside me for many years.

He was depressed,
and I asked him why.

"Well, a man took his life here,

and I had spoken with him
just the day before."

The priest blamed himself mercilessly

for not realizing
how serious the situation was.

He blamed himself...

for this man's death,

for not being able
to help him in his agony.

He thought of how impervious
he had been to the man's suffering.

The film is about this fisherman

and his fear of a coming world war.

He has heard that the Chinese
are being educated for war

and that they will have
a nuclear bomb at their disposal.

He read it in the paper
and brooded over it for half a year.

Where did you find that subject?

I read it in the paper some years ago,

and I was pretty shaken by it.

I guess it's about
my own agony as well.

Did you know right away what
the fisherman would be brooding over?

Yes, I did.

- You didn't have to go looking for it?
- Not at all.

If I'm right,
you've directed 24 films.

Twelve of them you wrote yourself.

The other twelve were
adaptations of various kinds.

Is there any difference for you
in writing between now

and when you started?

Yes, a huge difference.

I've always had a huge complex,
great misgivings,

about my own writing.

There are people who have often said,
perhaps justifiably,

that I am no writer,

which, in fact, I never claimed to be.

In the past I was haunted
by these misgivings,

as well as by the fear

of not getting it right.

It was an obstacle to my writing,

which came down
to an act of willpower,

with the accompanying
tensions and inhibitions.

There was so much I had to overcome.

During the last few years,

I've stopped worrying

about what people might say
about what I am doing, because -

It's not that I don't care,

but I can never please
everybody anyway.

I'll find no mercy among those
who dislike what I'm doing anyway.

I think I've calmed down
a bit on that point.

It will take the form it takes.

Was there a period
when you tried to please everyone?

Working in this medium
and being a man of the theater,

I'm like the common whore.

I have an enormous need for people
to like me and what I'm doing.

That it be accepted
and praised and so forth.

It's always painful
to be disapproved of.

You've said it's difficult to read
a script and visualize what's in it.

What is the actual difficulty?

Does everybody in the film business
have this difficulty, even the actors?

Yes, very much so.

It's a very complicated task.

When writing my own scripts,

I try to make them readable

by avoiding a lot
of technical instructions.

The script that arrives at the studio

is structured like

a play, a drama,
with a lot of scenic instructions.

No technical arrangements,
though, for cameras and so on.

Can you anticipate
any particular problem,

anything especially bothersome,

or any specific conflict for this film?

Yes. You see,
in writing this script,

I put some serious obstacles
in my own path.

Even though I know it's hell
to work with children and animals,

nevertheless I have
a little boy and a dog in it.

And even though I know
that a snowfall

that continues throughout
an entire scene

is practically impossible,

I have it in there, and I want to solve
this problem at any cost,

because I feel it's necessary.

But there are certain limits
to what can be accomplished.

Jonas the fisherman
pays a visit to the priest,

who is feeling sick and miserable
and shaken by a fever.

"Eventually the attack passes
and he calms down,

but when he looks up,
Jonas is gone.

No footsteps, no doors closing,

no wind whistling through the cracks -
just absolute silence.

He goes to the window -
no car, no tracks."

Will you use a series of different shots
or one continuous shot of the priest?

Well, you see,
I will partly use the sound.

You see, when working

in close conjunction
with the audio track,

it's like an accompanying chord,
although unnoticeable.

The most important thing is
to create a complete -

As he recovers from his fever attack,

there is this complete silence.

I would minimize
the usual noise in the studio,

or in the church,
or in these surroundings.

The normal background noise,

I will minimize even that.

Each movement will be accompanied
by almost no sound at all,

thus creating
a frightening silence around it.

And as he looks up in this silence,

it will have a powerful impact
on the audience, as silences always do.

A silence will hit -

I'm working
much more with silence

than with sound.

The silence will hit people incredibly
hard, since they don't expect it.

So he looks up during this silence,

and here I'll insert shots of the door,

the window, the chair
whereJonas sat,

and then back to him.

So then there's this feeling
of a suffocating loneliness

and silence that has fallen upon him.

Are you after the notion
that the fisherman's visit

might have been a dream?
That it may not have happened?

Yes, but not too obviously.
One must be able to think-

I want this eerie sort of feeling,
that he never was there, to linger on.

Is this a facial shot of the priest?

Yes, always facial.
The priest's eyes are so important.

This is the alpha
and the omega for me,

the eyes of the actors.

What the eyes can yield

is for me the essential
of all filmed art.

I go on about this
only because there's so much

that can't be anticipated when writing,
compared to visualizing it.

What will the scenery look like?

