Classic Flicks: Bergman

By Joseph Allencherril     10/19/11 7:00pm

Few directors can claim to be more influential than Ingmar Bergman. Martin Scorsese said, "I guess I'd put it like this: If you were alive in the '50s and the '60s and of a certain age, a teenager on your way to becoming an adult, and you wanted to make films, I don't see how you couldn't be influenced by Bergman." Woody Allen, an unlikely disciple, said that Bergman was "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera."

Bergman was blessed with a keen eye for the art that is present in quotidian life. Of all Bergman's movies, The Seventh Seal (1957) probably has the least footing in reality, but it contains some of the most iconic images in all of cinema.

Bergman developed the film from his play Wood Painting. The film's title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation. The knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand) return from the Crusades to find their Swedish home ravaged by the bubonic plague. Immediately upon arriving, Block encounters Death (Bengt Ekerot), who appears as a dark, monk-like figure. Block subsequently challenges Death to a game of chess, hoping to postpone his demise so long as their match continues. Death agrees, and they start a new game.

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Like film directors Werner Herzog and Luis Bunuel, Bergman seems to have been incapable of taking cinematic missteps; I don't believe he ever made a "bad" film. His rich oeuvre is a lifetime of viewing. In recommending more Bergman films, I will restrain myself by listing his greatest films (even though that still comes to a lengthy list): Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Wild Strawberries (1957), The Magician (1958), The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1962), Persona (1966), Shame (1968), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), The Serpent's Egg (1977), Autumn Sonata (1978), Fanny and Alexander (1982) and Saraband (2003), his return to film after a 21-year hiatus. This last film, made for television, continues, in all of its geriatric glory, where Scenes from a Marriage left off.

Interestingly, by some strange coincidence, Bergman died on July 30, 2007 — the same day as rival Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni (L'Eclisse, Blow-Up). Antonioni's trademark was lengthy and uncut still shots, of which Bergman complained, "I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded."

For what it's worth, I will leave Bergman buffs and cinema nerds with Bergman's views on contemporary cinema, from an interview in Swedish Daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet: "Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased making films, and Steven Soderbergh — they all have something to say, they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another couple of fine examples of the strength of American cinema are American Beauty and Magnolia."

Bergman knew how to make a great film, and he also knew how to spot one.

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