Original subtitles

I'd like to start by asking you how you define the term "directing".

"Film directing" - in what terms would you describe it?

Film directing...

Well... One director said

that a film director is someone who never has time to think,

due to all the problems.

I think that's the closest one can get to a definition.

- She enters like this... - Right.

Then she stands here...

FIRST DAY OF FILMING/THE TOUCH

...pausing for a moment, and then she turns like this.

- Good morning, Bibi darling. - Morning.

Then the doctor arrives.

- From over there, behind her. - Right.

She turns and goes towards him.

We pick him up in shot as he moves towards her.

Then it's you and the girls...

But how much glare will you get from the doors?

- This one closes like that. - That's that one.

Then we'll have someone going into this room.

They open the doors...

We can bounce light off the ceiling. So no direct lighting.

- You'll have lighting here? - Yes, we've already got a scene here.

- Hello there! - Good morning.

LARS-OWE CARLBERG PRODUCTION MANAGER

Bloody hell!

Lucky you didn't kick too hard. I've been shitting all morning...

- Running all night? - Yes.

- The usual. - Right.

It helps you lose weight. That kilo I'd put on - I've lost it again.

Listen...

KATINKA FARAGÓ CONTINUITY

Couldn't we go out and do that first shot?

SVEN NYKVIST CINEMATOGRAPHER

If we hurry out... Have we got...

- That looks great, Bibi! - Yes, doesn't it?

Have we got Bibi's little white car here?

I'll just check her glasses are here.

They're in room 8, I think. No, in the sickbay.

No. Just her arrival, while that bloody mist is still out there.

Bibi!

Guys! Over here a minute, please!

- Stefan? - Stefan!

- Where's Stickan? - It's an exterior?

- Get hold of Stickan! - He'll be here at nine o'clock.

Stickan? Just tell him it's only a long shot.

I want to shoot the first scene in this wonderful mist.

Exterior. We'll just do a silent shot. Is the camera loaded?

- It's ready. - Go!

He'd thought we'd just shoot interiors today - how wrong can you be?

- What lens? - The 50.

We could use the 75 and take a hell of a long shot.

But then...

...the other tree will be in the way.

We've got the whole road here. Oh, we're shooting it head-on.

I'd like a locked shot. With mist and all.

- The weather's fantastic today. - Say that again?

- Isn't the weather fantastic? - It's wonderful.

Let's see now - can they stand there, where the camera stands?

There. Now let's see.

Listen, is Bibi driving in this shot? She'd like to practise.

She can practise all she likes. Just make bloody sure everyone looks out!

Try and see to it that no cars come and park here.

GERHARD CARLSSON ELECTRICIAN

Cabs are OK, and ambulances.

- Get up speed. - From where?

Drive into that car.

Then hit the wall and stop there.

And rush in.

- Start by the blue minibus. See it? - Yes.

Get up a good speed.

Are you ready?

Drive!

Cut! Again!

Drive!

Stop! Bibi!

- You've got to drive on a bit. - What?

You've got to drive on a bit.

Drive on a bit and I'll show you.

That far, yes!

She's short of the mark.

Bibi! Get the others out here now.

Bibi, you've got to drive further up.

These glasses are for shortsightedness. They make me think I'm further up.

- Everything is a blur. - They are strong.

Try them. I think I'm there...

Ready to go?

Roll camera!

JAN SODERMAN ASSISTANT CAMERAMAN

Drive!

Cut. Print those two. Thanks, all!

Now for a shot down here...

Film directing is to transform one's imagination,

ideas, dreams and hopes

into images that convey those feelings to an audience

in the most efficient way conceivable.

You create some form of...

...some form of medium:

That long strip of film which, via all sorts of machines,

propagates one's... dreams...

...and images to other people.

But film directing also has a technical side to it.

Then slam the door shut and dash across, quick as hell.

And you open the door. Why was it already open? Let's see.

Like that.

Come back, Bibi.

Hurry inside. Right...

Like that. Got it?

It's your...

You and a whole bunch of people,

actors and technicians and a huge amount of machinery...

You create a product- a useful artefact, a commodity.

Or maybe a work of art, according to taste.

What it really amounts to, whether it's all of the above or none of it...

I find it very hard to give an answer, although I've been doing it for 27 years.

Cut!

Well? A good take?

Another take? What was your end frame?

Do you think, in a documentary like this, film directing can be described?

I don't think so. You might be able to present certain superficial notions

as to what it is we're up to, with quick looks inside the studio...

You can interview the actors, the director...

