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[hooves clomping]

[donkey braying]

[dramatic, swirling orchestral music]

[brooding instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

That's an old tree.

[pulsing instrumental music]

[cheerful orchestral music]

- This is a prop from the Wizard of Oz.

- [Woman] What does it mean, "omrade"?

- [Voiceover] Private area.

- Hey, what is this, Big Brother is talking to us?

[piped in foreign language]

It, it's a little bit frightening, yeah?

I must say.

Um, there is no dog, huh, tell me the truth.

Because if there is a dog coming, then I.

[knocking]

- [Voiceover] Come in.

- [Voiceover] Come in.

- [Haneke] Hello.

- So we leave our shoes where?

- [Voiceover] Just inside the door

and then you'll switch.

- Nope, that's too small.

[cheerful orchestral music]

[twangy Asian instrumental music]

- [Woman on right] Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- [Woman] This is, uh, where we are.

- Set, Bergman set.

It's hard because you ask me why

people nervous talking about him,

especially filmmakers.

Actually, it's more revered, it's in awe.

- [Voiceover] Okay.

- [Voiceover] Need more time for your notes?

- No, I'm okay.

Let me, sometimes I forget the chronology of his work, but.

- [Voiceover] Uh, that's okay, I can.

- And who's doing this again?

- [Voiceover] We're good, right?

- I did like his movies, I, I was saying before

I was trying to review some of the movies

so I could be more, you know, more, uh,

up to speed about, if you hit me with a question,

I might be able to answer.

So now I'm at a disadvantage.

I've been carrying them around with me, too,

and I've been trying.

I've been so busy though.

- [Voiceover] All right. - And I will see them

but if I see you in six months,

I will have seen them, but not now.

- What actors are, um, are comedians

from the Bergman films?

Like any of the big, the one that, you know,

like Gunnar, uh, Bjoörnstrand.

How do you say Bjoörnstrand?

- [Interviewer] Yes, yes.

- Um, um, uh, I don't know how to pronounce

these names probably, I mean do you say See-dov, right?

- [Interviewer] Uh, von Sydow.

- Von Sydow, yeah, you don't say.

We say See-dow.

Well anyway, in America they say Max von See-dow.

But it's See-dov, right?

Um, but, um, uh, but are those, but none of those guys

are from a comic tradition or are they?

[graceful instrumental music]

[shouting in foreign language]

[laughing]

[surf crashes]

- In my late teens, I saw,

the first one was Summer with Monika.

I think, I can't remember now.

But, uh, there was such a big fuss over it in Brooklyn

where I lived, 'cause there was a nude scene in it.

And everybody in the neighborhood was running to the movies.

Not to see the movie, to see the nude scene.

And, uh, I was no different than anybody else.

And, and I thought it was a very good picture.

A really excellent, excellent movie.

And then the name Ingmar Bergman didn't mean anything to me.

I just saw the film, never thought about the director,

and went home.

- When I would see, like, Monika

and sexy Sweden movies and, you know,

the pictures of the women, like, splashed all over.

There's probably one frame in the picture that has this,

but they splash it all over the theater and, um,

you know, I didn't know, I was also, you know,

very, very much involved with Roman Catholicism at the time.

Uh, there was the condemned list.

And most of Ingmar Bergman's films were on those.

I read an interview,

he had a different way of looking at things obviously.

I read an interview with the New York Times years ago.

Um, of Bergman, when they asked him

if he thought anything was funny, and he said, "Yeah, sex.

"Sex is very funny."

And I guess it is.

I, I don't remember it. [laughs]

[gentle instrumental music]

[gentle instrumental music]

- I had a wonderful two, three hours once

with Harriet Andersson.

I didn't know who she was.

I didn't know this was the girl I had had this crush on

from age 17 to.

She was so nice.

But I didn't know who she was.

I knew she was a Swedish actress.

She was, you know, a mature woman.

And, but she was really nice.

And, but she was really nice.

[surf crashes]

- I remember what I felt

when I saw Monika the first time.

I felt physically

what is it to be

a young woman.

This feeling of summer, youth,

and to be in the present.

