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Ingmar Bergman is the Oscar-winning Swedish auteur who helped bring international cinema into the American art houses with his stark, brooding dramas. But how many of his titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.

He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life, the latter focusing on a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) playing a game of chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot...

The cover of Time magazine once proclaimed Liv Ullmann “Hollywood’s new Nordic star,” a designation that never sat well with the Norwegian actress. She was a committed performer, starring in some of Ingmar Bergman’s greatest films of the Sixties and Seventies. She was an accomplished director, with a résumé that includes the Bergman-scripted 2000 gem Faithless. She became a vocal humanitarian, traveling to hardscrabble parts of the world as a Unicef ambassador. But a star? “I never became a star,” Ullmann tells Rolling Stone in a recent interview to...

Aki Kaurismäki, the deadpan cockeyed minimalist of Finland, has become the ultimate illustration of the principle that if you make movies in the same mood and style, with the same monosyllabic bombed-out hipster vibe, for a period of 30 years, your movies may not have changed — but the world around them has, so the films will have a totally different effect.

In “Fallen Leaves,” the Kaurismäki bauble that’s showing at Cannes this year, there’s actually a scene in which a character uses a computer. The film’s heroine, Ansa (Alma Pöysti), loses her job as a supermarket worker, and to find another gig she rents an Hp laptop at a makeshift Internet café that charges 10 Euro for half an hour. Apart from that, the movie unfolds in that scruffy and sparsely decorated so-familiar-it’s-cozy pre-tech Kaurismäki zone, where people still use electric adding machines or listen to a bulky...

In Ingmar Bergman's "Persona," two women — a nurse and a stage actor — are brought together by sheer circumstance, which forces them to reckon with essential truths about one another. The actor, Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann), has inexplicably stopped speaking while performing "Elektra" onstage, and her silence appears to be self-imposed. With the intention of helping her speak again, the nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), takes Elisabet to a secluded cottage by the sea. What ensues is a fever dream of confessions both spiritual and lurid, and the birth of an intense love-hate relationship between Elisabet and Alma. What do these dreamlike, vivid exchanges in "Persona" mean? There are no easy answers, as Bergman's magnum opus defies expectations and interpretations — like all exceptional art, it accommodates a wide range of truths, which are often unsavory and contradictory.

Film historian Peter Cowie famously opined the following about "Persona:" everything one can say...

Ti West's film "X" was released back in March and, perhaps unexpectedly, ended with a trailer for a prequel film that was already complete. Now, "Pearl" has been released in theaters only five months later. And, as it turns out, West isn't done. "MaXXXine" is coming soon, too. 

The premise of "X" is that a group of enterprising adult filmmakers in the 1970s have to trek out to a remote farm to shoot their latest opus. There are many conversations about the integrity of indie filmmaking and the liberating importance of porn movies. During shooting, however, the very elderly owner of the farm, Pearl, skulks around the production, titillated by the sex, but also longing for years of lust lost. Pearl ends up snapping and going on a killing spree. In an odd bit of casting, both Pearl and Maxine, one of the film-within-a-film's actresses, are played by Mia Goth.

The actor and director answers your questions on how Ingmar Bergman changed her life, her feelings at receiving an honorary Oscar, and holidaying at a leper colony in Japan

When you were working with Ingmar Bergman, were you aware that you were creating some of the greatest films in history, or did that realisation only happen with time? PaulMarnier

When I met him, I had been an actor for seven years and knew he was looked on as a genius. That’s what I thought, too. So when he said he would really like to have me in a film, and wrote Persona for Bibi Andersson and me, I was aware I was to work with an incredible man. But I never knew it would mean I would be in 11 of his movies and direct some of his scripts. I had no idea it would mean a big change in my life.

