Original subtitles

Could we reduce the top light?

We can remove that monitor, or turn it off.

Well, these rumors... It's partly old grudges that linger.

I was bloody ill-tempered when I was young.

I remember once I lost my temper...

I lost my rag in a radio studio.

I took a bag...

quite a heavy bag, it was full of old seventy-eights...

I got so furious that I threw the bag through the glass window.

I did behave badly...

and was quite volatile.

But nowadays when I...

or rather, over the past twenty years

when I've been unsettled in terms of my work,

I've come to see this, clearly,

as a lapse of professionalism.

I would feel I had failed in my profession.

Because I feel that it is enormously important...

in this fantastic and peculiar environment

that a film or TV studio constitutes,

where so many different kinds of people have to work together,

I feel it's enormously important

that there is a gentle, smooth, calm, cheerful,

quiet and balanced atmosphere to work in.

But at the same time dynamic,

so that no one flags, or begins to feel that:

"That's it now, we can't go on."

I think that the language used between actors and director

is full of codes and signals.

You could say that Ingmar and Sj�berg too

- not to mention Molander -

can afford to have regular outbursts

and the actors can take it, they know what it's about.

You would have one outburst per what you called 'instruction period'.

It was the same with Alf Sj�berg. You'd think: "Oh, it's that day."

That's true...

However, the people that spread these legends about me...

usually are people who have never worked with me.

When interviewed, actors always speak very highly of Ingmar.

And this, of course, annoys some people.

You've made the headlines in the past

- like when you punched a critic -

these incidents have been blown up.

That wasn't in a fit of temper.

It was entirely premeditated on my part.

I saw him sitting there diagonally opposite me.

By then he'd been hounding me for some years

in quite a nasty way.

It was a dress rehearsal...

I thought that if I catch him in the interval and land him one,

I'll be rid of him for the rest of my life.

The paper couldn't possibly let him review my work after that.

The paper called me and asked

what I thought of violence in the theatre.

Not one of the easier questions in my life as an artistic director.

The critics' guild held a meeting,

declaring you can't behave like that.

But I actually think, why shouldn't you?

Verbal violence is just as terrible as physical.

Having been subjected to it in a major broadsheet year after year,

it felt good to do. And I never actually punched him.

He was so scared that he sat down before I got there.

I grabbed him by the collar and he disappeared down

in the middle of all these music stands and that was all.

Then I was fined 5,000 kronor

because some woman prosecutor wanted to make a name for herself.

It was well worth it.

But this critic - who fully knew the score -

when he couldn't get at me,

started abusing Erland, since he knew we were friends.

Some of my children and people close to me

were involved in the theatre, and he attacked them.

May he burn in hell.

I hate that man, even though he's dead.

I don't hate many people, but him - yes.

He was a...

I'll never forgive him.

Erland, you were artistic director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre.

What was it like to be Ingmar's superior?

For the most part it was lots of fun.

I had Ingmar there, and Alf Sj�berg, another superb director.

A dialogue developed between Ingmar and Alf

around the productions and the actors.

There was a lot of talk about Ingmar having too much power.

He didn't, or things wouldn't have been what they were.

Better or worse, I don't know...

But I was artistic director from '66 to '75,

during a much needed process of democratization of the theatre.

It wasn't easy to be the boss during that turmoil.

And you can't be liked by everybody when you're boss.

When people said Ingmar and Alf had too much power,

I'd answer that I thought they had too little power.

That was my response.

And you wanted Erland to be your successor.

Yes, we arranged that.

I discovered that...

I was the artistic director for three years, and...

Not for ten years, three.

- I said three. - It's because my hearing's bad.

Thinking about your lives,

when I've watched your films and read your autobiographies...

I'm a woman, and I also like my job, it's a great job.

I only have three children - you two have many more.

As a woman and mother, this is a never-ending conflict.

You always have a guilty conscience,

where am I best needed?

Ingmar's laughing...

But reading your accounts, the word 'father' is barely present.

I don't think it's there at all.

Why are you laughing?

You start.

We've got many children... many.

I've never thought about there not being anything about my father.

- Or do you mean me as a father? - Yes.

- You say a lot about your fathers. - We certainly do.

For some peculiar reason our roles as fathers

haven't been included in our confessions.

Because you do expose yourselves and admit to a lot...

There was nothing to confess

as we didn't have a role as fathers.

- Perhaps you did, whereas I was... - I suppose I did.

