Genius. I find all those films you mentioned to be brilliant, rich, deeply felt masterpieces that operate on a very interior level. They aren’t about shooting and killing; they are about failure and embarrassment and aging and death. They are great novels about what it means to be alive and human.
God! Who is next? Hitchcock? Or maybe Visconti, Rosselini and Fellini?
I like controversy and change ideas about moviemakers and movies and more… but this topic is absurd.
Sorry!
PD: Bergman and Genius are synonimus!
Oh man, I think Wild Strawberries and Scenes are probably his best films. I mean, when I first watched Wild Strawberries I was locked in, and I found that odd considering the subject matter, but the film was so well executed and Victor Sjöström is really good in it. His films are deeply emotional like RODNEY WELCH said perfectly, “they operate on a very interior level” questioning the depths of your mind and soul.
I think Bergman will grow on you though, because that’s how most people tend to react to his films initially. maybe as you become older and perhaps more cynical, you’ll come to see that in his films because most people find Bergman to be very depressing. And as a complete auteur, his personality and artistic vision shows 100% in all his films.
RE: david lee
that’s a good point…
i’ve always felt that Bergman was the type of director whose works need to be seen “when you’re in the mood for them”…
i don’t think you can just jump into certain films in his oeuvre blindly, you’re not going to get what you expected…
don’t get my initial post twisted, i’m NOT completely disregarding those films i mentioned entirely. i just think i might have to really want to see them and just haven’t been doing that.
It’s true that Bergman’s films move at their own pace and the deal with internal emotions more than visceral action, but I don’t think that makes them boring. Bergman deals with the stuff of life — love, sex, jealousy, angst, fear, desire, sadness, rage, confusion — and that’s what drama is all about. I grant that some are more approachable than others, but if you think his entire body of work is boring, I can only surmise that you’ve been watching the wrong movies.
Bergman makes, in the best sense of the word, adult films.
Blasphemy! How dare you sir! No, I’m just kidding. The truth is that there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to asking if a director is overrated. I personally believe that Bergman is among the handful of greatest directors to ever live.When I look at Bergman’s career, I see a body of work unparalleled by just about any other director. I see someone who is able to address the difficulties of life melodramatically and at the same time unpretentiously. I am mesmerized and inspired viewing the work of a man who shows his own faults, worries, and questions about life while acknowledging his inability as an artist to give clear answers. And yet, someone else can look at the very same work and feel absolutely nothing. That is the beauty of art.
Bottomboy: Yeah I figured you weren’t completely disregarding because you’ve stated honestly that you’ve tried to watch these films before. But yeah, for most people you have to be in the mood for his type of films. They are very dark and existential and most people don’t tend to gravitate toward that. So in time, I think if you find yourself in the right mood, you’ll enjoy his films and tap into their potential.
Though I don’t see how any type of mood would affect me watching Wild Strawberries. That is a great film for me in any condition.
Ingmar Bergman is my favorite director. It’s a very uninspired choice, and one pretty much any self-proclaimed cinephile would choose, but there really is just no one better. The man’s made more masterpieces than handfuls of directors combined. His subject matter is always interesting, his skill with actors is incredible, his cinematography is nigh unparalleled, and in general, he’s just an amazing director. I know not everybody likes slow, quiet, existential dramas, but if you can tolerate them, there’s nobody better than Bergman. He’s not head and shoulders above every director in the world, but he’s definitely one of the only directors who ever lived who could marry quality and quantity. Most directors make a few good films or a lot of bad ones, but Bergman just churned out masterpiece after masterpiece. Even his early work gets at least a 3/5 from me. The only Bergman film I ever outright disliked was The Serpent’s Egg, and even that was hardly his fault. Everything else has been anywhere from ‘good’ to ‘awe-inspiring’.
So, in conclusion, I think he’s a genius. And, to be honest, I don’t think that’s really arguable. I hate to sound elitist and attempt to be objective about a subjective art form, but I don’t think I’ll ever see a convincing argument that Bergman is a hack. Overrated? I guess you could argue that. Boring? Well, he’s not the most accessible director ever, and his symbolism can be a bit daunting from time to time. I understand Bergman not being to a person’s individual tastes and I respect that; personally, I have a hard time honestly enjoying most of Altman’s films, but I know a fair amount people will say he’s one of the world’s top directors. But I’d say Bergman’s one director you just can’t dispute the greatness of. Maybe the caliber of greatness, but the greatness in general? Nah. Bergman’s just too good for that.
