Original subtitles

[hymn playing]

[chorus singing in Latin]

[woman, in German] This is where it all began for me.

With a dark sky...

and a black bird.

We see the cliffs, the sea, and these rocks,

shown from above in a long shot,

and Max von Sydow, lying here.

He appears to have just woken and is looking up at the sky.

Then we see his squire asleep on the stony beach.

The camera closes in on the horses,

so that we know they belong to these two people.

Then there's a close-up of Max von Sydow.

He's very pensive and doesn't really know what's in store for him.

The sun rises. The day begins.

The squire turns over in his sleep. He clearly doesn't want to wake up.

Max von Sydow walks into the water,

washes his face with the seawater,

as if preparing himself for the prayer he's about to offer.

Then there's a long shot from above.

He steps out of the water and kneels down on the stony beach.

This looks like an act of penance.

He tries to pray, very sincerely at first, but then...

you see that he...

You see that maybe he can't pray as intensely as he would like to

because he doubts his faith.

We learn this later in the film.

Then he stands up-- we have a long shot again--

and he walks back to this point,

where we've already seen the chessboard.

He goes out of frame and the camera pans to the chessboard,

with the black rock in the background, like a warning sign.

The waves wash over the chessboard in a dissolve,

and then a black figure appears.

[in Swedish] Who are you?

I am Death.

-Have you come to fetch me? -Are you ready?

My body is,

but I am not.

[woman narrating in German] In January 1960, I came to Paris.

Paris was gray, rainy, and cold.

The weather would have pleased Ingmar Bergman.

In Germany, 1d felt like I was suffocating.

Luckily, I soon met some young French people

who were mad about the nouvelle vague.

In the late 1950s,

critics at Cahiers du Cinéma had proclaimed a new era--

the auteur film.

Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and others

were soon making films themselves.

They discovered Alfred Hitchcock, the American directors,

and Ingmar Bergman.

My cinephile friends were convinced

that film was the one medium which could combine all the other arts.

To prove this, they dragged me, almost against my will,

fo see The Seventh Seal.

I was soon spending more time at the cinema than at the Sorbonne.

I also saw Sawdust and Tinsel, Summer with Monika,

Winter Light, and Wild Strawberries.

[in Swedish] Sometimes I get it into my head

that I'm older than Isak.

Then I feel that he's a child,

although we're the same age.

[man, in Swedish] I'd like to begin by asking you

how you define the term “film directing.”

Is it possible to define it at all?

Film directing...

Well, one director said that a film director is someone

who has so many problems to deal with that he never has time to think.

I think that's the closest

one can get to a definition.

Now let's have the playback and the music.

I mean playback and conversation.

Can we have the playback?

-Get ready! -[classical music plays]

-[Bergman, indistinct] -[actors chattering]

[man, in Italian] ...the film The German Sisters...

by Margarethe von Trotta...

Federal Republic of Germany.

[in English] You remember? That was in Venice, in '81.

1981, when I got the Golden Lion.

But you gave me the award.

That was as if Ingmar, the master of me,

stand behind you and he blessed me,

and you were the messenger for me.

I look like a messenger because I have faded somewhat.

We look different than these on the red carpet today.

-They are models, and I think the way-- -Yeah.

We look like two happy girls.

Yeah, absolutely. Happy girls.

But you were only seven years an actress?

Yeah, because it was not my-- my aim.

I wanted to become a director.

[laughter]

I don't know how old I was when I saw Gycklarnas afton,

but it made an incredible impression on me.

A group of people, and they happen to be men, who are sitting there,

on the mountain, watching,

and the women swimming.

No one has done that to me before,

allowing me to see how easy it is to be in power,

being on top, being in a flock,

and some of them are leaders, and to be humiliated.

[no audible dialogue]

[Ullmann, in Swedish] Sawdust and Tinsel.

[in English] I understood everything,

and I wondered about the man who had made it.

[no audible dialogue]

I was doing a movie in '62 with Bibi Andersson.

There was no hotel, and so where we did the movie--

So Bibi and I, we shared a classroom.

And then she got a letter from Ingmar Bergman while she was there.

And she talked to me about Ingmar.

She told me about the human being which was Ingmar.

And I asked and asked, and she told and told.

I met him on the street. I visited Bibi in Sweden.

And he stopped and he talked with Bibi.

And he knew who I was, because I had been an actress and done some films.

-And he talked to her and he looked at me. -At you... Ah.

-And then he said-- -And that was the beginning.

That was the beginning because suddenly he said,

“Would you like to be in a movie with me?”

I said, “Yes.”

And he left, and Bibi said, “I never heard him say that before.”

[von Trotta] When I saw Persona --

You said somewhere you knew that you were him.

It was like in a mirror. He looked in a mirror and he saw your face.

[Ullmann] He said he was inspired by a picture of Bibi and a picture of me

and our alikeness.

From the first time I came to the studio,

I knew the way he looked at me that he knew...

-I understood him. -Him.

I was him in Persona.

I think Max von Sydow was Ingmar during Hour of the Wolf.

[in Swedish] We have stayed awake every night now until dawn.

This hour is the worst.

-Do you know what it's called? -No.

The old people used to call it “the hour of the wolf.”

It's the hour when most people die,

when most children are born.

It's the hour when nightmares visit us.

-And if we're awake... -We're afraid.

Yes, we're afraid.

[Ullmann] Max was very much what Ingmar was struggling with

and getting more free from.

What is it?

Nothing. It just reminded me of something from my childhood.

[stammers]

It was a kind of punishment.

They pushed me into the wardrobe

and shut the door.

There wasn't a sound,

and it was pitch-dark.

I was crazy with fear. I pounded and kicked the door.

They'd told me a little man lived in that wardrobe...

and that he gnawed the toes off naughty children.

[in German] Isn't art always, to a certain extent, therapy for the artist?

[Ullmann] Where Ingmar was fantastic--

In every film I did,

he stood so close to the camera-- very, very close--

and he was the best audience.

I never knew what he would have done or what he was thinking,

but I knew everything I do now is seen by him.

He says, “I've given you the script.

You read the script. You have to understand the script.”

And he gave you wonderful blocking.

“You sit for the three sentences,

then you get up and then you go over to that chair

and you stand by the chair and then you sit down there.

You have read the script. You, the actor.

You feel it, if you have understood it,

and allow me, the director, to see that you have understood.”

Andreas!

And then he asked me again and he asked me again...

I know, I know. You did ten films with him.

-I think I did 11. -Oh.

[murmuring]

[in Swedish] And that summer,

we were happy then, weren't we?

No.