There is for me, till today, something unique

in that film, like...

How, how many time,

maybe three time,

I wrote a script that I called Monika.

Because I thought it's like a magical word for me.

To say a young woman

with a

body that is alive.

I took it

as if it was made only for me.

as if it was made only for me.

[surf crashes]

[surf crashes]

[percussive instrumental music]

[percussive instrumental music]

- Well, I saw my first, uh, Ingmar Bergman film

back in 19, uh,

it felt like 1956, 57.

That was a time when, in America,

there were the beginnings of art houses.

And I saw The Magician

and I saw, uh,

excuse, me, before that, The Seventh Seal,

then The Magician,

and then, maybe I saw, later, Smiles of a Summer, uh, Night,

and, um, that was my favorite.

I thought that was, I loved the.

The one I really responded to as a young person

was that one.

Just the masterful way he orchestrated,

and beautiful performances of all the actors,

and the way it all fit together and, you know,

just memorable,

memorable scenes that had been prepared for

and then came to play just to, he just

put that together so beautifully.

[percussive instrumental music]

[wind rushes]

[wind rushes]

- [Anderson] Maybe, um, let's see, this is actually.

[banging]

I think the back way.

- [Voiceover] That's a strange place to have a toilet.

- [Anderson] Yeah, I know.

- I would like to know if it's possible to, uh,

shoot you on the balcony

so we have something to edit it with.

- [Anderson] Sure.

- [Interviewer] Looking out at Paris.

- Yeah, that'd be fine.

[gentle instrumental music]

- Comedy's not the word you think of, uh, with Bergman.

He is one of those directors who can do movies

where there is not a single joke in the whole movie

and the movie stays, and the movie does not suffer for it.

Um, and there aren't that many.

There aren't that many movies you can think of

where you say there was nothing funny.

There is comic dialogue that's sort of

archly comic and it's not like,

it isn't like spontaneously comic.

It's more like, kind of, very written jokes.

You know, which are probably not hysterically funny.

But the mood does have a lightness that goes with that

and it's all really of a piece

and it's, um, and.

You know, but it, but it, it may not be the hand

of a, of a comedy director doing it.

It's just such a well done film, um,

and that's the tone of it.

I mean, maybe that, does that make, does that sound right?

I mean, maybe that, does that make, does that sound right?

[graceful orchestral music]

- I don't see the films as funny.

I mean, sometimes an exasperation.

It's like, aw, God, don't do that and they do it. [laughs]

- We never spoke about religion, God,

philosophy, death.

One thing that we did speak in relation to death,

he was telling me that in some

of his most heavy moments,

uh, and when they're doing Death,

you know, on The Seventh Seal,

the crew would be laughing

and they would be, you know,

very aware that they were making

a melodramatic moment for everybody,

and nobody took anything very seriously in that sense.

[pulsing instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

- One of the things about Bergman

is he was very bold

and whenever you do something

different or for the first time,

it's very hard to understand,

for a later audience,

the impact of that.

I mean, now The Seventh Seal

is like a joke, you know.

I mean, it's, you know, the image of Death with the scythe

and, uh, playing chess with Death and.

The Seventh Seal, it becomes,

it's like a cliche.

But at the time, it was so radical

and startling

and impressive,

and I still like that movie,

but there're things in the movie now

that you've seen satirized so much

that it's hard to see it.

- Well, he's easy to parody 'cause he's such a stylist,

and so, um,

so intense,

you know, that you can parody him.

- I can confess and say of Mr. Bergman's

many, many, many films.

How many features did he direct?

45, 50, 55, something like that?

A lot, he directed a lot.

And did stuff for TV late in life.

And his wonderful, uh, how prolific he was.

I've maybe only seen 10.

I don't think The Seventh Seal holds up.

And that's one of people's favorite films.

You, every, you see Seventh Seal in college

and it's so profound and all that.

You see it later, and it's laughable.

But others of his films hold up more , probably.

- There's some films that require

some knowledge to get the maximum out of.

And, uh, you know, a film like The Magician

or The Seventh Seal,

it helps if you know some philosophy.

