batman

One of the greatest directors of all time. If you have never seen any of his films check out The Virgin Spring, Summer With Monika and The Magician. Those are my favourites but all his films have something substantial to offer the viewer.

Another of the greats gone.

Bats.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

Moor Larkin

I was a bit shocked when Jeremy Paxman remarked, "Not exactly Box Office was he?" to the gentleman he was interviewing from the British Film Directors Guild, or whatever..... The chap countered quite well by pointing out that Seventh Seal was made for about 2shillings & sixpence and is released on dvd and shown in some specialist cinema every other week, garnering fees like 'Die Hard' on speed.

Max von Sydow became iconic on the strength of his association with Bergman and yet still gets away with playing in movies like 'Judge Dredd' with the sly one. Different rules for actors evidently.....

[code]http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487363@N02/sets/72157606700675506/code]

batman

I don't really care where he came from. The guy was a great director and deserves a mention.

Bats.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

sippog

Absolutely. There can't be a film director in the world, British or otherwise, who hasn't been influenced by him directly or indirectly.

Everyone has their favourite Bergman films. Mine include The Silence, Hour Of The Wolf (closest thing to a horror film Bergman ever made) and Shame: a typical response by Bergman to the criticism that his films didn't reflect contemporary issues (in 1965 that was the Vietnam war).

But his greatest gift was that he could create moments on film that transcended; that took you to temporarily to a higher plane. I can't think of many directors who understood how film works as well as he did.

(If they repeat them, I can really recommend the Arena documentaries on Bergman that were showed recently on BBC4. Contrary to his gloomy image, he had a really dry and amusing sense of humour).

foha80

Agreed,He is indeed in my opinion one of the greats.

Terry

ollie

I watched the silence last night as my own little tribute,not having seen it for quite a few years every bit as compelling and hypnotic as i remember.

cheers Ollie.

"Bullseye !!"

julian_craster

Cheeky Bob

Apparently the set of Cries and Whispers was a laugh riot, in stark contrast to the actual film. But that's at least partly because Bergman made a point of working with the same people on both sides of the camera for decades, so in many ways it was just an old friends' get-together.

By contrast, Woody Allen's sets - even if the film was nominally a comedy - were notable for their extreme and concentrated seriousness.

julian_craster

julian_craster

Bergman has some unlikely admirers....(from today's GUARDIAN)

One can see now how Bergman has influenced this master's whole oeuvre
(style, content, everything....)

Michael Winner, Film director
" I was brought up on Ingmar Bergman during my days in Cambridge. He was the god of original cinema, of thoughtful cinema, of creative cinema, and he was an enormous influence on my life. He was not only a film genius but he was unique. No one made films like him, before or since. The brooding intensity, coupled with a fantastic visual style - it was mesmerising.
I remember when Smiles of a Summer Night was on at a small cinema on the outskirts of Cambridge. The owner said: "No one's going to come to see it." But there was a queue around the cinema because there was a scene with a naked woman running along a beach for 15 seconds. In those days [1955] it was revolutionary. A lot of people who would never otherwise see an Ingmar Bergman film were standing in line.
My favourite of his films is The Seventh Seal - it has this wonderful Gothic symbolism. It was not one of my main influences, but it definitely went into my memory bank.
You would never get anyone like him today. We have moved into a more mechanistic, flash-bang-wallop type of cinema (Michael's films of course bear no resemblance to this...) and art cinema is very difficult to get made"

batman

Michael Winner describes the inspiration Bergman gave him to make Some Like It Cool.

Bats.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

thirdlady

is he related to ingrid bergman?

A.S.Carroll
"Happiness isn't sold in bottles you have to achieve it in your own lifetime!"

batman

Not the famous Ingrid Bergman .. but one of his wives was called Ingrid, so she was an Ingrid Bergman too.

Bats.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

Cheeky Bob

The two Bergmans (Ingmar and the famous Ingrid) did work together once, though, on the 1978 film Autumn Sonata.

As for Michael Winner's comment, it is undoubtedly true that a great many arthouse classics scored an initial box-office success in Britain on the strength of the amount of nudity and sex scenes therein. From the early 1950s, it was the BBFC's policy to be more lenient towards films of serious artistic intent, which inadvertently gave a huge boost to people like Bergman at a time when they really needed one.

Ted Holmes

Yeah right, and Wayne Rooney was inspired to become a footballer after reading Thus Spake Zarathustra.