-You weren't happy? -No.

You said you'd never been happier.

Yes.

I didn't want to hurt you.

[Ullmann] When they are adapting all his movies on the stage,

that would be the best that ever happened to Ingmar,

because one thing he always wished

was that they would really regard him highly for being a writer.

[von Trotta] Maybe he came in this house because Strindberg was living here once,

and he was so fond of Strindberg

that he was fond of the idea to live in the same house.

Maybe. But Ingmar, he lived

in and around this part of Stockholm.

-Most of his life. -[von Trotta] Always in the same area?

[Bjorkman] Yes. Um...

After he was born,

he stayed with his parents about six, seven blocks away from here.

Mm-hmm.

[Bjorkman] And then they moved close to the church,

where his father was the parson.

[bell chiming]

[chiming continues]

This is the house where Ingmar lived

with his family and his brother and sister.

-[von Trotta] Where is the Dramaten? -[Bjérkman] Dramaten is in that direction.

This was Ingmar's favorite restaurant.

He very often went here because it's very close to the theater

and he could have a meal for himself or invite somebody--

a friend, an actor, an actress.

He liked it because he could see the entrance,

and maybe a friend, an actress, or somebody might come in and...

As Ingmar was very curious, he wanted to know,

“Are they seeing somebody? Somebody I don't know?”

And he could check and see.

[woman, in English] It's absolutely impossible to think...

“What would I have become without him?”

When I met him, I had started rather strong.

We have so different backgrounds.

I mean, he's the son of a priest in very high society.

I was working-class and so on.

But he gave me a lot. Really.

Bergman always very carefully pointed out

where is the action, where is the motive,

where-- where should the public look now?

Not on those two persons,

because they are not, now, telling the story.

Look at that point, because there it happens.

And that's rather unusual.

Many directors put people on stage

and let the public decide.

[Bjorkman] There was a time

when everything was compared to Ingmar Bergman,

and you can never reach that kind of level as Ingmar Bergman.

I mean, we had some other fantastic film directors,

like Bo Widerberg.

And I think Bergman was a bit jealous

of Bo Widerberg and the attention he got.

It was like Widerberg started the Swedish nouvelle vague.

The kind of new language which Bo Widerberg had--

more improvisation, and he mixed nonactors with actors.

Ingmar was considered by many of us at that time,

maybe not by me, but by many of the newcomers,

as “Papas Kino.”

Sjéstrém was, in a way, Ingmar's master,

and he always said, “At least once every summer,

I see The Phantom Carriage in my cinema.”

So he must have seen it, like, 50 times.

And you can't make a more loving portrait of somebody you like

as Sjostrém in Wild Strawberries, where he acted.

Films are dreams. They are in some way.

But he also uses dreams in so many of-- of his movies.

[water dripping]

Persona is a major work and very brave.

It starts with a young boy who sits up in a bed

and, with his hands,

he is kind of starting the story.

So it's like the-- a young filmmaker

giving us the story of Persona.

And it can be Ingmar Bergman

as a very young person also.

[in Swedish] Film is a...

Film is a channeler.

Film is a distributor of dreamers and of dreams.

And it brings to life people's dreams,

wishes, and most secret longings.

Film will always be with us. There's no better medium.

[von Trotta narrating in German] Bergman's films have been my constant companions.

But when I was asked if I would like fo make a film about him,

I hesitated.

Until I remembered that one of my films had been important to him as well.

This is the list that Bergman put together

for the 1994 Goteborg Film Festival.

He'd been asked to make a list of films that were important to him.

And he came up with a list of 11 films

including my 7he German Sisters, which pleased me enormously.

I'm the youngest at the top,

followed by Wajda's 7he Conductor,

Andrei Rublev by Tarkovsky,

Raven's End by Bo Widerberg,

La Strada by Fellini.

I can understand that choice.

He made lots of films featuring the circus and traveling artistes.

Rashomon by Kurosawa,

surely one of the inspirations for his The Virgin Spring.

Next is

Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder.

Port of Shadows by Marcel Carné.

The Passion of Joan of Arc by Dreyer.

The Circus by Chaplin.

And the most important film was The Phantom Carriage by Sjoéstrém.

It was his all-time favorite film.

That's the oldest, a silent film,

and up till me at the top, they're all men.

I'm the youngest and the only one still alive.

They're all dead, including Bergman.

I'm still around and will be for a little longer, I hope.

[woman singing opera]

-[no audible dialogue] -[singing continues]

[music ends]

[in French] Bergman is one of the great phantoms

who shaped the youth of our generation,

who shaped the nouvelle vague.

Even if the nouvelle vague took the opposite approach to him

and dealt with different themes,

Bergman is one of those who opened up cinema after the war.

First of all, he created a particular Nordic or Scandinavian atmosphere,

which recalled Dreyer, the grand master.

He was always preoccupied

with the religious conception of guilt.

But little by little,

Bergman retracted this religious component to focus purely on humanity.

That is, as Bergman's films progress,

God becomes less present,

and men and women are left to their own devices.

[bell tolling]

[von Trotta, in French] In the 1960s,

Bergman was already known through Truffaut and Chabrol.

[man, in French] Yes, there's the famous photo

of Harriet Andersson that Léaud steals in 7he 400 Blows.

It was the vehicle for his notoriety,

though it would have made its presence felt anyway.

Bergman was a forerunner of auteur cinema.

The young cineasts could see Bergman in Sweden

practicing a contemporary, modern, free kind of filmmaking,

which was what they aspired to.

This was happening at a time

when it was becoming apparent

that psychoanalysis could serve as a tool

for thinking about cinema,

that cinema could be an aid to exploring the unconscious.

The way he intimately connected his own life

with his stories and his formal innovations

make him perhaps one of the most fascinating film directors ever.

Bergman's influence on French cinema is extraordinary.

The model they chose wasn't Truffaut, it wasn't Godard,

and it wasn't Chabrol.

It was Bergman. It was Bergman they had in common.

In Bergman, filmmakers found a way

of returning to a way of making films

that revolves around the actor.

Or to be exact, the actress.

Let's talk about the actresses!

He placed so much importance on women, on actresses,

which was extraordinary at the time.

And the modernity of Bergman's cinema

is evident in the figure of the liberated woman,

aided by these incredible actresses.

Bergman's work was given its direction

by his leading ladies: Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann,

Ingrid Thulin.

Bergman searches for the light in his female characters.

And each of these actresses radiates something brilliant,

and that's what's new.

Cinema stems from reality.

These characters existed in Swedish society in a way.

But he had the freedom, intelligence, and sensitivity to see them.