When I first saw these films,

I didn't know my Danish philosophy

or German philosophy.

Uh, so, but I was able

to completely be enthralled by them

because he's such a great storyteller, you know.

And, and now I, I can see them

and, uh, understand them more.

- God.

It's such an odd idea

to walk through a landscape at the time of the plague.

And that Death will be a chap

following you around with a chess game.

And, uh, it'll eventually catch you up, it'll get to you.

I thought it was so brutal, that's what.

It was beautifully brutal.

Once I came to Royal College, I would honestly spend

almost two or three nights a week

in the National Film Theater

'cause there was a student ticket price

so you could go in there with your pack of cigarettes.

So I watched almost all of the Bergman films,

Kurosawa, and, you know,

anything interesting or different.

Um, Polish films, so it was an entire door opened

on alternative cinema.

Which of course I took to

completely hook, line, and sinker.

And Bergman's stuff, everything about it

was, uh, he comes from the school of everything.

I like you quoting the school of everything.

Where those directors are into everything.

It's not just the script, the story, the actors,

but how it looks.

Um, it's mood is very, very important.

My favorite one, of course, was Seventh Seal.

Which I think was absolutely remarkable

in its, its ideas and, um, its journey.

Was almost like science fiction, it was so amazing.

Was almost like science fiction, it was so amazing.

[rhythmic piano music]

[rhythmic piano music]

It's perfect.

It's perfect.

[droning instrumental music]

- I think more than almost anybody else,

he was very religious, and it felt like a religion

that was similar to the one I'd come out of, so.

Very strict and kind of, uh, very channeled lifes

and, you know, not doing anything that would displease God

and having your children in line and all of those things.

Um, but I also loved his sense of theater.

Um, sort of the costumes.

The fact that you could have Death as a character

and talking to people and saying,

"Well, your time is up,

"that's why I'm sawing down the tree you're in."

You know, that sort of feel.

You know, that sort of feel.

- [Voiceover] When did you start thinking about death?

- Very young.

You know, it's been an obsessive,

uh, subject with me since I was tiny boy,

five, six years old,

and I think

that may be a big reason

why Bergman resonated with me so much.

[quietly dramatic instrumental music]

[quietly dramatic instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

- There is no real way of dealing with it.

You, you, all you can do

is distract yourself.

If you don't distract yourself,

then you're faced with thinking about it.

When you think about it, it's a

terrifying and impossible

losing proposition.

So it's best to try

and not think about it, and if not thinking about it

means that you turn on a Fred Astaire movie

or you go to a football game

or you, you know, spend your energy

trying to write a play

and figure out the problems

of the second act

and they consume you,

great, be consumed by this trivia.

[surf crashes]

[pulsing instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

New York was showing Wild Strawberries.

That's the first time I knew the name.

' Cause I saw it in print.

And I saw the picture

and related it back to Summer with Monika

and, uh, The Naked Night.

And then, very shortly after that,

they showed, I believe in a double feature,

The Seventh Seal and The Magician.

And, and by that time,

I was completely,

you know, hooked.

I mean, completely.

I just thought he was

the best filmmaker that I'd ever seen.

[pulsing instrumental music]

He was entertaining.

You know, it was not

going to a film I'm supposed to like

'cause it's a noble film

or a worthy film.

It was actually entertaining.

The burden of entertainment was on him.

I paid the, the dollar and a half or whatever it was

and sat down in the movie theater

and he grabbed me right away

and I was completely mesmerized

and suspenseful for the whole movie,

involved in it, 'cause he was a wonderful entertainer.

And his images were so beautiful

and dramatic and full of feeling

and potent,

and the, the content,

the intellectual content of the movie

resonated deeply with me.

They were all,

he was touching on themes and ideas, feelings,

that were very, very meaningful to me personally.

that were very, very meaningful to me personally.

[pulsing instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

[rhythmic instrumental music]

[rhythmic instrumental music]

- I didn't like Virgin Spring when I saw it

'cause I thought

this is like a medieval revenge play,

and then I realized, oh, wait a minute,

it is a medieval revenge play. [laughs]

[tinkling instrumental music]

- I checked out Virgin of Spring again recently

to see was it a little,

um, naive.