It must be a sore point with me, or I would have a sensible answer.

But it's obvious that I neglected my children.

In my defense I've always said it's not all bad

that they're not cosseted, that I don't interfere all the time.

We're very close - I think. I can't be sure, but I think we're close.

That's partly due to their tolerance,

partly to the fact that I've taken an interest in them.

You were away a lot when they were little, you traveled...

You say somewhere it may have been good for them.

one couldn't say for sure, it would be great if it were so, but...

But now they're grown-up,

they show very little aggression towards me.

But you didn't have a guilty conscience?

I'm sure I did, but not very.

I can't say I did.

You want to live as well.

They're part of your life, but there are other parts.

I think I mention this, that if they suddenly

were to feel I lived only for them,

it would be a great burden for them, a heavy burden.

In that respect, I've made things easy for them!

But there's one thing we should add, Erland,

and that is that the mothers have been really splendid ladies.

- Really. - They certainly have.

They've never slagged us off.

They certainly said a thing or two to us,

but they have never injected any venom

coming out of the bitterness, sorrow or disappointment

that they may have experienced. Not one of them.

They all have that in common, don't you agree?

Yes, absolutely.

You started laughing when I put the question to you. Why?

That's because...

I had a bit of a row with one of my sons,

and I said to him that...

"I know that I've been a poor father."

Then he roared at me:

"A 'poor father'? You haven't been a father at all!"

And he may be right in that.

I haven't really met any...

any criteria in that area. I really haven't.

In my life, however...

these women, these ladies...

who have had my children, they have been generous enough...

never to speak ill of me to the children.

What intrigues me is that, judging from your own words,

you don't seem to have a guilty conscience.

I suffer from it constantly.

It's always there, especially in women.

- That's true. - But not in you.

There's one thing I think I should add.

I'm very good friends with my children.

You're like me, you have a great interest in your children.

An honest interest.

It's human... I'm interested in them.

And another thing, which I can thank my wife Ingrid for,

was that on my sixtieth birthday,

she arranged for all the children to gather at my place on Faro.

All nine of them were there.

Several of them were barely aware of each other's existence.

But they've all maintained close contact with each other

after that family get-together. They discovered they liked each other.

The way things are now,

regardless of whether I'm there,

they all come to Faro on my birthday.

And since I find large parties hard work,

- I only hear in one ear -

they all have a fine dinner while I sit by myself with my fishcakes.

After that we all spend a fabulous evening together.

They have more or less decided that this is a tradition.

On 14 July, they all come to Faro.

Are we the last generation to enjoy

these generous and indulgent women?

Maybe they don't put up with it anymore, we're the last of that line.

We two have agreed that in many respects we are dinosaurs.

On the point of extinction.

A dying breed.

You both describe how rehearsals would go on until late at night.

Impossible to combine with small children.

So why did you have so many children?

You'd imagine you'd come to know your limitations.

In those days, even a low income actor could afford domestic help.

Things were different in that respect.

From necessity, because actresses, like our wives,

would be back on stage a fortnight after delivery.

You must have had a desire for that many children.

I'd like to say that I don't have any planned children.

They just happened!

They happened...

My children are all love-children.

Very much so.

I'm immensely fond of them.

And it's wonderful with all the grandchildren.

I have grow-up grandchildren, and little ones.

I even have great-grandchildren.

I'm absolutely enchanted by these little grandchildren

that are popping out one after another.

I want to be with them, but I can only do one hour at a time,

then I have to take a Valium and go to bed, because it's hard work.

But I enjoy it a lot.

You were talking about women having a guilty conscience.

Trust me to try and suppress that...

I had a strict upbringing.

It was common in those days

that you were brought up to have a guilty conscience.

A guilty conscience was part of the upbringing.

Moreover...

I was a rat in many ways, I was a liar and a cheat.

I went from one to the other.

I behaved like an absolute bastard.

In the end this became unbearable for me.

I decided not to have a guilty conscience,

as I felt it became a form of posturing

to have a guilty conscience about the suffering you cause.

So I got rid of my guilty conscience.

How do you do that?

A guilty conscience is one thing, feelings of guilt another.

I could never liquidate my feelings of guilt.

But as I got rid of my guilty conscience. I decided to become

the world's foremost in my profession.

There would be no limits to my conquests as a professional.

It was all closely linked:

My feelings of absolute failure...

as a human being,

and wanting to compensate for this by being

as accomplished a professional as was virtually possible.

This in its turn forced me to make certain decisions.