By Lee Pfeiffer

The niche market video label Code Red continues its distribution alliance with Kino Lorber, which is a very good thing for lovers of obscure retro movies. Case in point: "Story of a Woman", a 1970 drama that I will admit I was unaware of until receiving a review screener. The film is a truly international affair, shot in Europe by Italian director/writer/producer Leonardo Bercovici and starring two American male leads and Sweden's Bibi Andersson as the female protagonist. Andersson was making a name for herself in English-language cinema after having appeared in several of Ingmar Bergman classics. She plays Karin Ullman, an adventurous young Swedish woman who has left her home to study piano at a music conservatory in Rome in 1963. Here, she meets cute with Bruno Cardini (James Farantino), a hunky and charismatic medical student who has the good fortune of inadvertently causing a fender...

Swedish stage and screen actor best known for her work with the film director Ingmar Bergman

The Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman was renowned for writing complex and demanding roles for women such as Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. Further down the cast list, but prized by the director throughout his career, was Gunnel Lindblom, who has died aged 89.

She appeared in several of his best-known pictures, including The Seventh Seal (1957), in which she was the young mute woman who accompanies a knight’s squire (Gunnar Björnstrand) after he saves her from being raped. When she eventually speaks, it is to deliver the film’s final words: “It is finished.” Lindblom had played the role in an earlier stage version. “I am a rather silent person,” she said, “so maybe he gave me those parts just because he knew I don’t like to talk a lot. I prefer to listen.

Stage and screen acting legend Max Von Sydow, who starred in The Seventh Seal and appeared in The Exorcist, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Flash Gordon, and Game of Thrones, died on March 8 at the age of 90, according to Variety.

“It is with a broken heart and with infinite sadness that we have the extreme pain of announcing the departure of Max von Sydow,” his wife, the producer Catherine Brelet, said in a statement.

Von Sydow made his Hollywood debut as Jesus in the 1965 Biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told. This gave him the authority to observe “if Jesus were alive today and saw what they are saying in his name, he would never stop throwing up” in Woody Allen’s 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters. Von Sydow had the power to compel Satan as Father Merrin in William Friedkin’s 1973 horror classic The Exorcist and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), directed by John Boorman.

Max von Sydow’s death on Sunday at age 90 brings to a close one of the most illustrious acting careers in history, from his first credit in 1949’s Only a Mother to his collaborations with Ingmar Bergman to his later recent work in pop culture staples Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Game of Thrones.

In between were more than 100 film credits including iconic roles in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, and as Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon.

The Sweden-born von Sydow studied at Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre before getting his start in the film business through his work with Bergman, his mentor. He made the move to Hollywood in the mid-1960s, appearing in such varied roles as Jesus in George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told, a Nazi major in the soccer classic Victory and as Brewmaster Smith in Strange Brew.

The...

Stars took to Twitter to remember Max von Sydow, the prolific Swedish actor best known for “The Exorcist” and “The Seventh Seal.” The two-time Oscar-nominated actor died Sunday at age 90.

Martin Scorsese, Mia Farrow and Seth Meyers lead the tributes to the Oscar-nominated actor Monday.

“Max Von Sydow was something like a consummate actor, with a pride in his art and a dedication to his craft that I’ve encountered in very few people in my life,” Scorsese, who directed von Sydow in 2010’s “Shutter Island,” said in a statement. “On the set he was remarkable, and off the set he a complete gentleman. … And what he and Ingmar Bergman found together is more precious than gold.”

Farrow, the actress known for the 1968 classic “Rosemary’s Baby,” left a heartfelt message next to a photo of von Sydow in his younger years.

Also Read: Mart Crowley, 'The Boys in the Band' Playwright,...

Max von Sydow, the tall, tragic-faced Swedish actor whose name was virtually synonymous with the films of Ingmar Bergman, has died. He was 90.

Variety has confirmed that the actor died on Sunday.

Von Sydow, who became Bergman’s symbol for the modern man in such films as “The Passion of Anna” and “Shame” after making his Bergman debut as the errant knight in “The Seventh Seal,” also had an unusually prolific career in Hollywood and international films.

