230 - Bergman Island, 2004, Faro Island, Sweden. Dir. Marie Nyrerod.

Friday, August 18, 2017

230 - Bergman Island, 2004, Faro Island, Sweden.  Dir. Marie Nyrerod.

In 2003 journalist Marie Nyrerod spent several days with Ingmar Bergman on Faro Island.

She had first interviewed him 20 years previously, in 1983, and had continued to interview him over the years.

She had been asking him for years to do this documentary, and he had repeatedly turned her down.

He was not yet ready to look back at his life.  He was still moving forward.

Then he made Saraband, a 2003 made-for-TV movie that functions as a sequel to Scenes from a Marriage (1974), following the lives of Johan and Marianne thirty years after their divorce.

Bergman decided then that he was ready to meet with Nyrerod and look back at his life and career.

She found him to be open and willing to answer any question she posed him.  He did not want to be filmed swimming or cycling, but otherwise he was game for anything.

They spoke on camera for several hours a day and continued speaking for several hours after the cameras were turned off.

He would continue to call her for the remainder of his life, speaking to her as a friend.

The documentary was originally made in three parts for Swedish television: "Bergman and the Cinema," "Bergman and the Theatre," and "Bergman and Faro Island."

It was later edited together for form one documentary feature.

In the documentary Bergman states that his work in the theatre was more important to him than his work in film--although his work in film was what changed his life and gave him his freedom.

But his work in theatre was where he spent his daily life.  He had been the theatrical manager of the Heisenberg City Theatre, the director of the Malmo City Theatre, the director of the Gothenberg Theatre, the director of the Residenz Theatre in Munich, Germany, and finally the director and manager of the Royal Dramatic Theatre.

He describes his time in Munich and discusses how he loved the actors there but did not know him the way he did the Swedish actors.  He also discusses the challenges of directing works in another language.  He says he speaks fluent German; however, the language itself does not always carry over the precise meaning of particular, and important, phrases--especially those originally written in Swedish.

Bergman loves Stringberg, for example, and he provides a sentence in the original Swedish and then translates it into German and shows how the shades of meaning are different.  Then we watch footage of the German actors performing it on the Munich stage.

Bergman and Nyrerod watch footage of a press conference he gave at the time of his arrest on (false) tax evasion charges, and he discusses the effect it had on him.

He and his wife Ingrid were in Los Angeles when he decided to spend the Summer in Faro and then move to Germany.

The exact numbers are not easy to come by, but in all Bergman directed about three times as many plays as he directed films.

During the interviews Bergman talks openly about his fears.

He describes his inspiration for The Seventh Seal.

When he was growing up, Bergman would visit churches with his clergyman father.  At one church in Uppland, he would stare at the nave vault ceiling.  There was one painting by the ecclesiastical painter Albertus Pictor featuring Death playing chess with a knight.  Bergman held on to that image and used it in his feature film.

Here are some of the things Bergman says about The Seventh Seal:

"The core of that film is an insane fear of death.  I was in a state of . . . it was the most appalling suffering.  Well, suffering . . . it was a torment for me.  I was terribly afraid of death.  Anything to do with death was horrifying.  Out of that horror and the business of the atom bomb and that sort of thing, this story arose about the plague and the journey back."

"There was the whole question posed by religion.  The Seventh Seal has no answer to that question."

Later in the conversations he lists his demons.  He came prepared for the question and had them already written down on note paper!  Some of his demons include--

The Demon of Fear.  He then lists examples, and it seems extensive.  He practically admits to being afraid of everything.

The Demon of Rage.  He states that he gets this from his parents and seems to regret it.  It is noteworthy that he spent his life reacting against the rage of his father only to continue the rage towards his own family and others.

The Demon of Nothingness.  This is his fear of running out of imagination and creativity.  He then says fortunately, however, this demon has never been successful.  Bergman has never run out of ideas.

He is also honest about his lack of presence as a husband and father.  He describes himself as being "family lazy" and states openly that he never had time for his children.

He recounts that the scene from Scenes from a Marriage in which Johan tells Marianne that he is leaving her came from Bergman's own life experience, when he left Ellen Lundstrom and their four children for Gun Grut.

He acknowledges that what he did was cruel and painful, and as he is speaking one can see in him the effects of the years of guilt.  However, he has chosen to stop feeling bad about it, because he has decided that feeling bad accomplishes nothing and can never compensate for the damage he did.  He refers to bad feeling as a vanity.

At the same time, they discuss the love he had for the women in his life and the way in which he was able to maintain it with many of them, continuing to work together and be good friends for years.

As Bergman and Nyrerod walk the island, one can feel the inspirational power of nature and the sea.

The locals protect him, providing false directions to tourists, and he seems to be content and at peace when he is in the elements.  He goes on daily walks, and he says that the demons cannot get to him in the fresh air.

He shows Nyrerod spots where various scenes were filmed as well as spots that inspired various scenes to be written.  He takes her to his screening room in the converted barn, and they screen things and discuss them.  He also shows her the Cinematograph he got as an 8-year-old boy--which was given to his older brother for Christmas and for which he traded 150 tin soldiers to obtain himself.

Ingmar Bergman eventually settled down.  He stayed with his last wife Ingrid for 24 years until her death in 1995.

He seems to have loved her deeply, and he misses her.

And for a man who has tried his whole life to be an agnostic, his love for her seems to get in the way of that defensive intellectual stance.

We can discover through sources outside this documentary that he started going back to church in the end of his life.

And in the interview with Nyrerod he expresses a hope.

In an honest and vulnerable moment, he states that he hopes to see his wife again one day.