A tremendously ascetic lifestyle.

Precision, punctuality, soberness...

A rigor which became a trial for my colleagues.

I demanded the same of them.

We've been talking about life,

and for both of you art - theatre and film - is life.

But love and women have also been leitmotifs in your lives.

- Many women... - Here we go.

There still are. Erland is moving in with someone.

It has always been important.

Of course there have been conflicts...

and storms.

Despair and joy,

and this turmoil in body and soul that love will create.

"Here we go," you said, Ingmar.

You're used to it being brought up, your love life.

But it's formed an essential part of your lives.

Yes, but I resist talking about it.

It's hard when it's made public.

Often because I feel I've let too many people down in the past.

I've had too many shortcomings in these affairs.

'Affairs' is the wrong word - episodes.

But there must be many wonderful and enjoyable things to tell...

Oh yes, I've been very...

I've been very much in love, I am in love - continuously.

It's a tempting profession.

You very soon become very intimate

with the people you play against.

A love affair in the workplace is the most natural thing that can happen.

It's considered such a strange thing.

I think it's perfectly reasonable that love springs up in the workplace.

You just sit there smiling, Ingmar.

I've always marveled at how - we two go back many years -

how girls would chase Erland, he never had to do anything.

When I've fallen in love with someone,

I've always had to work hard at it.

But Erland and Sven Nykvist never had to do a thing.

The girls just fall madly in love, and I can never understand...

Why?

I could never understand how they did it.

I've always had a devil of a job

being something of love's carthorse all my life.

I don't agree with you there.

You can't be a judge of that.

- I suppose I can't! - No, you can't.

You don't know how it works.

If you want a brief description of me...

On the subject of Bergman and love:

I have always been deeply in love...

for as long as I can remember. It started with my mother.

I was madly in love with my mother.

She was so beautiful.

But she had of course had a puritanical upbringing,

so any tokens of affection

were out of the question...

because I was a boy.

But if you were ill - my mother was a trained nurse -

so when you were ill, then she would let loose

all her enormous love.

No wonder I was ill all the time!

But as she was a nurse

she'd see through me...

And this has continued...

Looking at the women in your life, they last about three years

and then you find someone else... Five years, you say.

Five years.

That's barely enough time to get started.

But then I met Ingrid.

That lasted for twenty-four years.

Then Ingrid died, or we would have carried on.

But in that Ingrid came to the decision

that she wanted to marry me,

all other traffic ceased.

Was it true love, or had you matured? It was true love.

Yes. And it was a matter of...

I was fifty-two when we got married,

and I was coming out of puberty then, pretty much.

And this marriage, that I subsequently lived in,

was immensely close.

The funny thing was that Ingrid

looked so much like my mother.

That could have had some significance, somehow.

We had such a deep understanding...

so that... everything came together there.

What is also funny is that, on the other hand,

it shows what wonderful girls they all were.

I'm good friends with all these girls.

It's hard to believe when you read how you treated some of them.

It's hard to understand

how they could be so forgiving.

Your first wife, for example, who contracted TB.

While she was in treatment you met someone else.

To be abandoned in these circumstances...

To do that, and still remain friends...

It's quite amazing that they've been so generous.

There could have been so much bitterness and hate.

Somehow the bitterness subsides.

I have also caused a lot of bitterness, which has subsided.

You go through it together, that's something you can't avoid.

I'm also very good friends with my ex-wives.

When reading about you I get an impression of two lady-killers,

also from your autobiographies.

Try not to look too flattered!

Still you describe yourselves as ugly when you were growing up.

- You did in your book The Colour. - It might have been there.

Your head was big, you had red hair...

And also curly hair and masses of freckles.

In those days you were bullied for being a redhead.

When I look at photographs I'm surprised that I felt so ugly.

You can't tell from photographs, but I felt horribly ugly.

Did this feeling have anything to do with you becoming an actor?

To be someone.

To play the lover, become someone else...

I played many romantic roles in Gothenburg,

and enjoyed it immensely.

It was a great achievement for me

not to be so embarrassed about my body and all that.

It was an enjoyable time in that respect.

But the same...

Bergman's looking highly amused... What?

What? I'm just delighted, listening to you makes me enthusiastic.

Also, it appealed to my mixture of shyness and exhibitionism.

Being on stage is very good for that.

I didn't want to be either seen or heard,

but I quote Isaac Grunewald:

"A day without being in the papers is a lost day."