Not at all.

All his stuff still stands right there.

It still holds up.

- In The Virgin Spring, things get tougher, stronger.

The real fascinating part of that story

and the way it's done, which, uh,

is, uh, the association.

There seems to be always something in his work

that has something that's pre-Christian.

As pre-Christian as something that comes out

of that landscape.

That is, um, of a different

culture and mindset.

That is something that may have been almost wiped away

by, by conversion to Christianity,

almost but not quite.

You know, out of, I don't know, Scandinavia,

Iceland, you know.

And that seems to always be fighting.

There seems to be a tension, uh,

with his characters.

And Virgin Spring has that flat-out, you see it completely.

You feel it and, uh,

I guess one just has to.

At that time, I didn't know, I was young.

But one has to read, you know, the.

You read the Sagas or the Icelandic Sagas

and you get a sense of what that world might've been like.

You know, and then you impose, uh,

Christianity on it.

And, uh, watch the fun.

And, uh, watch the fun.

- The Virgin Spring was such a perfect story frame.

Um, of, you know, a family that's religious,

a child that's innocent,

going off on a, uh, pilgrimage,

ending up with the rape and murder.

The perfect people, the religious people becoming savage,

and the savages becoming fearful and frightened and crying

and being at the mercy of somebody else

that's being violent.

Just struck me as an incredibly powerful paradigm

for so much of life that involves violence.

- Every time a Bergman film came out,

which was very frequent,

you knew that there was another level

you had to reach to with him

or he was gonna take you.

He may leave you behind a lot maybe,

but you knew there was something special

that you were gonna see.

And it was going to, uh, provoke you creatively,

especially if you decided to start

to make your own pictures.

The major influence, I would say,

was the inspiration of a Bergman,

the, um, opening of the mind if at all possible,

making you feel that anything can be done.

Uh, storytelling, visually,

and, uh, with dialogue.

Looking right at the camera, speaking,

all of this sort of thing.

Uh, this was, this was the key element.

I mean, uh, for me, um,

of Bergman.

But, primarily, what was most inspiring all along

was the, of course, the constant, uh, debate

about the, the spiritual debate, the transcendent debate.

That's what really started

a compulsion to see the Bergman pictures,

even though I didn't understand a lot of what was happening.

Each one of the films was like a little, like a

conversation with himself.

It's almost as if he didn't care to see the pictures.

I mean, you know, of course you did.

Of course, I'm sure he cared.

People saw the films,

but at a certain point, uh,

he just made them

one continuous conversation with himself

and the people around him.

And we still grapple with those ideas.

They're all there, that's why his pictures

are not gonna be out of, out of fashion.

[creeping instrumental music]

[creeping instrumental music]

- Mm hmm, wow.

- Mm hmm, wow.

- [Voiceover] You who wanted my life.

- Mm, wow.

Wow.

- [Voiceover] And I don't know the difference really.

But.

It means that he got mail.

- [Iñárritu] Wow.

- [Iñárritu] Wow.

[pulsing instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] So horrible dreams nowadays.

Uh, they're not merciful.

Sit night.

Here it says, "I'm doing a great career

"and I can't sleep."

I guess these also.

Here, "Afraid, afraid, afraid."

[pulsing instrumental music]

- The end of 1973, I was 18.

That's a day I never, I can never forget.

That's the day of my epiphany, so to speak.

Um, actually it was.

I think back then there's only one film,

Bergman film, available in Taiwan,

in the early '70s.

I saw it with my friends in a film club,

in the screening room.

I saw it twice in a row.

And I couldn't move.

I felt my virginity was taken. [laughs]

By this man.

Uh, I, I didn't get it.

I was just in awe.

I had never seen anything like that

growing up in Taiwan.

Pretty academically, you know, being a good boy.

Don't think about anything fancy, you know.

Just do your homework and get to a college,

and I failed that.

And my mother is a fervent Christian.

She took me to church every Sunday.