Insofar as any director/filmmaker can be considered a genius, Bergman definitely deserves that level of regard. However, I don’t believe all of his works necessarily speak for themselves. I think it’s at least helpful to go into some of his more esoteric films (e.g. Persona, Fanny and Alexander, Cries and Whispers) with some knowledge of the artist’s thematic and stylistic preoccupations as well some biographic information. What’s more, Bergman’s films take on greater significance after you’ve seen several of them. It’s like watching Wong Kar-Wai’s “2046” without ever having seen “In the Mood for Love” and then rendering an opinion. (Actually, that analogy doesn’t REALLY hold, but I’m keeping it anyway)
But, then, there are those (I presume) who have been exposed to Bergman’s oeuvre and still dismiss his works as boring and even trite. To them I merely proclaim, in all caps, “NO FRIGGIN WAY, MAN! BERGMAN RULEZ!!”
Nah, JK, it’s subjective, I suppose, but dismissing Bergman’s films as merely boring doesn’t sit well with me. It just… bugs me.
Bergman is accessible as far as getting into him goes. You have his early films which all are reasonably good and show a lot of his trademarks without being too taxing (I’m a pretty big fan of Crisis and Sawdust and Tinsel myself, even having seen his later works), and from there on out, you can pretty much go in chronological order. The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries first, then the God Trilogy, then Scenes from a Marriage and Cries and Whispers (and The Magic Flute if you want an offbeat but still cool Bergman film), and then sum it all up with Fanny and Alexander. Add Saraband as an epilogue of sorts, and you’re golden. Appreciating him is much harder, but I think everybody should at least try. Apart from the fact that you’ll probably love Bergman once you understand him, he’s a director that everybody worth talking to about films would know of. He’s one of those directors you just need to know if you want to get into films, and it usually helps to have a favorable opinion of him and his body of work.
Bergman is simply a human this is why he is one of my favorite director…
I don’t give a horse shit about the “I’m the best director on earth” filmmakers like godard…
Wow. I think it is just you Bottomboy. Bergman is a Genius…who never made films to please anyone but himself. And in doing so, has made classics that have touched the world. Is everyone of his films perfect? No. No one is perfect. But his films require you to surrender yourself to them…and to keep watching.
True Genius:)
I’ve only seen a fraction of Bergman’s filmography. There has not been a single minute an any of those films that I’ve questioned his genius. I love Bergman’s directing. But personally, I think the genius lies in his writing. And ask Woody Allen (one of the better writers in film). He agrees with me.
well, i did say it wouldn’t surprise me to be the only one…
i’m the crooked line in a linear world, i suppose…
_
Props for voicing your opinion still, Bottomboy. It’s good to speak out.
Hey, it’s okay to have a dissenting opinion. You’re just not going to find a lot of sympathy if you disagree about Bergman is all. Here’s a suggestion I hope you’ll find helpful: The Virgin Spring. A lot more happens in it than most of Bergman’s other films. The symbolism is pretty obvious. All the usual themes are still there, but they are hidden underneath of the few narratives Bergman ever put in his films. It has a clear start, middle, and end. It’s not his best work, but calling one Bergman film worse than another is like calling one bar of gold ugly in comparison to the next. The Virgin Spring is quite great. It’s not Bergman’s crowning achievement, but it’s noteworthy all on its own. It’s also one of the few Bergman movies where I felt he handled sexuality well. I thought he sort of stumbled with it in Through a Glass Darkly and a bit in The Silence as well, but here he does a pretty good job of handling the brutality of sexual abuse. It’s a rather horrifying movie, not in the strict sense of horror, but just what you feel for the characters. Which is another reason I’m recommending it to you. Although Bergman always makes great characters, not all of them are as clearly defined and sharply drawn as they are here. Which isn’t a bad thing, but I’m guessing that might be what put you off of Bergman’s other films.