[sighs]

[in French] He admired women a lot,

as he worked with beautiful, incredible women.

Everyone is in love with Bergman's actresses.

His choice of actresses really was impeccable.

His selection process must have been very rigorous

in order to find such women and lovers.

Each actress is different.

Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, et cetera.

They're strong without being harsh.

They're also sensitive, delicate.

They always maintain this tension, this difficult balance

between taking a religious position,

an almost mystical position,

and being an object of sexual desire.

[train passing]

There's always a connection to the invisible, magical, or fantastic

that is palpable and always close to the surface.

In Fanny and Alexander, the pastor looks for the children,

who've been hidden in a trunk.

The pastor comes,

the rabbi opens the trunk, and the children are no longer in it.

[chattering in Swedish]

They're actually in another trunk on the second floor.

And when I met Bergman to compile this book of interviews with him,

I said, “Do you believe in magic? The supernatural?

Because the supernatural is incredibly present in your films.

It's both wonderful and staggering and makes the invisible believable.”

He looks at me and says, “You know, Olivier,

I'm an old filmmaker with a lot of experience.

So if I decide the children are in the trunk, they're in the trunk,

and if I decide they're gone from the trunk,

-they're gone from the trunk.” -[both laughing]

“And the public will accept it.”

Art defines truth.

So when Bergman says something is so,

it doesn't matter that it might be otherwise.

Each of us creates a form of storytelling about our own existence.

Whoo!

[chattering in Swedish]

[von Trotta, in English] I went around here already yesterday

-to know a little bit what it's all about. -Yeah.

Because it's the first time that I was here.

-Right. -And so I looked a little bit around,

what's in these books and so.

-And what did I find? -Yeah?

Come here. You'll see what I found.

-Look at that. -Yeah, right!

-And two! -Yeah.

Well, she has written, I think--

[von Trotta] With a wonderful dedication.

And you are the son; therefore I was very interested.

And also because I know that she was a great pianist.

Yeah.

-And she helped him for Autumn Sonata, no? -Yeah, yeah.

[no audible dialogue]

[chattering in Swedish]

-[Daniel] It was a passion about-- -More about music than about real love?

Yeah, exactly. They were both narcissists and they were fond of their artistry,

each one of them.

-And so they came up for... -Yeah, yeah.

With the help of music,

-they started to love each other. -Yeah, yeah.

-But that's a good reason. Music is... -[coughing]

[piano]

[Daniel] I think children was a manifest for the love with a woman.

He said to the ladies when they were pregnant,

“Now I know you love me.” And then he left them.

So it was more or less a way of controlling them.

We sat here at this table,

and I wrote my story and he wrote his story.

And we had lunch together,

and we talked about what we were writing.

And he said, “There is a story in 7he Magic Lantern

that could be a film.”

And I said, “Yes, I think so too.

There is this bicycle story when you go on a tour

with my grandfather to the church.”

[bells pealing]

And he said, “Exactly. That's what I mean.”

I said, “Yeah, fine. I think there's a film.

But for me, it's a short film. I can do it when you're dead.

And I'll do it then.” Uh...

And he said, “No, I have a better idea.

We do it now. We do it together. I write the script and you direct it.”

There's a red line between my grandfather, my father, and me.

So I could see the same movements:

aggression, hatred,

love, and contradictions, and...

But it became a conflict between me and Ingmar also,

because there is a black line in the story

where he tells his father, when his father is old,

reading the dead wife's diaries

and trying his 50-year-old son

to help-- to help him to understand things from his life.

He suddenly realizes that--

“I never knew the woman I was married to for 50 years.

Maybe I have lived wrong,” he says.

And then he's old and he's vulnerable and he's weak,

and his son just goes,

“I don't come to hear about emotional blackmail.”

[in Swedish] I detest all forms of emotional blackmail.

We all have to answer for our mistakes.

Yes.

Father, you understand what I mean?

Yes.

And Ingmar wanted this scene out already in the script,

and I said, “No, this scene has to be there.

It's one of the main scenes.”

Then in the editing, when he saw the first editing,

he said, “The film is just brilliant. It's just one thing.”

“What is it?” “This scene must go out.

And you take it out now.”

And we sat at the editing table.

And I said, “No, I don't take it out. What do you mean?”

“You take it out now. There's nothing to discuss. You just take it out.

If you don't do it, I take the film.”

And I said, “If you want a war, you will have a war.”

“What kind of war are you talking about? What tools do you have for a war?”

“You will be aware,” I said.

And then he suddenly started to cry.

And he lost it completely.

And I started to cry and I tried to hold him--

-Oh, my God, what a scene! -...and he pushed me away

because he couldn't stand emotions in that way.

And then he said, “Okay, Daniel. In a way, I like this.

You do what you do, and I will never, ever look at this film again.

I will never see it again.”

[von Trotta] I thought about it,

that he always was much closer to his own childhood than to his own children.

-Absolutely. Absolutely. -Because he was so much wanting

to be himself a child,

so he couldn't care so much about his own children.

He was still a child during his whole life.

Absolutely. This with the childhood is interesting because Ingmar also said--

When Ingrid, his last wife, got cancer and was about to die,

he wrote in his diaries,

“It's amazing that this old man has to get out of the child chamber now.

I's very cruel.”

He felt pity for himself that he has to leave the child room.

He has always been playing in his cabinet with all the tools and just having fun.

[in Swedish] Now switch yours on.

I'm switching it off.

No... [laughs]

And that's what I wonder so much. Why is it so difficult?

If you have such a good relation to your own childhood

or understanding for your own childhood,

why can't you understand your own child?

[in Swedish] Daniel's face is to me

the finest and perhaps the most stimulating thing there is.

Let's see how it turned out.

[Daniel] He did a film called Daniel,

about myself when I was a child.

There's a need to get into, understand the child, but he didn't reach it.

He can do a film about it, but he can't reach it himself.

There is a certain kind of love,

but there is also some kind of opposite.

And the strange thing is that,

since he died-- [clears throat]

...I have never felt I miss him.

Not for one single minute.

And I go to the church and I light a candle on his grave.

And often I think that--

Because my mother is also dead,

and it's so strange that I don't miss them, you see.

-Nor...? -No, none of them.

And I never call them by “Mother” and “Father.”

I call them “Ingmar” and “Kabi.”

And I'm thinking a lot with my own child, Judith, who is now nine,

what love is, what I feel for her.

And that it would be unbearable if I felt the same for my parents--

If she would feel the same for me, it would be terrible.

You should never trust Ingmar's stories because they were always, uh...

Sometimes they are true and sometimes not.

