INGMAR BERGMAN (1918 - 2007)

The first time I viewed an Ingmar Bergman film, now some quarter century ago in my college film studies class, I came to realize that in the right hands, cinema was as great an art form as any other. It can be ranked with the greatest symphonies, paintings, or sculpture. For me, what Bergman does, as the greatest artists do, is reduce the human experience down to the very elements that are the most universal common denominators. That being, the meaning of life, love, and ultimately death. Bergman's spare, haunting images, the black and white ones in particular, seem bleak to some, but to me pare away all exterior elements and leave the soul bare to examine these denominators. These potent images, aided by Bergman's life-long collaborator and cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, take us out of our comfortable, safe lairs and force us to take a conscious, existential look at ourselves. Bergman was a perfectionist, sometimes taking days to just watch how light moved through a church as the sun passed over. This meticulous attention to detail is why Michelangelo languished for years over the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It is how a "visionary" is defined. And although I have seen all of Bergman's work I still go back to my favorite - Wild Strawberries. It is the film that opened my cinematic eye all those years ago. It is about a college professor traveling to receive an honorary degree. As he travels his mind takes a journey of its own with dreams and reminiscences that all have the Bergman touches. They encompass everything from horror to humor (something in Bergman's repertoire that is often overlooked.) Another forte' of Bergman's is the spiritual lumination of the human face. Sven Nykvist's lighting often sets the mood and tone, but Bergman's faces tell their own stories. The professor (played masterfully by Swedish director Victor Sjostrom) often relays more with just his Bergman-filtered visage than a Shakespearean soliloquy. It seems I have blogged on a little long and may even have gotten a bit overwrought, even pretentious, but when it comes to Ingmar Bergman, just speaking of him sets my soul aflame. I think Woody Allen pretty much summed it up when he said "Ingmar Bergman is probably the greatest film artist since the invention of the motion picture camera." - Todd (The Death 2ur)