And I prayed four times a day till I was 14

and I just quit, I don't.

"Why am I doing this?"

Um, so that was my background.

And I saw Virgin Spring.

I never saw art film before.

Can you imagine the impact?

I was dumbstruck.

I didn't know what hit me.

Um, I never know

you can ask question about faith.

I never

could imagine somebody.

I remember the shot toward the end of.

It still affect me till this days.

When I shoot something contemplative,

I always shoot from people, the back of people's head.

That's the shot, like exactly from here.

The father look up and say, "God, why?"

And when the father's contemplating murder,

he just go up and there's a small tree

by the hill.

I don't know why that shot hit me like a sledgehammer.

And he's just look at a tree and go.

And he's just look at a tree and go.

[quiet instrumental music]

[quiet instrumental music]

- It's a very, very powerful movie.

And, I mean, I know that when it came out,

it was, you know, extremely taboo.

Um, but it kind of still is quite shocking.

Uh, I mean, Bergman, Bergman was just so unafraid.

So unafraid

of just putting the camera in just the most intimate

angle to absorb someone.

For me, you know, watching The Silence,

it invited me into the private realm

of each of these, those three characters.

You know, who, who are the people in that story.

Um, and they each go on these silent journies.

And some of them into a deep, deep

abiding loneliness

that feels unsoothable.

Except for maybe with music.

[halting instrumental music]

That's the beauty of film anyway.

That's, that's the language of film, really,

is what you're seeing.

You know, 'cause also dialogue names the thing.

It's not infinite anymore, it has limits,

it has a ceiling.

You know, and when things are not spoken,

you know, anything is possible.

It could, it has endless depths

and, you know,

it keeps going in all directions.

- Silence is a great tool in cinema,

maybe in all kinds of art film.

I think when I use silence,

I don't purposefully use it,

but I kinda use them quite a bit.

I think that has something to do with

my, my Chinese background.

The Asian background.

The western art deal with matters a lot,

and we deal with space a lot.

It's just by tradition.

So I, I think I like that form quite a bit.

That's, that's the way I will use silence.

Uh, but silence sometimes,

whether it willful or willful,

can be really powerful.

Especially in Bergman films.

[dark drumming music]

[dark drumming music]

[dark drumming music]

- This is a real luxury, to have a library like this.

Now were these his labels?

These are Bergman's labels?

He put those on? - [Voiceover] Yeah.

- He was just prolific.

Persona I've seen three or four times

and I really enjoy that picture.

And I saw my friend Greg who just was like [snores].

You know, and I was really, like,

"Well do you see how she's becoming her

"and they can't tell, it's like."

I'm really into it, he's like, "You're nuts." [laughs]

But, you know, movies, that's the thing about movies,

they're completely subjective.

And everything about a movie,

and this is something.

There's two things I find that people don't understand.

One is, it's not about ideas.

No one gets that, it's not about ideas.

Because ideas are a dime a dozen

and there's no such thing as a new idea.

It's about execution.

Do you know what I mean?

It's about the realization of it, how it's done.

And that's one, and two,

is everything about a film, especially cinema,

is who you are, the viewer,

how old you are, where you are, when you view it.

And when you ask people their favorite movie.

"What's the best, your favorite movie?"

They can always tell you when and where they saw it.

Who they saw it with.

Because it's so much of the experience.

And, plus, you know, as you grow old.

It's a strange word.

I mean, you could say, mature,

grow more sophisticated, grow more worldly.

But the truth is as you age, you experience more.

And things are different.

You know, so many, so many movies that people love,

I say, "Don't see it again."

'Cause if they see it again, they'll go, "Ooh, it's lousy."

[laughs] You know.

That's wonderful that in your library

you have a shelf of books about you.

Which is great.

I wonder if he read them.

- [Voiceover] I think he did.

[pulsing instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

- Yeah, I'm almost sure that the track

has to be around here because it's,

it's kind of the same.

- [Voiceover] Yeah?

- Yeah, it was between the bushes.

Wow!

This is amazing because he, it seems like, uh,

like a old, uh, railroad.

You know what I mean?

