For most cinemagoers, Ingmar Bergman is Swedish cinema. Certainly,
few other directors have assumed Bergman's burden of representing
an entire nation for international audiences. His austere appraisals
of familial strife and spiritual angst may have worked against the
grain of the Swedish Tourist Board, but Bergman has nevertheless
single-handedly put his homeland on the cinematic map. His sombre
canon, encompassing more than 40 feature films shot with complete
artistic control, has earned him auteurship and helped raise cinema's
stature to that enjoyed by other art forms.
Art house favourite and academic subject
The son of a severe Lutheran pastor, Bergman left home at 19 to
forge a career in the theatre, eventually becoming the director
of the Helsingborg City Theatre in 1944. The same year saw his first
film script brought to the screen in Alf Sjöberg's Frenzy. Within
a few months he'd made his own directorial debut with Crisis. Despite
several subsequent features in the 1940s, it wasn't until the appearance
of two tales of all-consuming love affairs - Summer Interlude (1951)
and Summer with Monika (1953) - that his cinematic work was celebrated.
The 1957 release of the uncompromising metaphysical melodrama The
Seventh Seal and the sentimental, symbolic Wild Strawberries sealed
his international reputation. Often spoofed by the mainstream, the
former ensured that his work became the preserve of academia.
Two trilogies released in the 1960s continued Bergman's success
at the art house. The first comprised the stark meditations Through
A Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1962) and The Silence (1963).
The second served up the self-reflective Persona (1966), Hour of
the Wolf (1968) and Shame (1968). Persona, an intimate and stylistically
innovative study of solitude starring Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson,
confirmed Bergman's instinctive talent for directing actresses.
The faces of Ullmann and Andersson became as synonymous with his
work as those of Max von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand.
Fanny and Alexander
Bergman was in vogue once more in the early 70s with the Academy
Award-nominated Cries and Whispers (1972), another female-focused
psychodrama. However, he spent the latter part of the decade exiled
in Germany, furious at the infamous accusations of tax evasion leveled
against him at home. His return to Sweden brought perhaps his best-loved
work, and the film with which he announced his retirement: Fanny
and Alexander (1982). Echoing in length his claustrophobic 1973
epic Scenes from a Marriage (the TV versions of each film run some
staggering five hours), this period drama is perhaps the least Bergmanesque
of his mature work.
Set in the director's childhood home of Uppsala, the film is told
from the perspective of 10-year-old Alexander Ekdahl and his younger
sister Fanny, who suffer the religious extremities of their mother's
new husband, yet eventually manage to escape from his imposing shadow.
Shot by Bergman's regular cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Fanny and
Alexander exudes a warm optimism unseen in much of the director's
earlier work. Popular with audiences and critics alike, it won him
a Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1983. The film's masterly compositions,
confessional strain and tragic-comic tone help make it a hugely
affecting swansong for one of the 20th century's greatest artists.
Chris Wiegand