But the innermost mechanics of film directing...

I don't think that can be accessed. I myself find it hard to describe.

Ask ten different directors and you'll get ten different answers.

The core of my films,

the original, pregnant idea

that leads to a completed film and that has me starting out at all,

thinking, playing with that idea, dreaming about it...

It can start as a very small, oddly insignificant thing.

Take Persona. One day I suddenly saw, in my mind, two women

who were seated together in large hats, comparing their hands.

I imagined that one of them didn't speak, but the other did.

You know comparing hands brings bad luck?

A tiny thought like that crops up again and again.

You wonder why it keeps returning, why it repeats itself.

It's as if it were nudging me,

wanting me to deal with it.

You realise, behind that image, there's something hiding,

pinned, as it were, to a door.

If you open the door carefully, it reveals a long passage,

which gets wider and wider. On either side you see scenes enacted.

People begin to speak.

Situations develop.

That must apply to all forms of art creation.

Film, possibly, is specifically visual.

The idea develops in the form of rhythm and, often, light.

Going back to that image in Persona...

The sunlight shone down among those straw hats

to reach the girls' faces.

The sunlight was strong, in that scene.

And it's peculiar how light always plays an integral part

in that original experience.

The picture is often very concrete with a kind of acoustic sensation to it.

You know comparing hands brings bad luck?

Usually, I'll get my idea

and then I'll ask one of the actors

if they can work these or those dates in six months, or a year maybe...

...working with me, that is.

They either say they've got time or they haven't.

And at that point I usually don't feel I can add anything.

Or I'll just give them very few details.

I'll then often have that actor in mind

while I write their part.

That's because the part...

...is so intimately linked to the actor.

Then I start gathering material in notebooks.

And I write piles of stuff - it can be over a long period.

At that stage, everything is still irresponsible and playful.

Then you've got your schedule.

I'm aware that I usually get a break from work for about eight weeks.

I'm free from production, knowing my difficult script period is ahead -

when the script has to be written.

I'll have accumulated a quantity of "workbooks" as they're now known.

I start by condensing the material.

And this is a terribly boring period.

It entails starting work at a given time every morning

and working for a given number of hours with a given number of breaks.

On that day and all other days,

with one day off, per week.

A matter of office work.

When that's done, after six or eight weeks, I've got a completed script.

And the script is handed to the closest collaborators involved.

They read it. Then we congregate.

That's for an initial meeting.

I let them know how I envisage my film.

And they let me have their reactions.

He enters in full surgeon's get-up, covered in blood

and asks where the hell is the manual for this...

Then each of them start,

within their specific craft, to perform their assignment.

P.A. LUNDGREN PRODUCTION DESIGN

Then, on the one hand, we have joint meetings

and, on the other hand, individual meetings.

Work then progresses. The actors are brought in at a very early juncture.

We discuss how the parts are to be played,

dates, practical issues, costumes, makeup.

I expect two months of preparation for a film shoot.

When we're through that preparatory period,

the shooting planning's been drawn up, down to the last detail -

in terms of schedule and aesthetic.

LOCATION SCOUTING/VISBY

We know what we're to do.

It's absolutely fine. You can shoot as much as you like here.

We could...

- He sees them through the window. - Yes.

Let's just check how much we can see in.

This is damn good.

Action! Bibi, go!

FILMING/VISBY

Faster as you leave.

Hello, Maria.

Do like this.

You walk that far.

- Here? - Exactly. That's it.

You try and get a glimpse of Mum and him. Then you start walking.

382, take 2, two cameras rolling.

Action!

What Ingmar does better than anyone else I've worked with,

is to give stage directions which aren't merely directions.

They're a rhythmical sketch of the part.

Watching Ingmar give stage directions for a whole play act, for instance,

I find most fascinating.

It's not only about geographical positioning,

where to cross to that piece of furniture,

where to sit down, and so forth, occasionally delivering a line.

What he does is give instructions

as to tempo and rhythm for the action.

It's easy to use musical similes.

You're faintly conscious of musical terminology.

You know how many bars to count,

during a move, or before an accentuation.

If you understand the first instruction

that's included in Ingmar's stage directions,

you'll have understood most of what Ingmar wants in your part.

That gives me as an actor a lot of liberty.

You can never overrate...

...or rate adequately the contribution of actors. It's paramount.

You really only need the actors. And the machinery.

Everything behind all that is of secondary importance.

An actor performs all the better...

...the better his launching pad works.

Yet, actors' faces, their gifts, their imagination,

their capacity to stimulate themselves and each other and me -

that is all paramount.