For example, there's a scene
of the police officer's car

"with its motor running,
this being November and outdoors.

He and another man are bending over
a body lying by a ditch.

A few boys are standing close by,
curious, scared, cold and motionless,

with caps over their faces
and running noses. "

This shot will be highly dependent
on the choice of the ditch.

Yes, it is extremely complicated,

the choice of exterior sites.

You can search for
one damned little piece of road,

ready to kill yourself
to find the right one...

that meets your filming needs.

It has to provide
the right visual feeling,

the right atmosphere.

It's hard to describe
what it might be.

It's always very specific
from one time to the next.

Quite ordinary things

might create immense difficulties.

Once the script is completed,
production starts for real.

Gunnar Bj�rnstrand and Ingrid Thulin
are hired for the leading roles,

Max von Sydow and Gunnel Lindblom
for the fisherman and his wife.

In September 1961, the company left
for Dalarna to scout for exteriors.

The architect P.A. Lundgren,

photographer Sven Nykvist,
and production head Lars-Owe Carlberg.

And then something
very typical occurred.

They traveled all the way
from Orsa to Falun

on a railway built in part
by Ingmar Bergman's grandfather,

in search of a crossroads
near which to film.

But they ended up finding it

just a stone's throw from the hotel
where the crew stayed,

in the middle of R�ttvik.

They searched for churches as well.

Photographer Sven Nykvist knew he was
in for particular lighting problems,

as the story takes place
on a cloudy Sunday in November.

Generally one thinks that light
on a cloudy day doesn't change,

but to see how it does
indeed change

during, let's say, a high mass,

we sat in various churches
and studied the light.

Every ten minutes
I would take a snapshot

to see how the light was changing,
and these proved very useful.

I glued them into the script,

and I'd look at them
from time to time while filming.

What characterizes that light?

It's completely shadowless.

In the past we'd have used
big effects, big windows,

and so on.

This time we tried to achieve
a totally shadowless image,

and that proved to be
much more difficult

than using conventional
filming technique.

We didn't achieve it
just with lights.

We had to build special reflectors
and large screens

and work with waxed paper sheets
and indirect lighting.

And it was very difficult to light
churches with indirect lighting.

Have you always studied
real light and its reflections

the same way that you did here?

No, I must admit I haven't.

Earlier films
had to be beautifully shot,

the beauty of each image
for its own sake.

Fortunately, we've left that
behind us entirely.

Earlier one could not do a film
with enough coarseness and realism.

We were always trying
for a certain beauty.

But making as many films as you do -

you work in Germany
and back home -

aren't you tempted
to repeat yourself?

No, and that's the fascinating part
of my job, and one I like the most:

Changing styles
from one film to another,

and working so closely
with the director.

Before starting to shoot,
you've had intense discussions with him.

It gives you time to get
into the feeling of the film.

And by then you've agreed
on the result you want.

Right. And then there are
the lengthy preparations,

taking your time to run tests
until you find the right atmosphere.

Then it's time to start.

Stand by.

Quiet.

Silence.

Camera.

Testing.
Bj�rnstrand, take one.

Look into the camera.

Straight ahead,
and then turn to the right.

Then you look back again.

Now to the left.

Mago, where are you?
- Here.

Take a look here.
Stop the camera.

I think they're a bit too long.

I'll use a pair of suspenders.

That might do it.

I think we might need
one of those flat ones.

One that closes in the back?

That will make it a bit higher.

That might be good.

Are these supposed to be seen?

I think that would look cleaner.

That's all.
I think we're done with that.

Thank you.

Who'd believe you'd put so much effort
into ordinary, everyday clothing?

The actors will be filmed over and over
until the right pieces are found.

To that end,
a clothing expert will be hired.

I asked Mago- Max Goldstein-

ifhe talks with Bergman
before sketching the costumes.

Not anymore.

Nowadays, after reading the script,
I prepare my sketches,

and then I'm very eager
to talk with Ingmar

about everything I have in mind.

And as eager as I am
to have that conversation,

Ingmar is just as eager
to postpone it.

Why is that?

He explained it to me once.

He feels once he's lived

with these characters for so long,

perhaps a year, or however long
it takes him to write a script,

he finds it

downright awkward
to get that close to them.

I keep asking what kind of socks
they should be wearing,

even about their underwear.

But he wants to keep
his distance from all that.

He's not comfortable having
his own characters that close to himself.

You built a roof
over the whole church.

Did you never light
from the ceiling?

In an ordinary film studio,
the roof is always open.

There are spotlights
up above everything,

and the temptation
is to use too much light.

If there's too much light on the hair,
there will be halos around their heads,

but that kind of light
never exists in real life.