I mean, you will never believe that this was used

for a film shot.

I mean, this is like, look at this work.

[elegant piano music]

[elegant piano music]

[film reel clicking]

[eerie instrumental music]

[eerie instrumental music]

[film reel clicking]

[eerie instrumental music]

- He redefined cinema.

Andy Warhol was doing it his way.

In the early '60s.

Uh, so many others, Godard of course.

You know, Truffaut was settling into another style

by that time, by mid-60s.

By '66 this was, I think.

Persona, just, just the montage in the beginning.

You know, you, I don't know if it's,

I don't know if it's the kind of thing you say,

"Well, I enjoy watching."

In other words, but if you do watch it,

you can't stop watching it.

- I was, kind of starting with this high point

of European cinema that went to America,

and that's what I was reading all about,

and that movie is actually such a,

um,

not an anomaly, but it's quite an,

you know, in the body of Bergman's work,

it's not really, you know,

it's one that he went so.

There's such a range of, uh,

kinds of films that Bergman made.

They're all his stories.

But, um, that one has this kind of experimental

energy that sort of, you know,

it's just, uh, deconstructs right in front of you.

Um, and it's not really

like, like so much of his work.

Um, but, um, but that one,

I was very taken with.

[delicate guitar music]

- It struck me how,

how much he is what I wanted to be,

a playwright who got to make

what he wrote as films.

I always wanted to write something

and then get to make it,

which was, which was the blessing Bergman had.

He had his little island

and he would write these original screenplays, plays.

Some of them, I guess, had been plays even.

And got to do that.

So that was very attractive in his career for me.

Most of the other great three filmmakers of that period

was Fellini, Bergman, and Kurosawa.

And they wrote, but they really wrote

with a handful of collaborators.

Bergman really wrote it himself.

So if he wanted something weird to happen

in his script, he could just do it.

I go through that all the time,

when I would get to a point and I'd say,

"I really like to."

Then I say, "Well what the hell, I'm just gonna do it.

"Doesn't matter."

[rhythmic instrumental music]

[rhythmic instrumental music]

[wistful piano music]

- He liked to, uh, when I spoke to him,

he liked to, when he was on Faro,

see a film every day.

And that was his, uh, that was his entertainment.

And I'm sure he had a tremendous collection,

'cause there he was isolated on this island.

And he would talk to me about how he

couldn't go to sleep at night unless he

watched some kind of junk movie

for a little while, you know,

watch a little bit of, like, a James Bond thing

or that kind of movie, just to pacify him.

or that kind of movie, just to pacify him.

Thank you very much.

- [Voiceover] You're welcome.

- [Voiceover] You're welcome.

[gentle instrumental music]

[scratchy voice over intercom]

- Please, please stop him.

- [Denis] I think I'm going to faint.

- [Voiceover] Yes?

- [Denis] No, it, it's like.

It was like too much for me to enter this house.

I don't know what. - [Voiceover] Okay.

- [Denis] I feel terrible. - [Voiceover] Well, we'll take

as much time as you need.

- Do you wanna lie down somewhere?

- [Denis] No, no, no, I don't want to lay down.

I don't want to be in the house anymore.

I think it's frightening for me.

- [Voiceover] It's frightening.

Oh, I think it's too intimate.

I think I.

I think we could leave.

[tense piano music]

[tense piano music]

[surf crashes]

[eerie instrumental music]

[eerie instrumental music]

[screaming]

[tense, dramatic instrumental music]

[tense, dramatic instrumental music]

[jagged instrumental music]

- He did the best dreams along with, uh.

He did the best fantasies and dreams in movies.

Uh, he made things work.

People with no face and that sort of thing

that you could normally see the makeup

or the costuming.

Uh, it didn't matter.

He made it work.

In Hour of the Wolf, he goes, I think,

probably, he pushes it,

and I think he seemed to be playing around

with, uh, with images

from, uh, the Italian horror films at the time.

Or some of the Hammer films, you know.

- Blood From the Mummy's Tomb.

[chuckles] This is a terrible Hammer film.