I don't actually know what it is that happens...

...when we work together.

Yet it's true, I do have a few technical templates.

We have certain...

...methods.

It's technical work, in the main.

Nonetheless...

...I'm almost always just as surprised

when something special suddenly happens on the set.

When something utterly irrational,

something utterly mysterious, unexpectedly expressed, emerges.

That boon, being allowed to be there with a camera -

with a camera in the right place,

capturing the scene on film without any technical hitches.

And no film lab mucking it up.

No scratches on the negative.

Every now and again, it comes about.

How or why it comes about...

If I'm to be truthful,

I don't actually know.

It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with me.

Nor necessarily with the actor,

nor the script.

It's rather something...

...that is completely irrational.

Something that is part and parcel of the essence of acting.

Something that occurs. Be thankful you happen to be there with your camera.

Liv Ullmann in The Pass/on of Anna.

I thought Andreas and I enjoyed

a completely idealistic marriage, with no friction.

But it wasn't like that.

We had violent rows.

But we never infected each other

with cruelty or suspicion.

We were always totally honest.

No trace of deception in our relationship.

I'm a great believer

in an actor's face being the most evocative element in film.

It's always a matter of evoking.

I'll go to any lengths, use any method available,

to get people into emotional states.

And I've reached the conclusion

that a good method, maybe the best one of all,

is to allow the actor a lot of freedom.

Moreover, actors seem to thrive on that.

They know their most powerful assets are their faces, bodies,

voices, eyes, facial expressions, mouths...

They get to exploit all that to the full.

We'd been lent Eva and Elis's house.

It was the Sunday. We'd just had lunch.

Andreas wanted a nap.

But I wanted to go to the church ruins.

I got my way - we drove off.

Andreas had had a bit to drink, so he let me drive.

I wasn't driving fast at all.

We were in such a good mood.

The road was icy.

The car skidded from side to side.

Andreas tried to grab hold of the wheel.

But we drove off the road into the ditch,

through a dry-stone wall, into a copse.

When I came to,

I saw the wreckage of a car

and a man with his throat cut,

his body hanging half way through the windscreen.

Not far off, a small boy lay - thrown out of the car.

His head was at a strange angle.

I remember thinking it was a dreadful accident...

...with no one there to help those poor people.

I got on to the road

and I felt pain on one side, and in my leg.

I felt I was dragging my leg.

Then I saw blood.

Blood everywhere.

Bone stuck through my stocking.

They found us, hours later.

I didn't think life would be like this.

I didn't think life would be daily suffering.

I have, over the years, acquired a thoroughly developed modus operandi.

For instance, on the island of Faro I once saw an old boat,

built a hundred years earlier. It was a thing of beauty.

Its owners said it was exceptionally seaworthy.

They were old fishermen.

That boat had been built

as all other boats on the island had been built over the past hundred years.

It was built according to special instructions

which had, naturally, evolved over centuries of experience

of how boats stood up to the climate

and to the difficult seafaring conditions there.

I'd say that, during my 27 years as a director, I've built myself a boat

which carries me through the difficulties that constitute film-directing.

I've constructed a practical "machine", a method,

which I use on each occasion.

But that method has to be readily adaptable

to the various subjects that my films deal with.

Basically, it is a thoroughly well worked-out technique that I employ.

She unlocks the flat door with her own key.

FROM "THE TOUCH" SCRIPT

It's empty and silent. David has packed and left. He's gone. Left.

Sat on the bed, she looks out of the grubby window.

There's that grey row of windows opposite, with their black hollows.

Here's the unmade bed, the worn-out armchair.

He's forgotten his slippers, abandoned by the table.

The kitchen is a mess. His departure has been hasty.

She looks about her. No letter. No message.

The keys are on a table in the main room.

Physical pain spreads in her limbs. Her eyes sting. Difficulty breathing...

I hardly ever look at my script once it's written

except the evening before the scene's to be shot.

Everything's meticulously prepared in it.

I go through it the night before, which I do damned thoroughly.

All of it.

Looking at the sequence in question - about one page in length...

I think it took about a day to shoot.

There's not much in writing here.

I haven't entered anything concerning camera set-ups.

They'll get solved on the day, if you feel that you know

exactly how you want it done.

All I've put in writing here, to remind myself, is:

"N.B. The physical pain."

That's the essence of this scene.

She arrives. First she's stunned.

Then, a little at a time,

terrible physical pain rises in her being.

Pain she then tries to compensate for

by pushing her hand against the shards of glass.