One side was true, but the other side was true too. So you could never...

And in the film Fanny and Alexander, the pastor versus the child,

he says, “The truth. You have to tell the truth.

And if you don't tell the truth, you get a punishment.”

And on the other hand, the child tells the truth,

but the priest can't stand it.

[in Swedish] The punishment

is supposed to teach you to love the truth.

I admit it. I made up the story about you locking up your wife and children.

Just a few years before he died, one of my sisters sat here on the sofa

and Ingmar sat here.

And he said-- He felt sorry for himself, and he said,

“Well, I miss the actors. I miss the actors.”

And she went, “How would it be if you just for one single second said,

‘I miss my children,' or ‘I miss my grandchildren'?”

-Oh, my God. -And he looked at her,

-“But I don't.” -[both laughing]

I don't want to judge them. They do it as good as they can,

but being a parent and being an artist--

That's what my mother always-- also said very cleverly in interviews she did.

She said, “Well, it doesn't fit together.”

-[Daniel] Hi. -Hi.

-You are already there. Okay. -Already?

[speaking Swedish]

-This is my favorite brother. -Really?

Yeah, because he was a pilot,

and I was doing films and I...

[laughing]

I felt this is a real job he has.

-Yeah, that is a real one, and-- -He used to...

I didn't meet Daniel first time until we came here in 1978.

I think that was the first time we met actually.

Yeah, for the 60th birthday.

[Daniel] It was the decision from Ingrid that,

“Now when you get 60, you need to collect all the kids together.”

And I think it was a way for Ingrid to get also her children to come,

because they were not allowed before.

So what happened was

that loads of sisters and brothers suddenly appeared here

which I never saw before.

Yeah, same with me.

[woman, in English] It was the last day of school.

They came in a big car from the studio, and the driver came out and said,

“Come on. You have to go to the studio.

No lunch.” So I went out

and I met the head of the studio,

and he said, “This year, you have to work with Ingmar Bergman.”

And I said, “Why me?”

And he said, “Because nobody else wants to.”

The word was that he threw script girls and assistant cameramen

out through the door all the time.

And I met him finally with the head of the studio,

and he said, “This is your new script girl.”

And they also said to me,

“If he stares at you, stare back. If he spits at you, spit back.”

So he looked at me and I stared back, and then he started to laugh

and he said, “It'll be all right.” And he left.

And then you stuck together for-for--

For 30 years.

He had a method, and that was--

Don't argue with the actors, don't shout at them,

don't make quarrels with the actors.

And then he took somebody in the crew instead. [chuckles]

And the script girl was always sitting by the camera,

so he started to yell at me very often in the beginning.

And it was difficult because I didn't understand.

He never thought that he was good enough.

Which is quite interesting. So he didn't have that big ego.

So in the last films we did...

he came--

I saw the rushes at 7:30 in the morning.

And I came to the studio, and he was waiting.

With me and Sven Nykvist, we came together.

“Was it okay? Was it okay?”

It was the time when it was film. A laboratory took two days.

And, you know, this terrible thing today.

And so then we went up to his dressing room...

and no lamps, no nothing.

And we were sitting there for perhaps 20 minutes, half an hour,

holding hands.

Not saying much or perhaps, some days, nothing.

And at 8:30, I looked at the watch and said,

“Ingmar, you have to go down now.”

[sighs deeply] ...he said,

put on his slippers and went down to the studio.

We were having a production meeting with Gunnel Lindblom, for a film.

It was the day before we went on location. It was the last meeting here in Stockholm.

In the morning of that day, Ingmar called me and said,

“I want you to know I'm leaving today,

and I want you to know that before the evening papers come out.”

BERGMAN HAS LEFT SWEDEN!

So he left.

And I had to tell the crew and Gunnel, “That's it. We'll do it ourselves.”

COLLEAGUES ABOUT TAX RAID: WITCH HUNT

INGMAR BERGMAN ARRESTED BY POLICE AT DRAMATEN

[Bergman, in English] We rehearsed at the Royal Dramatic Theater.

We were in the big rehearsal room,

and then suddenly somebody come to me and said,

“The police is downstairs and want to talk to you.”

And I said... Um...

I didn't-- I couldn't imagine.

So I said,

“Can't they wait until the lunch break? It's 20 minutes.”

And then the man said, “It's impossible. They won't go away.”

Then I went down to the room of my secretary.

There were a policeman who said, “We have to take you to the station.”

And I said, “Why?” And he said, “It's about your tax-- your taxes.”

And I said, “What happens? What has happened?”

I was completely confused.

I didn't-- hadn't the slightest idea

about what they asked me about.

[elevator chimes]

[buzzes]

-[indistinct] -But it's like in a prison here.

[man] He really did feel that he was cast out of Sweden.

Having voted

for the Swedish Social Democratic Party for a long time,

he now felt that they had betrayed him.

This is a shooting script for Das Schlangenei.

[von Trotta, in German] “Proclamation to the German people!”

[in English] And that is the sign that a scene is done?

[Holmberg] The scene is shot.

This is also interesting, I think, that he has a motto by Blichner.

[von Trotta] “Man is an abyss”...

[in German] “Man is an abyss,

and I turn giddy when I look down into it.”

“Man is an abyss.” You can say that again.

[Holmberg, in English] Bergman, he very seldom used research materials,

but in this film, he did.

So there are other pictures as well.

[von Trotta] And this street they tried then to reproduce.

Also Fassbinder, he used it.

Right. In Berlin Alexanderplatz, yes.

And it's called Bergmannstralde, isn't it?

Yes, yes, it was called Bergmannstrale for a long time.

[man, in English] Yes, here we have our street,

our Berlin streets, you remember...

[indistinct]

[chorus singing in German]

[von Trotta] The fear people could have in this time,

because Hitler was already trying to make a revolt, and that it was turned down.

But it goes from-- from the beginning, he wanted to get the power,

and in the end of the film it breaks down.

So we have still ten years of “non-Hitler time.”

Right, right.

But that was a time where

everything could happen, and every violence could happen.

[all shouting]

When you see the situation of the main character,

who is followed always,

and he's going around in this police station,

-he's like a prisoner. -Yeah.

And he's going always behind the bars,

and you have this feeling that somebody is-- [gasps] is on the run.

He pointed out that very strongly in the film, this situation.

And this was his own situation at this moment.

Yes, exactly. Yes. This was a moment of deep crisis for him.

He had a psychological breakdown,

and he was admitted to a psychiatric ward.

He was heavily medicated. He contemplated suicide.

