MY DVD COLLECTION 3

Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

 

Ingmar Bergman is, for me, one of the greatest film directors of all time. I find his films hypnotic, moving and disturbing in equal measures. Son of a Lutheran minister, Bergman claims to have lost his faith at the age of eight but only come to terms with it while making WINTER LIGHT. Yet his religious upbringing infuse his films and he once wrote : "I devoted my interest to the church's mysterious world of low arches, thick walls, the smell of eternity, the coloured sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls. There was everything that one's imagination could desire — angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans". This is why many of his films contain shock scenes of gothic horror. Like fellow atheist, Luis Bunel, his religiously themed films are among the most honest and moving. His films, of course, contain a series of wonderful performances by performers such as Gunnar Bjornstrand, Max von Sydow, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullman amongst others. Ingmar Bergman films in my collection are : MUSIC IN DARKNESS (1948) TO JOY (1950)  SUMMER INTERLUDE (1951) SUMMER WITH MONIKA (1953) SAWDUST AND TINSEL (1953) SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955) THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957) WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957) THE MAGICIAN (1958) THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960) THE DEVIL'S EYE (1960) THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY ((1961) WINTER LIGHT (1963) THE SILENCE (1963) ALL THESE WOMEN (1966) PERSONA (1966) HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) SHAME (1968) THE RITE (1969) CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972) AUTUMN SONATA (1978) FROM THE LIFE OF MARIONETTES (1980) FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1983)