Bergman Island (2004 TV Movie)

Ingmar Bergman: Self

Quotes 

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : The demons don't like fresh air. What they like best is if you stay in bed with cold feet.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : I always go for a walk after breakfast. Then I sit down, always at a fixed time, and write for three hours. Then, at 3 p.m., I go to my cinema. For a person as disorganized as I am, it's absolutely vital to have these strict routines.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : Ever since my childhood, we had a grandfather clock like this at home. And as there's so much silence here, it's wonderful to sit here, for example, at night and hear it ticking. You'll know form my films that I've always had a weakness for ticking clocks.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : I was a keen crier when I was a child and a keen cuddler. The one person whom I wanted to be loved and cuddled by was Mother. I besieged my mother with caresses. And she pushed me away. She even went to a pediatrician with me, as she thought I was a worry, in that I cried a lot and needed, wanted to be stroked and caressed. The doctor took all this seriously and said that she had to wean the boy off such behavior, as she had to remember that he was not a girl and must be brought up to be a boy - a young man.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : Father - and I've inherited this - was very sensitive to loud noises. What's more, he bottled up a terrible rage. At times, he was unable to contain his rage and we were beaten a great deal.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : [Childhood memory]  Once, someone thought it'd be fun to lock me in the morgue. I remember it as a terrifying experience. I can still recall how horribly frightened I was. There was a young woman lying there. She had a sheet over her, but her face was exposed. And I walked round her and looked at her. They hadn't closed her eyes fully and all of a sudden I noticed that she was watching me. I stood there screaming and hammering on the door. Someone eventually let me out, but I still sometimes have dreams about it.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : I loved going to Grandma's. I loved going to that big old fashioned apartment which had so many - which was so secretive. I think Grandma's apartment was partly transferred to "Fanny and Alexander".

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : When I directed my first film here, all I did was shout and quarrel. I didn't know anything. I was so lacking in self-confidence. At the same time, Victor Sjöström came to work here. He had been in Britain for a long time. Victor Sjöström was put on the staff as the artistic director at Filmstaden. He was told everyone was complaining about bloody Bergman.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : [Referring to Victor Sjöström]  He said, "I am told they're quarreling with you, Mr. Bergman. But, they're not the quarrelers, it's you who are! And I think we should have a little chat. I think we should have a chat." He said, as he shook me. People gathered at the windows to see me getting told off. And then we must have walked back and forth for an hour. He gave me my first real lesson in how to make films and, above all, in how to behave towards the people you're working with and towards the actors.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : It's extraordinary, I didn't even know that the film was being shown at Cannes. I had no idea. I remember I was sitting on the toilet that morning reading the "Svenska Dagbladet" daily paper. I suddenly was the headline: "Swedish Success in Cannes." "What fun!" I thought. Then I saw it was "Smiles of a Summer Night." They had sent it there without asking me. They never asked one in those days. So, I flew down to Cannes.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : Since the success of "Smiles of a Summer Night," nobody has interfered with my work. I have been able to do as I wished. It's unfortunate, in a way, that there's not been anybody with whom to discuss my scripts. I would really like to have someone within the profession, with whom I could discuss my work, not even - Even when the film is complete, there is nobody I can show it to that will give me their honest opinion and say what they think. The rest is silence.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : 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. And then of course there was the whole question posed by religion of "Is there a God? Is there no God at all?" "The Seventh Seal" has no answer to that question.

• Marie Nyreröd, Herself : When I looked through your parents' photo album, I saw many spots reminiscent of scenes in "Wild Strawberries."

  Ingmar Bergman, Himself : I expect you did.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : All the time you fetch things from a gigantic store of objects, of props, of things and of people. They often present themselves voluntarily and say they wish to participate.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : I experience things. Especially here when there's a full moon and the silence is total. Remember, I live alone in this house, which is 56 meters long. I have trouble sleeping so I walk back and forth. The light of the moon shines in here - of the full moon. It is like strangely-filtered daylight. It is incredibly intense and casts shadows. And I feel very strongly that I am surrounded by other realities. I feel surrounded by - by entities who might wish to tell me things. I don't know. It's not superstition. It's a fact. That's how it is.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : This is where we did our first Fårö film: "Through the Glass Darkly." It was so fantastic. It was a rainy, cold and raw April day.

• Marie Nyreröd, Herself : Where have you brought us now?

  Ingmar Bergman, Himself : To a place which, even back then, we thought was magical. And it always has been magical to me. Suddenly we found ourselves here and decided that here and nowhere else, was where we'd film "Persona." All the way here, and then on, on, up there. It was this remarkable proximity to the sea. The sound was very disturbing at times. But, to the actors and to me it was highly evocative.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : "Persona" is a great film and I'm glad I was able to make it.