It was much more than just a legal case for him. He was--

-Humiliated. -Yes, extremely humiliated.

And humiliation for him was a main theme also in his films, no?

Yes. And I think when he felt betrayed, I mean, right or wrong,

but he did feel betrayed by the Swedish government and his home country,

he felt it as if he was deserted by his father, as it were.

Oh, yeah, his fatherland. We say also “fatherland.” So, yeah.

And I'm certainly not comparing him

to refugees who are running from-- for their lives,

uh, but he did feel it like that, yes.

Yes, yes.

And of course calling it 7he Serpent's Egg

had something to do with another...

I hesitate to use the word, but in a way, a father figure,

uh, namely Adolf Hitler.

Ingmar Bergman had, as a young boy,

felt that Hitler was some kind of a savior,

and this was years before the war, so many people felt like this,

and Ingmar Bergman was one of them.

-Many people in Sweden also. -Yes, yes. Absolutely. Yes.

I hesitate to say that he would look up to Hitler as a father figure,

but, still, there is this notion of strong men

in Bergman's way of thinking.

And they are not necessarily all evil,

but they certainly have a capacity for evil.

At his absolute lowest, in 1976,

when the tax affair is most acute,

in his work diary, suddenly he writes,

“Wait a minute, I should be able to use this.

This is exactly what Abel, my character, should be feeling.

So I can take my own emotions now and try to write them down.”

Whether he feels happy or depressed,

he can use that emotion

and, uh, and turn it into the emotions of one of his fictional characters.

[in German] I cannot work,

and thus not live

in a country

where representatives of our bureaucracy

have publicly and unjustifiably offended my pride.

This is the workbook from 1976, and it says here,

“Kéanslorna.” “The emotions.”

And it ends up with him saying that,

“My confusion just has to stop.

If someone would come to me and say,

‘Now, Ingmar Bergman, we are taking from you everything you own,'

I would welcome this and feel it as a comfort.

In any case, a new period of my life is starting.

Where I'm going, I don't know. The next couple of months, we will see.”

And then, what he did do was to go to Los Angeles.

But he says here, in the second of July, 1976,

that he has gone back to Faré, because,

“I couldn't stay in Los Angeles.

I felt terrible there. It was all a mess.”

And then he decided to go to Munich.

[in German] Volker Schléndorff and I lived up there on the third floor.

And there was a room with a bay window with a big round table in it.

When Ingmar visited us, we sat around the table,

with us on his right and left.

And he held both our hands tight during the entire conversation.

He never let go once.

[man, in German] Bergman was led in here.

It was bright, white, and beautiful.

We loved this room.

But Bergman said, “It's awful.

You can't concentrate here.

The actors will look out of the window. I won't rehearse here.”

He used the rehearsal room at the Residenztheater.

They put up curtains

because he wanted darkness during rehearsals.

We opened the curtains and windows to air the room during the breaks.

His preferred room temperature was 54 degrees Fahrenheit,

which was tough on the actors.

Fifty-four degrees and dark.

It felt like a place of banishment here.

You see this when you watch the films.

The Serpent's Egg and From the Life of the Marionettes

are very dark, violent films.

He had a kind of home here, at least for a few hours,

at least that's how he described it.

He would wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.,

feeling completely alien and desolate.

It took him hours to regain the feeling within himself

that he could enjoy life,

that he could work productively with actors.

During rehearsals, we had the feeling that he was very at ease.

[chattering in German]

Although he always took great care not to lose control over anything.

He was a director who arrived at rehearsals half an hour early.

That was great. He set the atmosphere beforehand.

The assistant was there, and the actors arrived gradually.

And in that way, he dominated everything right from the start.

[woman, in German] I don't recall him asking me

to be in Scenes from a Marriage.

We had long rehearsals where we read mostly on our own.

He couldn't stand it if we got stuck

or tried to remember the next line.

He really wanted us to derive the answers from the others,

to have the courage to let go and listen to the other person.

This way, the answers would come automatically.

And we only reached that point

by walking around with the script and reading it for at least three weeks.

It ruined us forever because you suddenly notice

how damaging it is to memorize your lines at home on your own.

[Kaetzler] He had a clear concept of movement.

He expected the actors to learn the choreography in five days.

They then practiced it without him.

When he came back, the actors still had their scripts,

and there was furniture but no props yet.

And then the actors had to put the script aside.

But because the actors had already practiced their movements in detail,

they were now able to fully focus on another dimension.

I expected him to be all serious, but he was cheerful.

He kept laughing, saying he couldn't stand hearing his own script,

what a drag it was to hear his own lines over and over again.

He was really interested in me. We exchanged ideas.

He said that's how things started on vacation with Liv Ullmann.

They'd all spoken about their marriages,

about women's feelings towards men,

about what bothered women about men or what made them feel patronized.

“...to think about things myself and understand them.”

-Yeah. -Oh!

...that I went through all that and started a new life

just to look after you and make sure you don't go to the dogs?

[scoffs] If I really thought you were so pathetic, I'd laugh at you.

[Kaetzler] I saw Bergman shortly after the final applause

for this big three-part project:

Miss Julie, Nora, and Scenes from a Marriage.

The audience didn't really react in the way he'd expected them to.

Quite the opposite.

Scenes from a Marriage was Bergman's first attempt

to adapt one of his own works for the stage.

I think he took quite a risk in order to do this.

I don't think he would have dared

to produce Scenes from a Marriage as a solo play.

He would have exposed himself hugely,

and he was also afraid of ensconcing himself as a playwright.

But his secret desire must have been

to be able to hold his ground as a playwright

alongside Ibsen and Strindberg.

[sobbing] I must think about things myself

and understand them.

That's childish. You don't understand society.

No! I want to learn about things.

I want to know who's right-- society or me!

[Dohm] He told me about the demons that visited him at night,

about how he would wake up frightened.

He said, “At night, the hour of the wolf comes.”

At one point, he had the option of doing intensive therapy,

a course of primal therapy.

It had been offered to him,

however, with the proviso that he might end up losing his creativity.

That is, he would grow up but wouldn't be creative anymore.

So he backed out and said he didn't want to do the therapy.

[Dohm] I do think he felt like a stranger here.

He spoke perfect German,

but he often said he missed the spontaneity he had in Swedish

that allowed him to intervene instantly.

Whereas here, he had to formulate a sentence in his head first

rather than following his instinct about what to say in order to intervene.

He generally spoke a lot about vocal ranges,

something he felt was a pity about German.

He felt that Swedish speakers have a more melodic way of speaking,

that they have more highs and lows,

modulate their voices much more.

[in Swedish] Aren't you going to set the alarm?