This church that we rebuilt
is very large,

but we were so bold
as to build a roof on it

so I wouldn't have the chance
to light from above.

Not only because of the light,
of course.

Normally we would have
built it without the roof

so we could place the lights
on top of the set.

Let's see.
This is the chancel,

and this is the sacristy,

and over there is the organ loft.

And what's that over there?

It's the crypt with a roof over it.

Ingmar, can I talk to you for a moment?
I want to show you these things.

This one is really beautiful.

- Are they hymn boards?
- Yes.

And they come
from different churches?

Yes. This one is from Forsbacka,

and this one from Lillkyrka.

It's very beautiful with its crown.

How old is it?

- About 300 years old.
- Are you sure?

- Yes.
- What about this one?

A few hundred years.

It's really very nice.

I think I want that one.

K. A. Bergman,
usually called K.A. In the business,

is the prop master.

He'll obtain all the objects
needed for the film.

Ingmar usually refers to him
as the "Mozart of prop masters."

In Winter Light
he had an additional function.

There's a sexton in the film
named Algot Fr�vik,

who knows more about suffering
than the priest has ever known.

This sexton has
the same illness as K.A.

What is your illness exactly?

It's called Bechterew's disease.
It was discovered by a Russian doctor.

What kind of illness is it?

It's a bad rheumatic ailment
that starts in the back,

paralyzing it with cartilage
in between the discs.

Then it hits your knees,
ankles and shoulders.

But it doesn't affect the hands.

My neck is stiff.
I can never bend back and look up.

So I have to walk backwards,
and that's hard in my job.

When did this illness hit you?

1952.

It started with a sprained ankle,
or so we thought.

We were out on a filming job
with Rune Lindstr�m.

The doctors said
it was a sprained ankle

and gave me a supportive bandage.

I got better.

This was after having had a cold.

But you've managed
to do your job anyway.

Well, I didn't do work
of any kind for a few years.

I just could not work.

Then I joined the Svensk Filmindustri,
and I jumped in on commercials and such.

Then I joined Ingmar on
Wild Strawberries,

and I just continued to get better.

Maybe he's the reason for that.

Do you feel all right
back at work again?

Yes, no doubt about that.

You see, staying in bed
when you're ill is wrong.

You have to keep moving.
Even if it hurts, you have to fight it.

The comfortable atmosphere
on the set,

good coworkers and everything -
it helps.

You see, I love my job,

especially handling
these old objects.

I get to meet
a lot of interesting people,

people in the world
of museums and antiques.

There is so much to be learned.

The role of Fr�vik-

played by Allan Edwall-

are you working with him?

So far we haven't had time,
but we will start soon.

In fact, I'll see him tonight.

He'll watch how I move
and walk and so on.

You know,
I dance like a ballet god.

I'm sure it will be okay.

He's a terrific guy to work with.

I think that's enough
for this first test.

I think that looks good now.

Thank you.

Why do you pluck
your eyebrows like that?

These eyebrows
have been in a lot of films,

and they've been cut
and shaved every time,

so they tend to grow back very thick.

And for this old schoolboy
I'm playing now,

they need to be slightly thinner.

Thick eyebrows are too virile,
while the smooth look on top is not.

They need to match.

One issue especially interests me.

What did Ingmar Bergman say to you
when he handed you the script?

How much did he comment on it,

and how much
did he leave unaddressed?

Unaddressed...

He doesn't interpret his writing for you.
He doesn't like to do that.

Did you like the character
or dislike him?

I liked him

because he's so universal.

If you were to judge him,
would you be gentle or harsh on him?

His qualities as a person.

He's a strong man.

He does his job,
despite the great doubts he suffers.

He has the willpower
to do the right thing.

That I admire.

He keeps at it, despite everything.

That I like.

He's an ordinary man.

Not a genius.
Just a normal human being.

Anybody can identify with him, really.

You just mentioned the schoolboy in him.
How does that fit in?

Perhaps he's not
a very good psychologist.

Perhaps he doesn't reach his congregation
in any truly imaginative way,

and this weighs on him as a priest
in this one case.

- He's a little frozen and lonely.
- Yes.

Frozen and locked up inside himself.

Will the audience like this character?

There is no glamour in him.
None at all.

That's difficult.

Yes, it's difficult for the audience.

One never knows
how he will engage the audience.

Your films are usually connected.

Can you say how this film
is connected to others you've made?

In theme it's connected to,
for instance,

Through a Glass Darkly,

and to The Virgin Spring.

But also through the structure,
the format of a chamber play.

I have always felt The Virgin Spring
is a form of chamber music.