He made his American debut in the role of Jesus Christ in George Stevens’ turgid 1965 epic “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and went on to make strong impressions with audiences in “The Exorcist,” Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,” David Lynch’s “Dune,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Hawaii,” “Conan the Barbarian” and “Awakenings.”

Von Sydow worked for other Scandinavian directors as well, drawing an Oscar nomination for his role in Bille August...

For Sunday’s Oscars 2020 ceremony on ABC, producers had a difficult decision of which film industry people would make the cut and who would unfortunately be left out of the “In Memoriam.” For the segment, for the song “Yesterday” performed by Grammy champ Billie Eilish.

Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019 and the just launched gallery for 2020.

SEE2020 Oscars: Full list of winners (and losers) at the 92nd Academy Awards

Over 100 people in the film industry, many of them academy members, have passed away in the past 12 months. Here is a list of the some of the names included in the tribute:

Danny Aiello (actor)

Jim Alexander (sound)

Bibi Andersson (actor)

Ben Barenholtz (executive)

Kobe Bryant (producer)

Diahann Carroll (actor)

Seymour Cassel (actor)

William J. Creber (production designer)

Doris Day (actress)

Stanley Donen (director)

Kirk Douglas (actor/producer)

Robert Evans (executive)

Peter Fonda (actor)

Robert Forster (actor)

Harriet Frank,...

One of the most significant additions to the Academy Awards ceremony around 30 years ago has been the In Memoriam segment. Producers find the perfect blend of music, photos and clips for the short annual presentation.

Which of the past Oscar winners and nominees from many different branches will be featured this Sunday, February 9, on the Oscars 2020 ceremony for ABC? Some of the most likely to be included will be acting nominees Danny Aiello, Diahann Carroll, Doris Day, Kirk Douglas, Peter Fonda, Robert Forster, Sylvia Miles, Michael J. Pollard and Rip Torn. How about major creatives such as Stanley Donen, Robert Evans, Buck Henry, Andre Previn and John Singleton?

Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019 and the just launched gallery for 2020.

SEEWho is Performing at the Oscars 2020?: Full List of Presenters and Performers

Over 100 people in the film industry, many of them academy members, have...

Sunday’s telecast of the 2020 Screen Actors Guild Awards will feature a special In Memoriam segment devoted to many of the actors and actresses who have died since last year’s ceremony in late January. Sure to be among those saluted include Oscar-nominated actresses Diahann Carroll and Doris Day, plus nominated “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor Luke Perry. Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019.

The 26th annual ceremony will be live on TNT and TBS on Sunday, January 19, at 8:00 p.m. Et; 5:00 p.m. Pt. The SAG life achievement award will be presented to Robert De Niro.

SEE2020 SAG Awards nominations: Full list of Screen Actors Guild Awards nominees

Over 100 people in SAG/AFTRA have passed away in the past 12 months. Which of the following 50+ names will also be featured in the televised tribute?

Julie Adams

Danny Aiello

Jed Allan

Bibi Andersson...

Two great Swedish directors, Ingmar Bergman and Victor Sjöström, collaborate on the story of an embittered old professor who makes his peace with the present by concentrating on the past. Sjöström plays the crusty physician and a few of Bergman’s stock company are on hand including Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin and Max Von Sydow. Now widely regarded as one of the great films of all time, the 1957 drama was an enormous influence on Bergman fan Woody Allen.

The post Wild Strawberries appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

The man inside the yellow Big Bird suit; TV’s Rhoda; and a “Beverly Hills 90210” heartthrob are just a few of the beloved entertainment figures who died in 2019. Here are some of the unforgettable stars and creators of movies, TV and music who we lost this year.

Movies

Several notable directors died in 2019, including pioneering French New Wave director Agnes Varda, who died March 29 at 90. “Singin’ in the Rain” director Stanley Donen died Feb. 21 at 94, while cult movie director Larry Cohen, who helmed “It’s Alive,” died March 23 at 77. “Boyz N the Hood” director John Singleton suffered a stroke and died April 29 at 51, and renowned documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, who made “Don’t Look Back,” died Aug. 1 at 94. “Romeo and Juliet” director Franco Zeffirelli died June 15 at 96. The colorful studio executive and producer of “Chinatown” and many other films, Robert Evans, died Oct. 26 at 89.