Also, try Hour of the Wolf. It’s a little more surreal and a little less easy to understand, but it’s Bergman’s finest voyage into outright horror, in my opinion. There are several scenes in there that will stick with you more than any Saw film ever could. The fishing scene and the scene where Max von Sydow counts down a minute are just heart-stoppingly tense, and the journey into the castle is like walking into a nightmare. Great movie, and also a little more event-oriented than Bergman’s other films. Bergman always has great imagery in his films, but Hour of the Wolf will probably make you appreciate it more because it’s aggressively trying to affect you rather than flowing along and allowing you to admire its beauty.
You may also enjoy Winter Light. It’s pretty easy to understand, and it’s slow without being glacial. It’s a superb character study, with great performances from everyone involved. It puts its themes – love, apathy, spiritual crisis – right in front of you, as opposed to hinting at them. It was Winter Light that made me stop ‘appreciating’ Bergman films and start genuinely enjoying them.
Good luck with Bergman. If you give up, there’s no shame in that. Not all directors are for everybody. I just think you ought to give a fair chance to the man who many call the greatest director who ever lived before you call it a day. If he’s not for you, then at least you tried, which is always a commendable act. If you do end up liking him, then that’s even better. But don’t worry if you don’t like him even after seeing more of him. You can always reattempt to understand and enjoy his films later on in life. Maybe they’ll have a bigger effect on you once you’ve come face to face with some of the themes Bergman is preoccupied with. I don’t think it’s too big a coincidence that I started to understand Bergman a fair bit more after my aunt died of cancer. Once you stare death in the face, whether it’s your own or someone else’s, it colors your outlook on life. Bergman speaks to that part of you that doesn’t exist otherwise, which is something I really love about him. He knows about the big questions, and he’s one of the few directors who’s always asking them.
On that note, try Woody Allen if you don’t like Bergman after all. He’s the more lighthearted, more American, and more modern Bergman. He incorporates a lot of the same themes and, indeed, some of the same styles Bergman was famous for, but he laughs at them while secretly being bothered by them. Love and Death is a parody of Bergman and the Russian writers who were also deeply disturbed by death. You’ll already recognize the robed white figure as being a wink to Death in The Seventh Seal, but the whole thing is just a joke about how existential they all are, which I think you might appreciate. Also, Woody Allen’s Interiors is like Bergman-lite. Very very similar to Bergman’s films, but much less taxing on the intellect. Which isn’t to say it’s a dumb, easy film, but it doesn’t hide its questions/answers as thoroughly as Bergman sometimes does.
i actually think i like “the virgin spring” best. but truth be told, i’m no expert on bergman at all. in fact, i’ve only seen that film and “the seventh seal” and “persona”. this will be blasphemy to many, but i think “the seventh seal” is nothing very special. and this will be beyond blasphemy, but “persona” didn’t please me at all. one of those films i’ve been hearing about my whole life, and i saw it for the first time this year. it was average to me. i surely liked it less than the other two.
Maybe Bergman only appeals to moody, brooding types of people who tend to ruminate over the meaning of life, whether God is real or loving, and if there really is a right or wrong.
Or perhaps the comment that was made by Rodney Welch about Bergman making truly “adult films” is quite apropos. One only has to read Images: My Life in Film to realize that Bergman was a spiritually damaged individual, wrestling with his religious upbringing and his feelings about his affairs with women, the pain and suffering making his films actually caused him (he talks about actually getting sick when a film "came to him). I would argue that he was very much the tortured artist. I would also argue that this was his fault. He chose his misery in a way. Whether he had to or not is something only he knows. Whatever the case may be, his themes are very “adult” ones.
Ok…what’s the point I am trying to make. I suppose my point is this—Bergman is a deeply subjective filmmaker. His films always emanate from some place inside of him. Their themes are his themes. So, it would follow then that not everyone would like Bergman. Nor should everyone like Bergman. I suppose the reason his has garnered so much acclaim is that he made the films he needed to make. He made them as honestly and truthfully as he could every time. So, to some, these films might be boring. To other’s they might be brilliant.
And finally, I think that if you can get through life, not giving two shits about Bergman’s work, then perhaps, you are better for it. This is heavy, depressing, emotionally challenging stuff.
whether u like him or not…..he is a must watch for any true cinema buff…..n once u start seeing his films u will see them all….whether u still like him or not.
The Virgin Spring is near-perfect, and perfect for anyone who thinks Bergman’s main recreation is vanishing up his own backside. I’m not one of these folks.