[droning instrumental music]

- Uh, I think it's very difficult to make

a horror film that in some way

isn't commenting on some part of the culture

and is relevant to a certain,

certain group of people

that can see beyond just the shock value of it.

[droning instrumental music]

[droning instrumental music]

[droning instrumental music]

[droning instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

[droning instrumental music]

[droning instrumental music]

[people chatting in foreign language]

[people chatting in foreign language]

- She actually, I think,

slipped a little note in his pocket

when we were at the film festival,

saying, "We are the two known Swedes,

"and we have never worked together

"and I think we should try."

Then Ingmar came out with the idea of Autumn Sonata.

And Mama was so tremendously pleased.

Uh, she really saw, and it became the farewell film

of her career.

I mean, she was already sick with cancer,

so she knew she wasn't going to survive for long.

so she knew she wasn't going to survive for long.

[gentle piano music]

[gentle piano music]

- I imagine that he was inspired a little bit

by her life, so he imagined a woman

that was very successful, very taken with her career.

Uh, she was a pianist in the film instead of an actress.

But she was very glamorous, very beautiful,

traveled the world, and she has, back home, two children

that she has neglected.

Mother was, uh,

pleased to work with him

but a little bit irritated by

the theory that, uh, inevitably,

a career woman would have to neglect her family.

She thought that was very old fashioned of Ingmar

and put up a certain amount of resistance.

- She, I think, suffered in her life of being accused

of, uh, having sacrificed us or her husbands

or other aspect of her life

to have a career.

Something that a man would not be automatically scolded for.

[droning instrumental music]

[droning instrumental music]

[children screaming]

[children screaming]

[laughing]

[laughing]

[knocking]

[knocking]

[screaming and laughing]

[screaming and laughing]

[film reel clicking]

- You know, I, he said to me once,

"I have this dream always that I show up on the set

"and I don't know where to put the camera.

"I don't know what to do."

And, uh, you know, and that's a typical anxiety dream

that I have, you know, making film.

that I have, you know, making film.

- I think the most important thing for any director

is that they give you a sense

of, um, of not being able to do anything wrong

so that you can do stuff wrong,

you can try stuff but you're not afraid to try,

you're not, you're not afraid to be,

uh, sat on, you're not afraid

that you're going to be sat on.

It's important that not only the actors,

but all the creative people,

everybody, uh, on the set,

is able to feel comfortable.

Uh, so that they can do their best,

and if something isn't quite working,

then you figure it out

and the director would be the first to say,

"Look, I don't know either but let's figure this out."

[subdued instrumental music]

- My grandmother, she loved Ingmar Bergman.

And so when I was 11 years old, I believe,

a film had come out called Fanny and Alexander.

And she took me to see it.

And I remember as I entered the world of Bergman,

at a very young,

at an age that I was starting to want to become an actor,

what I think she connected to from his films

that meant so much to me,

is everything was seamless.

The performances felt so deeply true

that you never saw actors.

Everything was so real that it was almost magical.

So real that it was almost elusive

because it was like you couldn't believe

you were watching a film.

You felt like you were peeking inside someone else's life.

And it was also my introduction to Liv Ullmann,

who, uh, I think at that age,

she and Jill Clayburgh,

there are few actresses who were so deeply authentic

and so real that almost their breath

and the pores in their skin

made you feel everything the character was feeling.

Uh, and so he was an immense inspiration

for me

in the kind of actor I would want to be

and the kinds of filmmakers I could sort of dream up,

wishing to get to, uh, work with.

- [Voiceover] If he was alive, and he called you up

and said, "Well, I'm gonna do this film about, you know,

"the existence of God and infidelity.

"You wanna have a lead here?"

- I'd say, "Well what do you intend to do?

"Show me the script or the outline."

I'd say, "Yeah, okay," you know, "okay."

Um, I'd probably say it because it's him

and then I'd say, you know,

"Whatever your reasons are that's great.

"We'll, we'll, I'll figure out what I have to do.

"You figure it, you have your reasons, I have mine,

"and we'll come together."

I mean, with Marty Scorsese, it's the same.

We do things.

Marty'll have certain things that's he doing.