In that respect I'm really quite ambivalent.

To tie it up:

I was of course very easily seduced,

as I was so fond of being noticed

and appreciated, especially by women.

- Who fell in love with you? - I suppose that many did.

And I fell in love with many of them.

You also describe yourself as ugly: spotty and sickly...

I really was hideous.

I was tall and stooped.

I was terrifically skinny - as thin as a scratch on a negative.

On top of that I had appalling acne.

I felt enormously ill at ease with my body

and with all the hormonal storms

that I was subjected to.

Furthermore, the girls thought...

that I looked enormously comical.

I had a difficult time with girls, there's no doubt about that.

During my schooldays I had a hard time with girls.

There was one girl who took pity on me.

She must have been around fourteen.

I was sixteen. That's where it started.

She was really quite fat.

She must have been twice my size and not very attractive.

That's where it all started.

She was really sweet and we used to do our homework together.

And my mother, who kept a close eye on the chastity of her children,

she thought this girls was so ugly

that she couldn't possibly be a threat to little Ingmar's chastity.

But that's just what she was.

We started practicing diligently at her house

on a shabby, saggy couch.

It must have felt like a vindication for you.

The pimply boy that no one wanted...

Of course, eventually I got that.

I got that...

I started making films in 1945.

And for the first time I experienced

this intensely powerful...

erotic atmosphere. But that's not quite true, either.

As I was so young and insecure...

so scared,

and knew so little...

I spent most of my time being extremely angry.

I was constantly shouting and kicking up a row.

It wasn't actually until after a few years,

when I began to master my profession,

that this incredible feeling

of attraction and affinity appeared

within this magic circle created by the lights.

That didn't appear until later.

I consistently fell in love with my leading actresses.

It didn't always result in love affairs,

but it certainly was a loving atmosphere.

- And there were children... - And complications.

- A new film and a new love. - Yes, that was often the case.

It must have been hard to go through all these separations.

It can't just have been a matter of stepping in and out of relationships.

- It sounds like it's been painful. - It's been tough.

A feeling of doom... obscurity and strangeness.

I avenged my ugliness by being funny.

I always had to be funny.

I have been dogged by this over the years.

Being funny was a way of keeping both

myself and the world at a distance.

But I've grown out of it, now I'm just dull.

You're still funny.

Oh well... I still use it in the struggle for existence.

I'm skeptical about this thing of 'being oneself'.

I'm not sure what that means.

I'm quite happy not having a core.

I have to remember having said that!

So you don't go and say: "I'm quite happy having a core."

In contrast to Erland, who says he's quite happy not having a core...

Is that what you said?

It's a bit different for me.

Instead I rather feel

that I live in a terrible state of chaos

that I have to keep a check on.

If I don't keep a check on it,

I will perish in my chaos.

I could perish in this chaos.

Is that why you like to be in control?

As regards the world around me,

and as regards myself,

I'm extremely organized and controlled.

I detest any kind of improvisation.

And nowadays...

I don't have a social life at all.

Since Ingrid passed away five years ago

I don't meet any people outside my work.

Erland and I met at the theatre, or talk on the phone.

We never go out together, or have dinner.

Why did this stop?

I've never found it difficult to be alone.

On the contrary I've felt a great need of solitude.

Ever since I was a child I've liked being on my own,

playing alone, pottering about on my own.

Solitude has never been a problem for me.

But then I had those exceptional twenty-four years with Ingrid,

where I came to experience something extraordinary:

a close relationship.

That could never be recreated.

So now I have reverted to solitude.

But to this I now have to add my sense of deep loss.

Because I carry that with me every day.

Although my need of company...

hasn't changed in any way, it remains nonexistent.

But I do love

my time at the theatre, at the rehearsals.

But I also love my solitude at Faro.

- We haven't said much about death. - No...

- Do you dislike talking about it? - No.

- Most people do. - Why? It's an absolute reality...

Both Erland and I have good reason

to contemplate it.

I think of Strindberg, whom you both love,

of his play Thunder in the Air.

There are in the accounts of ageing

a feeling of reconciliation, together with the pain.

I get the same feeling when listening to you.

I don't know if this is just my impression.

Is it wishful thinking on my part, that ageing brings reconciliation?

- Do you want to start, or shall I? - You start.

I can carry on.

We should talk in chorus,

as we both feel the same way about growing old.

We were never told it would be so hard.

It's hard work.

It's very hard work.

Especially when you feel yourself waning,

and your ailments begin to take over.