On the one hand it’s a religious parable, on the other a tremendously powerful story of parental love and how it can be devastated. Watch when Von Sydow is taking his daughter’s clothes out of the knapsack…it’s a crushing scene, and it doesn’t require that you have any interest in religion, or philosophy, or parables of the middle ages: all that’s required is sympathy, and this is what Bergman has in volumes. For me he’s the most humane of directors.
Also, Bottomboy: as I think I’ve mentioned on other posts, certain films and filmmakers are suited for certain ages. If you don’t like Bergman now, you might later on, when other things have happened to you; I don’t think I would’ve loved Scenes from a Marriage when I was 16, say, but when I saw it 20 years later, it was a revelation. But surely there’s no law says you have to like him.
Cries & Whispers is amazing. Really. Give it another try.
It’s interesting to see that the response so far has been unanimous in favour of Bergman, and that no-one has mentioned Jonathan Rosenbaum’s controversial article that was published a few days after Bergman’s death. In case you missed it you can find it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/opinion/04jrosenbaum.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I am inclined to agree with Rosenbaum when he decrees that, “If the French New Wave addressed a new contemporary world, Mr. Bergman’s talent was mainly devoted to preserving and perpetuating an old one.” I quite often find that in a lot of his his films the overriding emotional content and existential symbolism threatens to stifle the very medium in which it is presented. But I will say that on the whole I find the overall tone of the piece slightly too aggressive. However, like all great film criticism it did encourage some lively debate..
was this meant to be serious? The man is a genius!
Peter,
Thanks for posting that; I don’t know how I missed it when it was published earlier.
My first thought: well, well, everyone has to bite the ass of the dog who is leading the pack.
A very interesting article, although I don’t have anything in common with Rosenbaum’s views. When he says we, he’s talking about him — to me, Bergman does not seem out of date or a fixture of an earlier time when existentialism was all in vogue. I was not a thinking adult at that time. I discovered him later, on my own, and I think he’s still fresh and relevant and the things he addresses are still the things I think about.
I’m rather confused, too, by this statement:
“Mr. Bergman simply used film (and later, video) to translate shadow-plays staged in his mind — relatively private psychodramas about his own relationships with his cast members, and metaphysical speculations that at best condensed the thoughts of a few philosophers rather than expanded them.”
The patronizing use of “simply” is irritating and odd. Is he saying the films were just filmed theater and nothing more? Is he saying they are not intensely cinematic? What about Persona, which was all about cinema, literally from the first frame?
To me the great thing about Bergman’s direction is the way he seemed to create life and then film it, often in long extended takes. He asked everything from his actors, like that scene in Shame where Liv UIlmann has to go from joy to sadness in the space of a few minutes, with no fancy editing to help her out. He does the same thing with Bibi Andersson in Persona and Ingrid Thulin in Winter Light. You can call that filmed theater, I guess, or you could say it’s so anti-cinematic that it’s intensely cinematic — that you feel as if he captured life at its most wounded and raw,
Ingrid Thulin’s six minute soliloquy in Winter Light is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in a film.
interesting article indeed. i liked it because i rarely read a contrarian critical article from a well-known writer regarding bergman.
In my opinion, he is not among the best of all time. You just can’t compare him with the likes of Kurosawa, Fellini, Godard, Ray, Ozu, welles or hitchcock. They are the true masters of their craft not Bergman. Cinema is about so many things, but one important thing among so many is entertainment, the essence of cinema in my opinion, which you won’t find in any of Bergman’s. But at the same time you won’t call that cinematic pieces bore.
bottomboy
this might just be me…(won’t be surprised if it is)…but, it’s just weird for me because i consider myself a film buff…
but, aside from THE SEVENTH SEAL and possibly PERSONA (whose omission from the collection, in my opinion, is a crime against cinema)…am i wrong to say that most of Bergman’s other films are…well…kinda boring…
i mean, i’ve tried (and i emphasize the word TRIED) to watch SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE…WILD STRAWBERRIES…SAWDUST AND TINSEL…and CRIES AND WHISPERS…and each time i find myself bored to distraction…
…everything’s all about existentialism or women crying over men or death or someone dying…
i really don’t get Bergman!
maybe it’s my short attention span…or my shallowness for movies with “deeper meanings” in favor for bang-bang-shoot-em-up’s…but, i find myself cringing whenever a friend brings over a Bergman flick for movie night…
o_O