Nothing else works as compensation. She tries to balance her pain.

Knowing that he actually has let her down, that he's left,

is so awful for her...

...that it makes her physically ill.

Bibi and I had problems with that

since we experience things like that in different ways.

I have occasionally felt, in my life, such a terrible sense of loss

that I've not known how to cope with it.

I imagined Bibi had felt that, too. But she expresses it differently.

You open...

She doesn't move slowly. She goes in there first.

- That works fine. - Fine there.

She doesn't look in there again. She looks here. Then the keys.

- Can you see the keys now? - The table needs moving in a bit.

- That'll look odd. - No. Just put the armchair in the corner.

That'd be better. It won't take up so much space.

The armchair could go next to the stove as well.

Cut!

- Those trousers are no good. - What's wrong with them?

They're not OK. They look so splendid.

They're so snazzy-looking.

- But she's a classy lady. - Right, but they look bloody...

They're not exactly elegant- just jersey slacks for a few quid.

But they look a bit off-ish, like sailor's bags, a bit comical.

In this serious scene.

- Mago! - Have we got any other trousers?

You've got those dark red ones. They're tight.

- You can use a safety... - They'd look awful with this coat.

Velvet trousers with this... It's really bad dress sense.

- I don't want you to look awful. - It doesn't matter to me.

That's the spirit!

Can we kill the lights?

- Bibi? - Yes?

Listen... Can you come here a sec?

Watch this. I'll try and show you how this looks.

Or could we take a Polaroid to show you what I mean?

- Lights? - Light 'em up and we'll take a Polaroid.

Stand there in profile as she does.

There.

Move a tiny bit... There. Right.

- Don't feel nervous now! - I'm extremely nervous.

- You could... - Ask Mago. He's my costume designer.

- Your opinion's... - I promise you I don't have an opinion.

It's what I think. But I have no opinion on how the character dresses.

It looks a bit sharp, a bit snazzy, in some way a bit...

- A chic girl. - Yes...

- So you don't like those other... - I do, but they don't go with this.

- Does it matter here? - No, it's no problem.

- You don't hate wearing them? - Not at all. But they're so light.

It'll look like I'm wearing a winter coat and summer trousers.

- You'll see... - Your brown jeans then?

- Yes, those ones. - They're green, but they're light, too.

- True. They're too light. - I could be wrong. Let's see.

What's really important is your first set-up.

If the first set-up's wrong, all the subsequent shots will go wrong.

If the first set-up is right, the rest will turn out right of its own accord.

431, take 2.

She unlocks the flat door with her own key.

It's empty and silent. David has packed and left...

That kind of scene makes me hesitate,

as I read the script.

It's so emotionally charged that it's easy to make it all theatrical.

It's hard knowing how you actually behave, alone in a room.

I'd expressed a little unease about that scene.

Ingmar said to me several days earlier...

"You're to... weigh two tons

"and just try and move at all.

"Moving at all is so hard when you feel there's nothing...

"...no resilience left in life.

"Instead of bringing out the tears, or emotionally here..."

That's how he saw it.

It's very suggestive, yet hard, too, to express.

How do you show you weigh two tons? Or is it a metaphor?

But he'd explained the whole of my entrance -

exactly how I'm to come rushing in

and find the flat empty.

In the script it says there are thousands of traces of David.

He's left his slippers and other stuff.

But he rewrote it: David had packed

and a cleaner had been and cleaned the whole place out.

So there were no objects to sit and cry over,

bar the letters she finds in the drawer.

- Let's do this shot, for safety's sake. - Yes.

- On the keys. Then tilt up. - Right you are.

Here first, then up! Let's see now...

Come here a sec, Bibi.

Maybe just damn tight on the keys.

- Then up. - Yes.

433, take 1.

Action!

Sorry...

- Cut! - Check focus, please!

Where the keys end up was my point of focus...

Don't get miserly now.

You've got to stand up for this business of producing your own films.

Stick to your guns! Only fourteen days left.

Later you can start saving on this and that. Eat cut-price meatballs.

I already do!

I'll start skipping pickles and other sundries.

Ready to roll.

Ready?

- Down with the slate! - Roll 'em!

Action!

- It's nice with wider shots. - Right.

A wide shot first, then a close-up with the letters.

Where can we take the letter shot?

When she pulls the drawer out. Can we stand on this side?

Then we move over there.

Then tilt down with her hand, on the letters, and then on her face.

Like this...

- Kill the 10K! - Already killed. It's another lamp...

- Is it the 5K? - It's a 2K, that light there.