I have it right here.

You can make love to me now, if you like.

Thanks for the offer, but I'm too tired.

Okay.

[Dohm] If you write something in Swedish and suddenly hear it in German,

maybe the language sounded harsh to him.

He once said that in the film version

the characters often sounded more tender,

and that German is more aggressive.

But that's also due to our language, of course.

Katarina,

look at me.

Take my hand, please.

Put it gently on your cheek.

Can you feel my hand?

[in Swedish] Thank you.

-A reverse angle now. -[man] Right.

-[in German] Right, coffee! At last! -[chattering]

[Kaetzler] He was more tense on the film set than in the theater.

I really understood why he'd say,

“After this film, I'm only going to do theater.

Theater is my wife, film my mistress.”

But the mistress was extremely demanding.

[chattering]

[man, in German] It felt good like that.

[man, in English] From the Life of the Marioneftes--

It's a little bit a forgotten film of Ingmar.

And I think it's one of his most interesting

and brave films.

It's very experimental.

It's a kind of dream sequence

where they are in a white light, the two main characters,

and it's a very long, very sensual scene.

So he experimented with a black-and-white film also very much.

Then the rest of the film is like interrogations

with the different persons,

and it's also in chapters, which is interesting.

So we see the same story

through many different eyes and perspectives.

It's very seldom that Ingmar has had a gay person in his films.

[speaking German]

And here he is one of the principal characters.

He is showing this person Tim in a very,

uh, both sensitive and, um, delicate way.

[in German] I close my eyes, and I feel like a ten-year-old.

I mean physically as well.

Then I open my eyes again...

and look in the mirror...

and there I see a little old codger.

An infantile old codger.

Isn't that strange?

An infantile old codger, that's all.

No, there's something else.

Everybody says that Bergman was fantastic with his actresses

and that he made so many beautiful portraits of women

in so many of his films.

And this image of Tim

has the same qualities as Bergman's portraits of women.

You have the double face like always.

And when you look into the mirror,

you're another person than you are yourself, so...

It's always this double face.

So the heritage might be that a filmmaker who,

over the years, can, uh, change in attitudes,

in technique, in whatever,

and to experiment with a medium.

That's maybe one of his most important heritage.

[typing]

[in English] You have to watch one of my favorite YouTube clips.

It's a taxi driver that by accident ends up in a BBC news program.

The journalist thinks that this cabdriver is an expert on Internet rights.

And when she's introducing him,

the taxi driver realizes this is a horrible mistake.

[woman] ... the site News Wireless.

-Hello, good morning fo you. -Good morning.

-[man, von Trotta laughing] - Were you surprised by this verdict today?

I'm very surprised fo see... this verdict fo come on me, because...

[laughing]

And I've tried so many-- in all of my movies

to capture that moment when someone is trying to avoid losing face.

Mm-hmm.

And I have never managed to do it in this strong way.

Yeah.

Bergman was still alive when I was in the university,

so it was, like, a little bit that he had to die

before we started to watch his films a little bit.

Oh, yes.

But there's also a difference between the film school in Gothenburg

and the one that is in Stockholm.

The one in Stockholm is more connected with Bergman.

The Gothenburg school was connected with Bo Widerberg,

and Bo Widerberg was an antagonist to Bergman in Sweden.

[von Trotta] Ah. Yeah.

So if Bo Widerberg had anything to do with you,

then you were on the opposite side of the industry than Bergman.

Of course, we watched many of his films.

But I think that, you know, since I'm brought up during the "70s,

I'm a director also that is on the paradigm change

of when film was analog to becoming digital.

And when it became digital,

like, this whole movement that happened in the industry

that also have happened with Internet and YouTube and so on...

I must say, if you look at the strongest images, moving images,

uh, for me the last 15 years, it's definitely on YouTube.

[chattering in Swedish]

[man] We've finished with the girls.

You've been so good!

Bye-bye!

They were good as gold. Bye!

-How about some shots of the parents? -Yes, let's do that!

One thing that's a little bit inspiring with him was that he...

For example, when he did Scenes from a Marriage,

that he was inspired of Dallas, you know, this TV soap series.

And that he had a way of combining, like, the art house cinema

with very commercial, American industry.

And he didn't see any problem with that.

He loved both of these sides of the moviemaking industry.

That is something that is maybe a little bit lacking today, you know,

that either you're very, very art house or you're moneymaking movie industry.

And in order to create, like, the new cinema that is exciting,

but at the same time is dealing with, like, a very important society topic,

I think we also have to learn something about that,

to not make genre art house movies.

Actually, step up, break free from that.

[sighs] You're quite a riot actually.

Okay.

Then why aren't you laughing?

You look scared to me.

Let me at least cancel the cab...

What for?

[Ostlund] He was trusting his own instrument in a way

and what he said to himself,

“This is a very important topic, and now I will go straight into it.”

And being as honest as possible.

Because I think he managed to do that with Scenes from a Marriage.

It's, like, really, really showing sides of himself that he's not proud of at all,

and that he dares to go there and actually can separate

what he's writing and what he's filming from himself

at the same time that being so honest to his own experiences.

Shut your mouth!

I'm not afraid.

I couldn't care less what you do.

-Shut up, I said! -You maniac!

[woman, in German] It was sheer coincidence.

An apartment became available,

and I was told that Bergman lived in this block.

I thought, “If he finds out, he'll try to prevent it.”

[Russek, von Trotta laughing]

[von Trotta] And you became such close friends.

[Russek] He was a bit shocked at first.

“Which floor do you live on?”

I lived on the sixth, and he was on the ninth--

[von Trotta] So it was okay.

He suddenly pulled out a script and said, “I'm going to make a film.

Can you read it, and do you want to play Ka?”

“Uh-huh. A film.

Maybe appearing in a Bergman film wouldn't be such a crazy idea.”

It was in the cards that everyone would turn down the part

once they knew the character was naked.

Which is what I intended to do-- [giggles]

...but then I had second thoughts.

-Been working here long? -Three years.

[Russek] He outfoxed me.

I rehearsed the scene in a bathrobe.

The dresser said, “Don't worry, you'll get a robe or a dressing gown.

We'll find you something. Let's decide at the very end.”

We rehearsed the scene. Then he said to her,

“Would you take Ms. Russek's robe?”

So, I went over to her...

[exhales]

And her arm was empty. She was holding just my shoes.

I soon forgot I was running around naked in the studio.

One day during rehearsals, he said to me, “You're not really afraid.

That's not good.

It would be better if you were a little more afraid.”

I didn't understand what he meant until the scene,

where I knew it was something I would have to feign.