Movie stars who died in 2019 included Doris Day,...

Above: Chinese poster for Spirited Away; artist: Zao Dao.The most popular poster to date on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram, by a dragon’s length, with more than double the amount of likes of its closest contender, was this gorgeous Chinese poster (and its color variant which you can see here) for Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001), which apparently just got a Chinese theatrical release eighteen years after it was made. The posters were painted by the young Chinese comic book artist Zao Dao who you can, and should, read more about here.I was happy to see Renato Casaro’s prop poster for Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood’s film-within-the-film Kill Me Now Ringo, Said the Gringo—which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago—make such an impression, as well as another of my favorite Casaros painted forty years earlier, for Screamers, a.k.

Ingmar Bergman would’ve celebrated his 101st birthday on July 14, 2019. The Oscar-winning Swedish auteur helped bring international cinema into the American art houses with his stark, brooding dramas. But how many of his titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.

SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History

He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe Cannes Film Festival has announced its official poster, a tribute to the late Agnès Varda. The poster depicts Varda on the set of her very first feature, La pointe courte (1955). We are saddened by the news that the brilliant Swedish actress Bibi Andersson died at the age of 83. Best known for her remarkable turns in The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and Persona, Ronald Bergan provides a thorough obituary of the timeless artist for The Guardian.Recommended VIEWINGThe first teaser for J.J. Abrams conclusion to the new Star Wars trilogy, Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker. We published an extensive 5-part dialogue conducted last year that wrestles with George Lucas's much contested prequels.Kino Lorber's trailer for the re-release of Frank Simon's The Queen (1968), a documentary about the Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest,...

Link roundup starting with News articles...

• Nyt The great Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, a Bergman regular dies at 83

• Cartoon Brew Rich Moore, who delivered the Wreck It Ralph movies for Disney leaves to run Sony Animation

• Deadline Gabriel Basso nabs lead in Ron Howard's movie adaptation of bestseller Hillbilly Elegy. Amy Adams and Glenn Close co-star.

• The Wrap talks to Ryan O'Connell, the creator and star of the gay & disabled sitcom Special on Netflix

Lots more after the jump including In the Heights, Bond 25, the influence of Big, new albums, declining sex in the cinema, and two must-reads online this past week in case you missed them...

Actor of great depth and complexity known for her roles in the films of Ingmar Bergman

It is often the fate of any actor who worked regularly for the illustrious Swedish director Ingmar Bergman to be celebrated, above all, for that association. Among this elite ensemble, Bibi Andersson, who has died aged 83, appeared in 10 features and three television films by Bergman, which included such masterpieces as The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957) and Persona (1966).

With Persona, Andersson became internationally recognised as a performer capable of great depth and complexity. Playing Nurse Alma, taking care of Elizabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann), a famous actor stricken with psychosomatic loss of speech, at a remote seaside cottage, Andersson has to deliver most of the dialogue of the film. The spiritual anguish is written on the features of the two leads as they begin to understand one another and exchange identities.

Seen from the vantage of 2019, the extraordinary actresses who came to prominence in the films of Ingmar Bergman — Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin, and the sunny and anguished, incandescent and heartbreaking Bibi Andersson, who died Sunday — enjoyed a relationship with their director that was rooted in a 20th-century male-gaze ethos. Bergman was famously obsessed with these women: with their faces, their personae, the dramatic possibilities they opened up to him. He carried on off-screen romantic relationships with most of them (including Bibi Andersson), and in his movies he placed them on a grand pedestal of extravagant expression. The pedestal was framed not with a medium or long shot but with a starkly penetrating close-up. You could say that Bergman used the camera to probe their very being.

Yet it may be the essence of the partnership between Bergman, the mythical art-house giant, and the actresses he turned into psychodramatic...

Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, who starred in 13 Ingmar Bergman films died on Sunday, according to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. She was 83.

According to Aftonbladet, Andersson had a stroke in 2009, and had been ill and living in a nursing home for some time.

“She has been sick for many years, but it is sad. I found out that Bibi passed away lunchtime today,” director Christina Olofsson told Aftonbladet.

Andersson was born on November 11, 1935 in Stockholm. Over time, she appeared in more than 50 films, including The Seventh Seal, The Touch and Scenes From a Marriage.

She rose to prominence after appearing in the 1966 film Persona, for which she received a best actress honor at the Guldbagge Awards, the Swedish equivalent of the Oscars. She would eventually receive three more Guldbagge awards.

Bibi Andersson, the Swedish actress who starred in 13 Ingmar Bergman films, died Sunday in Stockholm. She was 83.

Director Christina Olofson confirmed her death to several outlets. Andersson had suffered a stroke in 2009 and was hospitalized.

Andersson made a name herself after her type-defying role in 1966’s “Persona,” for which she received the award for best actress at the 4th Guldbagge Awards, the Swedish equivalent of the Academy Awards. Previous to the role, she was generally cast in more innocent parts, like in “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries.”

Andersson won the silver bear for best actress as the Berlin Film Festival in 1963 for her work in Vilgot Sjöman’s “The Mistress” and in 1968, she was nominated for best foreign actress at the BAFTAs for her roles in both “Persona” and “Syskonbädd 1782.” After her “Persona” fame, she went on to work consistently throughout the ’60s and ’70s and accumulated roles in more than 50 films,...

Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, known for her roles in “The Seventh Seal” and “Persona,” died on Sunday, according to Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet. She was 83.

“She has been sick for many years, but it is sad. I found out that Bibi passed away lunchtime today,” director and friend Christina Olofsson told Aftonbladet.

According to Aftonbladet, Andersson had a stroke in 2009 while living in France with her husband Gabriel Mora Baeza. She returned to Sweden a few days later for hospital care. Shortly thereafter, she moved to a nursing home in Stockholm.

Andersson, who starred in several of writer and director Ingmar Bergman’s classic films, became well-known in the 1950’s, appearing in “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries,” among countless other films.

She would go on to work constantly throughout the ’60s, ’70s and subsequent decades and as recently...

Bibi Andersson, the acclaimed Swedish actress who in more than a dozen films from Ingmar Bergman went from beatific innocence to the disillusionment of age, has died. She was 83.

Andersson's longtime friend, director Christina Olofson, confirmed her death to the Swedish media on Sunday.

Andersson began acting in her teens and had a wide-ranging career in film, television and on stage but was best known for her work with Bergman. He discovered her while directing a commercial for Bris soap in 1951 and cast her four years later — in a single scene — in Smiles of ...

Bibi Andersson, the acclaimed Swedish actress who in more than a dozen films from Ingmar Bergman went from beatific innocence to the disillusionment of age, has died. She was 83.

Andersson's longtime friend, director Christina Olofson, confirmed her death to the Swedish media on Sunday.

Andersson began acting in her teens and had a wide-ranging career in film, television and on stage but was best known for her work with Bergman. He discovered her while directing a commercial for Bris soap in 1951 and cast her four years later — in a single scene — in Smiles of ...

Olivier Assayas speaks eloquently about his own work, able to talk about them both abstractly and practically. No surprise, then, that he’s as sharp when talking about other filmmakers’ films. A new video from Tiff finds the acclaimed French filmmaker — most recently of Non Fiction, Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria, and whose 1994 classic Cold Water was reissued earlier this year — talking Ingmar Bergman. Specifically he discusses Persona, the Swedish legend’s game-changing 1966 whatzit, about a caretaker (Bibi Andersson) tending to a damaged actress (Liv Ullmann). Bergman, according to Assayas, showed “that you could be both […]...