I have that I do.

We come together.

- I never understood quite what a playwright he was.

I, you know, I didn't bother when I was a kid

to say, "Well who wrote this,"

and realize it's just Ingmar Bergman.

I like the very much,

very intrigued by Franny and, Fanny and Alexander.

It gets very strange at the end.

But I see many things where, as the playwright,

he says, "Well, I'm just gonna do that."

You know, and Bergman himself has a kind of,

uh, you know, Goethe Wilhelm Meister story.

Fanny and Alexander are sort of,

story of a little kid who plays with puppets, Goethe.

Then when he grows up he encounters Shakespeare

and they do, they do Hamlet and they analyze it.

It's wonderful to read Goethe's analysis.

I'm sure Wilhelm Meister had a big influence

on Bergman, but of course Strindberg did.

[scattered instrumental music]

[scattered instrumental music]

[spacey instrumental music]

- There's some thing that you can't copy.

And Bergman had that.

You know, I could shoot a closeup.

Some other director can shoot a closeup.

And Bergman can shoot a closeup.

And his closeup burns off the screen.

It just is, because, you know.

And I could be the same distance from the actor

and it can be a good actor,

and it's just that he has something,

had something that, uh,

that every great artist has,

and that is an intangible gift.

and that is an intangible gift.

[rapid drumming music]

[rapid drumming music]

- Now does this, does this island

have these kinds of sunsets all summer?

So this is, Ingmar did this for me?

There are certain world-class filmmakers

that share something, which is they are recognized

as world-class artists,

but not in their own country.

And I was with Fellini in Rome,

and he had no respect in Italy.

His last two or three movies hadn't made money.

So he was not considered bankable.

And it was like, you know, Fellini, eh.

The Italians.

And I'm going, "It's Fellini!"

You know. [laughs]

Same thing with Bergman, same thing with, um,

you know, Satyajit Ray in India.

They still don't like Satyajit Ray

and he is like their greatest filmmaker.

He is a world-class artist, no respect in India.

This leads me to two things that are interesting.

One is this weird

lack of respect in your own country,

which I don't know what that's about

but it's, but it's international.

But then the other remarkable thing to me,

because unfortunately I've lived through this,

where people I know and work with

then die and become mythological.

And that's a very strange thing.

They become these, these legend, these mythological figures.

And I don't know what I think about that.

I don't, I don't know.

I don't know if that's bad.

But it's, but I know it's weird.

And I think that, you know, being here at Bergman's house,

from now on when I think of Ingmar Bergman,

I'm gonna think of his films,

but now I'm also gonna think of his incredible house,

the incredible place.

Man, he's left this,

this body of work

that's forever.

that's forever.

- She's here and she's gonna walk you down

when you're ready to go.

- [Voiceover] Perfect. - You guys, thanks so much.

- [Voiceover] Thank you, bye bye.

- [Voiceover] Bye.

- Bye. - [Voiceover] Bye.

[dramatic instrumental music]

[dramatic instrumental music]

[dramatic instrumental music]

[dramatic instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

[pulsing instrumental music]

- I had an interesting experience.

I don't know if this anecdote

is useful, but it is about the death of Bergman

in the sense that.

I had just met my young wife

and she hadn't seen any of his movies.

And some morning in my summer house,

in the middle of the sun actually,

I showed her Fanny and Alexander.

Which was weird because it was morning,

but that's what we did, and,

and she wept and she said,

"This must be the best film I've ever seen,"

and blah, blah, blah, so it still worked.

And then on, like an hour later,

the phone rings.

And it's from an English newspaper.

I think it was from Independent saying,

wanting to do an interview about Bergman.

And I said, "It's funny because we just watched this movie,"

and blah, blah, blah.

And we put ourselves into the car,

going back to Copenhagen.

The interview went on for one and a half hour,

or one hour or something.

And I said, at the end of it I said,

"Why are you calling me to talk about Bergman today?"

And she said, "Oh, didn't you know?

"He passed away this morning."

So we actually watched this movie

as he passed away, which was a,

an interesting experience.

[haunting instrumental music]