Because the kind of fear, existential fear,

that an actor should have according to him,

for the life of me, I just didn't have it.

[gasping]

[in German] The actor stands there,

with his body, his face,

his eyes, his movements, his voice.

He stands there in the spotlight,

and it's imperative that he's protected and nurtured.

And I think one has to somehow create

an atmosphere of security all around the actor.

[Russek] I really cared about him immensely.

Strangely, I never had the feeling

that he was unapproachable or something really special.

Somehow, I always felt that in many ways he was a poor bastard,

just because he was so phobic and brooded about things so much.

Come on, let's go into my cinema!

[man, in English] He took pride in showing me films in his cinema.

We had to be really quiet when we watched a film.

There was no talking, you know, no...

-But laughing, yes. -Laughing, of course.

And we could sleep also, if we wanted to.

That was no problem. But no talking, no interrupting the film.

He was going to screen Pearl Harbor,

but he didn't like the film so much, so we just watched the action sequences.

And every time the action sequences was finished,

he did like this to the machinist behind,

and she, you know, taped forward over the love sequences, which he hated.

[von Trotta laughing]

And then we just watched Pear! Harbor, just the action sequences.

He was not a film snob. That was his idea, not mine.

He was also this fantastic storyteller.

He told a story about a witch who lived on the island,

and we used to run there and knock on the door and then run back.

And it was, like, in the guesthouse, where we used to live,

he painted, you know, a red line on the floor,

a really ugly red line on the floor,

and he wrote, “The blood of the witch.”

It was integrated in the system of the whole island

that you could only visit his house and his library,

you know, between 11:00 and 3:00.

If you came 10:45, it was not okay.

If you came 3:15, it was not okay.

So, you know, he had these really strict rules

because he had the schedule when he was writing

and he was sleeping and he was, you know, thinking,

and he was really strict about his time.

I wanted him to be just my grandfather.

And I didn't see any of my grandmother's films

because I wanted them to be just my family and not this famous filmmaker.

It gives also a certain confidence that I-- that I feel that, you know,

I'm not him and I'm not going to be like him,

I'm not going to make the films like he did.

But he is-- he's inside of me in some, you know, way.

[woman, in French] The word “Farg” had long represented something to me.

“Faro” is a word laden with a kind of aura,

laden with a kind of mystery.

Because Far is really Bergman's island.

For those interested in Bergman's oeuvre, it's a loaded word.

Bergman is a filmmaker who's so well recognized

that to say you're making a film in the surroundings where he lived,

both figuratively and literally, can seem very presumptuous.

I was really compelled by a story that irresistibly drove me to Faro,

and despite all my misgivings

about taking on such a subject...

it was a huge pleasure for me to write this film,

which is set on the island where Bergman lived at the end.

Though it could have been overwhelming,

very agonizing, or fear-inducing to be in Bergman's space,

since Bergman's presence here is ubiquitous,

actually, when I'm there, I feel light instead.

I don't feel crushed by the weight of Bergman's oeuvre. Just the opposite.

When he went there, he had a certain feeling.

And we feel the way he did when he went there for the first time.

I also had some moving moments, almost “scary,”

when I stayed on Faro alone.

I spent several days and nights alone on the island and...

Bergman believed in ghosts-- he used to say so himself--

and I've never felt such a presence of the invisible as I did there,

especially in his house, where I've been many times.

That's where I was afraid, like when you're afraid of ghosts.

Even in the kitchen, I was afraid.

Of the silence, the waves, the presence of Bergman.

It was absolutely terrifying.

That doesn't come from the house itself.

Of course not!

It's just the spirit and presence of Bergman.

Of course!

-[in Swedish] Quiet, once more. -[machine buzzes]

[Hansen-Lave] Bergman returns to intimacy, childhood,

even a kind of innocence that haunts me to this day.

[Bergman] We start with a flash of lightning.

-Did you see? -And go!

-[murmuring] [flute]

-[girl gasps] He's still playing. -[boy] Let's try again.

-Look at her when you say that. -[boy] Let's try again.

One, two, three...

[together] Die, you bastard!

[flute]

-l can't hear it anymore. -Maybe he's died.

[Bergman] Thanks!

When he filmed children, in Fanny and Alexander,

he did it better than anyone. That awakens in me...

The child always has a connection to him.

He's telling a story about himself as a child.

Not other children. It's always him.

He never films children the way a father would. He films them like they're him.

If he films children, it's from his point of view, as a child.

[murmuring]

I'll sit and we'll see. I just want to get the feel of it.

[woman, in English] When I was young, I wanted to be an actress,

and I asked my mother each time I got home from school,

“Did Ingmar Bergman call today?” And she was like, “No, not today.”

[von Trotta laughing]

So when he actually called me,

I thought it was a joke.

Then he told me he wrote this Saraband part for me and I said,

“Of course I want to be in that movie.”

And he said, “Now you're not serious.”

I was like, “What?”

“You have to read it first. You can't just say yes.”

So I ran down to the theater,

got the script, and read it in 20 minutes or something.

And then I called him, “Now yes.”

[both laughing]

I knew-- When I said yes to Saraband,

I knew that I say yes to be his instrument.

[in Swedish] Thank you.

I will use my body and my soul to do this piece that he wants it to be.

It's not my will here.

Should we... What if we do it like...

No, this is fine.

It's fine like this. Go straight backwards and then say...

One day, I don't remember which scene it was, where it was like,

“Oh, God, I want to take away those lines.

It's too old-fashioned, but I can't tell him.”

And then I went to-- to the studio,

and he said, “Julia, come.”

And then he said, “Let's take away those lines.”

-It was like his intuition was brilliant. -Oh!

Shh!

[in Swedish] Your grandfather is an out-and-out liar.

And then you drink.

-[indistinct] -[laughing]

Oh, no!

And then you do like...

[sighs, murmurs]

I suddenly realized

that I was the world's most fooled and cheated-on wife and lover.

Johan was notoriously and compulsively unfaithful.

You mean my grandfather...

Was an out-and-out liar.

[chattering, laughing]

[Assayas] I met Bergman in 1990.

He had just decided not to make any more films.

He said, “I won't make any more films,” and stopped.

But after ten years,

he came back at the top of his game,

in an unexpected digital format.

Today, all cinemas in France screen digital films.

The first digital film I saw was Saraband,

which displayed the same passion for experimentation.

It was a marvel, a shock.

[Dufvenius groaning]

[grunting]

-[man grunts] -[commotion]

Had he never made films,

he might still have been considered one of the greatest 20th-century playwrights.