Olivier Assayas speaks eloquently about his own work, able to talk about them both abstractly and practically. No surprise, then, that he’s as sharp when talking about other filmmakers’ films. A new video from Tiff finds the acclaimed French filmmaker — most recently of Non Fiction, Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria, and whose 1994 classic Cold Water was reissued earlier this year — talking Ingmar Bergman. Specifically he discusses Persona, the Swedish legend’s game-changing 1966 whatzit, about a caretaker (Bibi Andersson) tending to a damaged actress (Liv Ullmann). Bergman, according to Assayas, showed “that you could be both […]...

In the category of culture-driven documentaries that focus on film history, a particularly enjoyable subset of that subset is the kind made by noteworthy artists themselves. There’s Martin Scorsese waxing luxuriously on Italian cinema (“My Voyage to Italy”), Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow fanboy-interviewing Brian DePalma for “DePalma,” and now, German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta (“Hannah Arendt”) taking us on a personal tour of her lifelong admiration for Sweden’s hallowed grandmaster in the playfully inquisitive “Searching for Ingmar Bergman.”

Von Trotta’s connection to Bergman started when she was a young, New Wave-enamored film lover who responded deeply to his 1957 chess-with-Death masterpiece “The Seventh Seal”; she even opens her valentine of a documentary visiting its famed rocky beach setting, narrating the impact of its establishing shots.

When she blossomed as an artist herself as part of West Germany’s own exciting crush of post-war filmmaking talent alongside...

“A Cruel Mistress”

By Raymond Benson

Master filmmaker and stage director Ingmar Bergman famously said that he was “married to the theatre,” but that “film was his mistress.” In a vintage interview in Margarethe von Trotta’s new documentary on Bergman, the Swedish artist is asked to define “film director.” Bergman’s brow wrinkles and he is lost in thought for a moment… and then he replies that being a film director is “someone who has so many problems to deal with he doesn’t have time to think.”

Film, then, is a cruel mistress, indeed.

An official selection of the New York Film Festival and released to U.S. theaters in November in time to help celebrate Bergman’s centenary, Searching for Ingmar Bergman is a welcome and lovingly-made examination of the filmmaker’s life and work. Director von Trotta, one of the major figures of the New German...

The marital discord in this show is a different animal than those Italian romps with Loren and Mastroianni — Ingmar Bergman’s miniseries examination of a breakup between two upstanding, thoughtful parents is a demanding, grueling exercise in self-evaluation. Try as one might, we can’t help but compare the fireworks between Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson with one’s personal experiences.

Scenes from a Marriage

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 229

1973 / Color / 1:33 flat Television / 297, 169 min. / Scener ur ett üktenskap / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 4, 2018 / 49.95

Starring: Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Gunnel Lindblom, Bibi Andersson, Wenche Foss, an Malmsjö, Bertil Norström, Anita Wall.

Cinematography: Sven Nykvist

Film Editor: Siv Lundgren

Production Design: Björn Thulin

Produced by Lars-Owe Carlberg

Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman

We long ago found out that fifty million Frenchmen could be wrong when the experts claimed that the whole country loved Jerry Lewis movies. Some of...

Team Experience will be celebrating one of the world's most acclaimed auteurs this week for the 100th anniversary of Ingmar Bergman's birth. Here's Lynn Lee

Persona has been called the Mount Everest of film critics, and no wonder. For a film that clocks in at a lean 84 minutes and turns on a deceptively simple premise – a celebrated actress (Liv Ullmann) falls mysteriously silent and is consigned to the care of a chatty, insecure nurse (Bibi Andersson) – it contains multitudes. In the 50-plus years since its debut, its potential meanings have been explored from almost every conceivable angle, be it existential, metaphysical, psychological, psychosexual, queer, feminist, the role of art and the artist, or just the film’s pure cinematic texture and experimental devices. But Persona is a slippery beast: just when you think you have a theory as to what it’s “about,” it melts and reformulates into something else entirely.