Ridiculous, slightly humiliating ailments begin to take over.

Before you get used to this, and they become part of your life,

you have a hard time.

Ageing is strenuous work.

It isn't something often talked about.

We should talk more about it.

Ageing in itself

is a full-time job.

Making yourself function

in a reasonably dignified manner. We've talked about this.

Your way of talking about your ailments

is a mixture of seriousness and joking.

Joking about it is like casting a spell.

And there is a comical side to it.

If you spend five minutes trying to button a cuff link

you start laughing after four minutes,

seeing the ridiculous side of it.

But I also have to say that I'm very reluctant to die.

Much more so than Ingmar. I don't want to die.

Ingmar is more resigned to the thought, but then I'm younger.

Not resigned.

We had an agreement, we even used to joke about it...

I would die first.

Ingrid would sit with me and hold my hand.

Ingrid would be the last person I saw.

She was going to take over everything on Faro

and everything was to go on as before.

And then this happened...

Probably the cruelest thing to befall me in my life

and which has crippled me. Ingrid suddenly died.

Not suddenly, it took a year.

To go on living now

is for me

so utterly irrelevant.

I try...

I try to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

I try to keep my life in order.

I keep set hours. I get up at six in the morning.

I work methodically until noon.

Then there's the theatre.

I try to maintain a strict order.

To me...

To me life itself is a heavy burden.

That I'm never going to see Ingrid again...

is to me deeply distressing.

It's a dreadful thought.

You see, I really felt that Ingrid was still there.

I had an uninterrupted conversation going on with her.

She wasn't altogether gone, she was still near.

But then notions of life and death as existence and non-existence

clashed violently.

"That means I'll never again see Ingrid."

Then Erland and I

had a good conversation about it, which meant an awful lot to me.

Erland asked: "What are your thoughts on the matter?"

I said: "I'm very doubtful at the moment."

"But I think I'll see Ingrid again."

Because I do believe in other realities, I always have.

I think I'll meet Ingrid again. And Erland wisely replied:

"So affirm that belief." And that's what I've been doing.

I'm not actually afraid of dying.

On the contrary, really. I think it'll be interesting.

- So this is where you differ. - Yes, I think it's ghastly.

I don't want to.

But I know that I eventually will be defeated by my body.

When it gives up.

I know I said several years ago, when I felt it approaching,

that I somehow had to find a philosophy of dying.

It's as if you're just going with the stream,

instead of deciding where to put in the oars

and start rowing for yourself.

I prefer to do my own rowing, and not be caught off guard.

I suppose my fear has lessened the past few years.

- Have you found a philosophy? - No.

- You've helped Ingmar. - We've talked about this, but...

Well, maybe, I don't know, something has changed in me.

I feel that the one thing that would be really appalling,

would be to end up a vegetable.

Or to be a burden to other people.

If my dying spirit had to live in a body...

where the organs were increasingly undermining me.

To me that would be rather gruesome.

Though there are possibilities...

You can actually decide for yourself if you want to go on living.

I hope that I'll have the presence of mind to make that decision.

- You would take your own life? - Absolutely.

And that's not posturing on my part.

It will be a completely natural ending

to do that while I have my wits about me,

and still have the capability to plan and organize it.

I fully share that view.

It's nice to have Ingmar and Ulla there,

to control my mental faculties. I ask them if I'm going senile.

You see, we've promised each other this...

As I mentioned earlier, Erland and I have an agreement

that we will gauge

each other's senility potential. Haven't we?

We won't know who's judging who,

and then we'll just lie there laughing.

Hey guys, it didn't work!

Is there still curiosity and joy, the desire to experience new things?

We may be sad, but neither Ingmar nor I have lost our cheerfulness.

- I don't think so. We laugh a lot. - Yes.

But that's necessary, really. It's all you can do, isn't it?

While we still have our teeth...

- Even when they've fallen out... - We'll still be laughing.

We'll be laughing about that. "Look, there go my teeth...

You see, throughout my life,

ever since I was a little boy, I have been tremendously curious.

And my curiosity...

on all possible and various levels,

because there are many kinds of curiosity -

but my curiosity actually is boundless.

There's even a recognized disease called loss of curiosity.

You lose your vital force.

Picture the phone conversations between these two curious persons.

We have a lot to talk about.

I feel it's a wonderful gift.

With time we've come to realize what life has bestowed on us:

This contact we have with one another, this friendship.

This intimate friendship.