And so is Through a Glass Darkly,
and even more so.

It's composed like chamber music.

It's even in three movements,

and it's very limited
in the number of actors, and so on.

As for theme, all three films
deal with changes

in the image of God.

What can you say about that?

Though it's very complicated,
I will try,

though I'm not sure I can.

In my earlier works
I always left the issue open -

What issue?

The existence of God.

In The Virgin Spring,

I let God answer
in the form of a ballad,

as the spring begins to flow.

For me that was

a timid way
of closing in on the issue,

and setting forth my own views

on the reality of God.

In Through a Glass Darkly,
it is even more clearly visible.

The gist of it,
and the credo behind it,

is that God is love and love is God.

The proof of God

is the existence of love

as something very concrete
in the human world.

And then you know,
which is the eerie part,

I've taken on this whole problem

in Winter Light.

To be forced to tear apart
this whole idea of God,

which is a search for security.

Now I've tried to find

one that is even broader-

a more distinct
and clear idea of God.

Why did you have to tear apart the idea
of God from Through a Glass Darkly?

Well, think about it.
It's obvious why.

Here's this fisherman
with his fear of the Chinese

and their latent threat of war.

It's hard to tell a man
sitting in front of you,

"Stop worrying about the Chinese,
because God is love."

Or: "You should go on feeling secure,
as love is what matters."

It does exist in the world,
you know, in a very real way.

Would you say that idea of God
is rather narrow,

that it's based only on security?

Yes, I think so.

I have felt that more and more.

- Like the security of a child?
- Yes.

I had to purge myself,
and very painfully too,

of that old idea of God,
where God is the father.

A father-son-like relationship.

A God of one's own creation,
a God of security.

It was quite an ordeal,
wrestling with this concept.

Deep down,
this is what the film is about.

To state it simply,
your first period of filmmaking

was a rebellion against authorities
and fathers of different kinds.

Then there was a long series
of reconciliations

in Wild Strawberries
and other films

where you accepted
the secure, fatherly image of God.

Yes, it all began there.
That's how I had to do it.

First revolution and rebellion
against the father figure,

and then acceptance.

I could then calmly set it aside,

and not project
a paternal image onto God.

I understand you're very careful
in this new film...

not to propose a new image of God?

That's right.

The drama and the passion

don't take place
in Tomas, the protagonist,

but in the nonbeliever M�rta,

who carries in her the seed
of a new image of God.

She's the one who has the will
and drive for life in her,

and she passes them on to Tomas.

Sometimes you focus on
religious themes in a series of movies,

and then you make
other kinds of movies.

They seem to come in waves.

Yes, they come in intervals.

Like with The Seventh Seal?

I wrote my way out of my agony,

this huge latent fear of death
that I managed to purge.

It's like the separation
between the knight and J�ns.

The rationalist and the seeker.

After that, the religious problem
left me in peace for a long time.

So you managed to get rid of
the fear of dying by writing about it?

Either I did away with that fear
through writing,

or in the course of writing
I discovered

it was no longer so intrusive

or threatening.

The bottom line is it's gone.

This manuscript is dated
Thursday, August 7 th, 1961,

but farther down on the page
there are three letters: SDG.

Can you tell me what they stand for?

That's my own little secret.

It might seem a little unusual.

You know Bach?

- Johann Sebastian?
- Yes.

He wrote SDG
on his compositions.

It's Latin. Soli Deo Gloria,
"To God alone be the glory."

Perhaps it's presumptuous of me
to write the same,

but I have a feeling that l-

in some way,
anonymously, objectively-

have done this for the glory of God,

and would like
to give it to Him as it is.

As if we were

participating in building
a cathedral, you know.

That's how I feel, and that's why
I have to add those three letters.

Isn't that the enormous contradiction

that people have difficulty
understanding in your work?

On the one hand, your wild ambition,

and on the other hand,
your dream ofbeing totally anonymous,

like a single brick in a building
made by a good builder.

Yeah, but the older I get-

Of course, I've had my glory,
my worldly-

I've had everything of that kind
that you can get,

and have discovered that it's indifferent,
ridiculous, quite empty,

and, in fact, damned troublesome.

So it isn't so hard
for this man Bergman

to want to be an anonymous creator,

now that I've had it all.

It's an urge I've had forever,

to be an anonymous part
of the whole,

even in my own creative process.

To leave it all behind,

this confounded struggle
for originality

and artistic-

A sort of IngemarJohansson
of the arts,

hitting hard- or, better still, harder-
every time,

jumping higher and faster.

Instead, it's about calming down
and quietly resting

in the service of the congregation.

Well, let's go see how you fit
your stone into this structure.