  Marie Nyreröd, Herself : I can't help wondering when I see the three of you - A few years before, you'd been living with Bibi Andersson. And after the film you start living with Liv. What's that all about? And what did it mean for the filming?

  Ingmar Bergman, Himself : It's - Well, now - answer that one if you can!

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : I usually say that I left puberty when I was 58.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : Theater and film are incontrovertibly two forms of work both of which are immensely erotically charged. The director tries to be perfect, as a person, as an artist - in every way, 100%. And the actors and actresses also try to be perfect. And this can easily give rise to incredibly pleasurable tensions.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : "Saraband" - the whole film surprised me by suddenly 'allowing' itself to be written. I thought I was done producing for television, as it's such a slog.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : [Discussing "Scenes From A Marriage"]  I wanted to get something off my chest. It was the first part of it that I wrote. It's the third sequence. From that sequence, all the rest of the story radiates out in different directions. There must've been enough explosive force in that third sequence to suffice for all the others.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : It's still within me. I've more or less rid myself of everything that has to do with bad conscience. It's pure vanity. But it still feels terrible to think that I could have been so incredibly cruel - Yet, I was.

• Marie Nyreröd, Herself : How does a script originate? How do you work on a script?

  Ingmar Bergman, Himself : In my case it is usually - usually - what happens is that I see an image. For example, in "Cries and Whispers" the image I saw, for a long time and for no reason whatsoever was the image of a red room. In that room there were three or four women dressed in white. However, they were standing in a remote part of the room. I couldn't hear what they said, but they were talking to each other. I thought that - it was - That image kept returning to me, stubbornly. I began to feel that those ladies concerned me. And that they had things to say.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : The strange thing is, both regarding "Persona" and "Cries and Whispers," that creativity has come to my rescue in difficult situations. I would go as far as saying, when it comes to "Persona," that creativity virtually saved my life. In "Cries and Whispers," however, the creativity was comforting and soothing.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : [News interview at the time "Cries and Whispers" was released]  The original idea was to write something about my mother who died a few years ago. I always had a very ambivalent relationship to my mother. This film is about my mother. She is represented by four different women.

  [Back to current interview for "Bergman's Island] 

  Ingmar Bergman, Himself : That was a lie for the media. It was a spontaneous and careless remark. It was to haunt me. Since then it has always been linked to the film. You make stupid remarks and then they tend to flourish on their own accord. It was a lie. I said it in order to have something to say. It's very hard to say anything about "Cries and Whispers." I just said it. That's all.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : For me, the Royal Dramatic Theatre is the beginning and the end and almost everything in between. The strange thing is that the work for which I've received the most recognition internationally is my films and my filmmaking. But what, to me, I consider most important is my work at this theater - my sojourns in this building.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : Then we spent quite a long time in Los Angeles looking for a place to live. Then Barbra Streisand called and invited us to a pool party. I thanked her very much, but said that we could not come. I hung up and said to Ingrid - It was Midsummer Eve - I said to Ingrid: "We're going home now - to Sweden - to Fårö."

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : We had the world premiere of "The Magic Flute" film here in this room. The room wasn't a cinema then, it was a film studio. We'd made a lot of "Scenes from a Marriage" here. And before it was a studio, it was a barn. I remember that we inaugurated the cinema with Chaplin's "Circus," which I show on every birthday.

  Marie Nyreröd, Herself : 14 July.

  Ingmar Bergman, Himself : Yes. The room fills up with children. We're like children, all of us!

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : We've been speaking a lot about the religious aspects of my oeuvres. And really we should try to condense it and instead of sitting here, stammering through an explanation, I think the bishop here has put it succinctly. He says exactly what I feel: that we shouldn't talk about God, but about the holiness within man. And that, through the musicians, the prophets and saints, we've been enlightened about other worlds. Particularly through music, of course. We ask: "Where does music come from?" I've asked so many musicians, famous musicians and less famous ones, why we have music and where it comes from. What's strange is that they don't have the real answer.

• Marie Nyreröd, Herself : You're constantly surrounded by music, even at home.

  Ingmar Bergman, Himself : That's true. It's been a part of my life for many, many years.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : Not a day has gone by in my life when I haven't thought about death. Or when the thought of death hasn't touched me in some way.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : The thing is, I have a high state of disaster preparedness. This means that you imagine that everything you do in a day, everything you plan for that day onwards, will go terribly wrong.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : I'm actually scared of everything.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : Why I have it I don't know, but I inherited it from both my parents. It means I'm an irascible person. I've got a dreadful temper.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : I've got a memory like an elephant.

• Ingmar Bergman, Himself : [Last spoken lines]  These are the demons that I don't have. One could be called the "Demon of Nothingness." This is quite simply when my creativity or my imagination - abandons me. It means that things go totally silent, get totally empty. And there's nothing there. But that has never happened to me, which is something for which I'm profoundly grateful.