It was on that little wad of cotton wool.

- If we chop it... - Chop that 2K as well!

- Kill Which? - The 2K.

- There it is. - That's it.

Can you say a few words about working with cinematographer Sven Nykvist?

A very few words. It's terribly hard to describe.

We have a common base in light. I'm a lighting director myself.

I've always, over the years, lit my own theatre productions.

Light has interested me all my life.

Actually, all my visual experiences...

...are based on light.

Sven's and my relationship is entirely based on how we experience light.

So we go through things thoroughly before shooting starts, with the script,

as to what lighting there's to be in each scene.

433B, take 2.

Action!

Cut!

Sven is one of the few lighting geniuses in the world of film.

He has that very special skill

of being able to use one single lamp, or two, or three,

with grease paper bunged in front of it, and getting it dead right.

A quick look through the viewfinder and I see it's great.

We have stimulated each other, evoking ideas.

Positioning the camera is easy compared to lighting a scene -

how light falls on a face.

It's deeply fascinating.

People think gloomy, tragic films are shot in gloomy, tragic studios.

But the opposite is true. I don't think it would work -

wandering about doing gloomy things and being gloomy.

It's a professional matter: We start here and end there.

We start being miserable here and finish being miserable there.

Then we have some fun.

Polar bears pace to and fro' like this...

If we were miserable all clay, we'd never have the energy

to let out that maximum of spiritual intensity at a given instance.

That intensity would get diluted during the course of the day.

With that "amateur", Dreyer - if it was a serious film being shot,

he'd have no laughter on the studio floor, nor whistling, nor coffee.

Everyone was to mooch about like wet blankets all damn clay.

It's the opposite of what you need.

It's an unprofessional way of working.

You must exploit the actor's phenomenal, lightning capacity

to accept a situation and adapt to it.

And leave it, too, with lightning speed.

Exactly!

That's what directing is.

Quiet on the set!

Action!

- I'm to...? - You needn't do anything.

Stop there.

A sandbag marker there maybe. Then you leave by the door.

- A second circuit? - OK. But then out through the door.

Again, Bibi. And stick to the same pace so Sven can keep up. Once again...

- You sit. - I walk there, then another circuit.

We'll see. Right...

The documentary camera's disturbing us. Stop!

You were making a noise.

And you were in shot, purring away.

So we couldn't have you there.

But...

But complications had arisen there,

in the relationship between Bibi and me.

Bibi had her idea. But I had other intentions.

But, gradually, we could agree.

Bibi did it her Way.

And, as I saw it, it was very moving.

Physical pain spreads in her limbs. Her eyes sting. Difficulty breathing.

No...

Cut!

One of these days I shall stop making films.

Perhaps, for my own enjoyment, I'll go into experimenting.

I've got my own Nagra recorder and my own Arriflex camera.

Because making films is not only mentally exhausting.

It's even physically exhausting.

There are very few directors over 60

doing any work at all anymore.

The reason I do it is that I want to.

I've always wanted to. I don't know where the urge comes from.

I have this huge need of contact.

Of wanting to influence other people,

and touch other people both in body and mind -

to communicate with them.

Film is of course a fantastic medium.

For touching one's fellow individuals.

For making contact with them.

Either to infuriate them or to give them pleasure.

To make them sad. Make them think.

Get them going emotionally.

That is the innermost reason for my working with film.

From the opening sequence in Persona.

There's something about the film-making work itself on which I'm very dependent.

It's like working in the theatre. You're part of a collective.

If, like me, you're a relatively inhibited, shy and timid person...

...who finds making contact hard, deep down,

it's very good,

living in that film workers' collective, making a film.

Or in that theatre collective, getting a production on stage.

There, only one thing matters - that you give your all, every bit of the way.

Nothing else will do.

You have to invest your own self in it, for better or for worse.

You have to take the risk of making a fool of yourself.

The risk that people will laugh in your face.

It shouldn't matter a damn.

Through film and theatre work, you're continually in contact

with other people.

You get yourself inside other people's problems -

the actors', the technicians'...

You're continually faced with the need for a certain form of empathy.

And that's very healthy. And great fun.

It's unceasingly fascinating.

The major stimulus comes from

continually dealing with living people.

You say there's a limit to your time as a film-maker.

You think film has a future?

A great future. It's just that there'll be an adjustment.

It's of no consequence...

Film as a channeller,

a distributor for dreamers and dreams

that brings people's dreams to life

and their wishes and most secret longings... Film will always be with us.

There's no better medium.

Cut!