They might have given him the Nobel Prize.

He was also one of the great inventors of cinematic expression.

He was a man of both the written word and the image.

And film after film, he constructed a totally coherent body of work.

There will always be people who find his films too somber,

who find his image of humanity too black, with too much suffering,

who prefer to see funnier films.

In the end though, anyone who's interested in cinema

will rightly see there's something bordering on truth.

[in French] Sweden is one of the most progressive countries in Europe,

socially and economically.

Yet most of your films, especially your first films,

are full of bitterness, despair, even cruelty.

How could Swedish lightheartedness have provoked these feelings?

I'm only trying to speak the truth about the human condition.

[in Swedish] The really important reason...

is that I don't want you.

Did you hear me?

Yes.

Of course I did.

I'm tired of your loving care...

your fussing,

your good advice...

your candlesticks and table runners.

I'm fed up with your shortsightedness...

your clumsy hands...

your anxiousness...

your timid ways in bed.

You force me to occupy myself with your physical condition--

your poor digestion,

your rash,

your periods,

your frostbitten cheek.

Once and for all,

I have to escape this junkyard of circumstances.

I'm sick and tired of it all...

of everything to do with you.

Why have you never told me this?

Because of my upbringing.

I was taught to regard women as beings of a higher order.

Admirable creatures,

unimpeachable martyrs.

[Carriere] In all his films, there's a conflict between his rigid upbringing,

the religion that frames his life,

what we could call a sense of duty,

the difference between right and wrong.

Everything in him struggles against that.

All the devils inside him do.

It's obvious that his cinema was born of this conflict within himself.

[no audible dialogue]

[boy shouting]

[Carriere] I always expect a monster to jump out somewhere,

either visible or invisible,

lurking inside the actors,

who, at any moment,

are capable of doing something horrific and forbidden.

When we think of Wild Strawberries,

we think of an old man, returning to his childhood home,

looking as he does today.

He revisits his childhood, his siblings, his family.

And in the film, this takes up four or five minutes.

A lot of other things happen, but we remember this bit.

[Sjdstrém, in Swedish] I was overcome by a feeling

of emptiness and mournfulness.

But I was soon startled from my reverie by the voice of a girl

who repeatedly asked me about something...

-Is this your shack? -No, it's not.

I'm glad you're truthful. My dad owns the whole spit, including the shack.

But I did live here once, 200 years ago.

[laughing]

[Carriere] It's the story of a man who is going to die, who's old,

who sometimes still drives his car,

who goes to visit places from his childhood,

who takes a kind of final journey.

And what I love so much is that, at the end,

Bergman brings this all together.

It circles back to his home,

he lies in bed in his pajamas,

and the last image is of this man falling asleep.

He closes his eyes and falls asleep with a smile.

He might be dying right then.

[birds chirping]

[Carriere] There's hardly any difference between life and death.

[Ullmann] I was in Norway, and I knew.

“Ingmar, I think you're leaving.”

And I took the airplane from Norway

and I came and they let me in, in the bedroom,

and there he was, and he was on his way.

I took his hand.

And I remember from Saraband, a scene there,

where the person I played came to visit my ex-husband,

and he says, “Why are you coming here?”

And she says, “You called for me.”

[in Swedish] Could you now explain why you suddenly turned up here?

I thought you were calling me.

I never called anyone.

I had the feeling you were calling me.

That's strange, I don't understand.

No, I understand that you don't understand.

And how long will you stay?

I have a court case on the 27th.

November?

October.

Well, good night then.

Good night.

[Russek] He had planned his funeral. Everything was prepared.

The coffin was ready.

He'd had a coffin made, which he kept in the barn.

He wanted a particular type of coffin

and, untrusting as he was,

he assumed we'd ignore his instructions.

Only the parson spoke, no one else.

No flowers. No wreaths, bouquets, or anything like that.

And only those he'd invited.

No cultural or political celebrities, no bishop or anyone else.

A few actors, his family...

and the village, everyone on Faro.

[in Swedish] Dad.

I'm frightened, Dad.

[man, in Swedish] For the second time in two years,

Ingmar Bergman has won the most important film award-- an Oscar.

Were you expecting it?

No, to be honest, I wasn't this time

because I thought that once would be enough.

But surely you don't make films to win awards?

No, not at all. You see, you must let go of that completely.

You can't let thoughts like that...

In the first place,

the artistic value...

of any of these prizes and awards is always debatable.

So you're not under pressure for each film to be a success?

I may feel that sometimes,

but when you're in the moment of truth,

literally sitting with the pen in your hand

about to write the manuscript,

or when you're in the studio and about to film,

you forget about these completely irrelevant things

because there's so much else to think about.

[von Trotta, in English] I never think, when I'm doing a film,

“Oh, now that is like in Bergman,

and I have to take these, you know, moment

and steal it from him and put it in my film.”

It happened, and people then see,

and they say, “Oh, but that's like Bergman.”

And I didn't think about it.

It's-It's something you're living with.

And it comes up then unconsciously.

And that's-- I think it's the right way.

If you imitate, then it's over.

Maybe we need a couple of more years on Bergman

before we start to look back on him in a different way.

Now it's almost like, you know, it's an old relative that have passed away

that everybody is talking about all the time.

You never met him,

but you have to relate to him just because you're a Swede.

You know the Bergman stiftelsen as it's called, Stiftung,

they don't invite me because I'm on the other side

of the Swedish film industry.

I'm connected with Bo Widerberg and Roy Andersson.

-So they never invite you. -They will never invite me.

[laughs]

So that's so beautiful when someone comes from Germany

to interview me about Bergman.

That would never happen in Sweden, you know. [chuckling]

Margarethe, now you have to tell me, which one is your favorite Bergman movie?

Oh, you know, well, it's not the favorite,

but it's the first one I saw, that was Seventh Seal.

So I saw it in Paris in the early '60s. You were not yet born.

-[chuckles] -So that was the time

when the nouvelle vague was discovering Bergman, you know?

Truffaut wrote a wonderful article about him,

and that was the moment he became famous in Europe.

Before, he just did his films in Sweden, but he-- nobody knew him,

and that was like an explosion. Yeah?

And for me it was the first real film.

I went to theater, to concerts, and to exhibitions,

but film, or cinema, was not yet important for me.

And then I saw this film, and I knew I would like to do--

Once in my life, I would like to become a director.

[in Swedish] I will leave you now.

When we meet again,

you and your entourage's time will be over.

And you'll reveal your secrets?

I carry no secrets.

So you know nothing?

I am unknowing.

Subtitled by Captions, Inc.