Melora Walters was sold on making a guest appearance in “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” when she found out the episode was inspired by Ingmar Bergman‘s “Persona” (1966). “It’s not a typical episode,” she explains. “It’s very much like a film or a play.” In this 19th season installment, entitled “Something Happened,” the actress plays a rape victim whose memory loss forces Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) to open up about her own dark secrets. “It’s the kind of role that I would dream of,” she adds. Watch our exclusive video interview about “Law and Order: Svu” with Walters above.

See Mariska Hargitay (‘Law & Order: Svu’) opens up about ‘culture of shame and isolation’ for abuse survivors in new interview

In Bergman’s 1966 art-house classic, a nurse (Bibi Andersson) takes care of an actress (Liv Ullmann) who suddenly stops speaking. While isolated in a cottage on...

We tend to think of film directors as generals, a cliché that’s useful, and accurate, as far as it goes. Yet compared to almost any other vocation, the essence of what it means to be a film director — especially if you’re a serious and powerful artist — is that you occupy a dozen roles at once. You’re a politician, an acting coach, a therapist, a budget manager, an image technician, a literary dramatist, a back-room manipulator, a dictator, and (when you need to be) everyone’s best friend. Not to mention the things that often go with the job: a media star, a sexual hound dog, and a workaholic.

When you see a typical documentary about a filmmaker, much of this stuff often ends up on the cutting-room floor. But Jane Magnusson’s “Bergman — A Year in a Life,” a portrait of Ingmar Bergman in the pivotal year...

An extramarital affair, Elliott Gould and passionate letter-writing – could Ingmar Bergman’s little-seen 1971 film get any more 70s?

Ingmar Bergman’s little-seen English-language movie The Touch, from 1971, is rereleased in UK cinemas as part of the major Bergman retrospective at London’s BFI Southbank. It is a passionate and flawed but very engrossing film about that most 70s of things: an extramarital affair. This is allowed to play out with all its tension, rapture, sensual abandonment, vicious quarrelling, desperate making up, and finally an autumnal regret and bitterness on which Bergman finally, uncompromisingly, lowers the curtain.

Elliott Gould gives a saturnine performance as David, an American archaeologist from a family of Holocaust survivors who is in Sweden to study a unique medieval wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin that has just been uncovered in a remote church. While in hospital – for reasons which are to be cleverly revealed in a...

Ingmar Bergman’s spellbinding films made his female stars immortal. But they weren’t all grateful. Could this famously manipulative genius have survived in the #MeToo era?

In 1971, Ingmar Bergman had just completed his first English-language film, The Touch. It starred Elliott Gould as an American archaeologist in Sweden, who has an affair with a beautiful, troubled woman, played by Bergman regular Bibi Andersson. To promote it, Bergman and Andersson made an extraordinary appearance on America’s Dick Cavett Show – an unimaginably rare TV outing for this director, rather like seeing Jean-Luc Godard pop up on Trevor Noah’s The Daily Show.

Seated next to his very quiet star, Bergman declared: “I think acting is a very special women’s profession. Women have much more talent for acting. I think women, perhaps from education, are more used to enjoying looking into the mirror that is the audience or the camera’s eye.

Author: Euan Franklin

Anyone experienced with Bergman’s better-known films associate him with death, mortality, and the irrelevance of religion. In his most recognised film The Seventh Seal, Death is personified by Bengt Ekerot in a pitch-black cloak – but we can almost see Bergman’s face under that hood, casting a gloomy presence within his sumptuous oeuvre.

But in the ‘70s, these existential themes loosened in his work and he became more optimistic (to the criticism of some). In 1971, the year Ekerot died, Bergman’s 31st film The Touch opened to bad box-office takings and a poor response from critics – Roger Ebert claimed it was “a movie that no one liked that much”. I’m going to be controversial and say that, despite its issues, I like The Touch.

In a small medieval town in Sweden, a place where everyone knows everyone, happily-married Karin (Bibi Andersson) visits her mother in...

On July 14, 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman was born, and a quarter-century later, he began to bring his cinematic voice to the world. A century after his brith, with an astounding body of work like few other directors and an influence that reverberates through the past many decades of filmmaking, his filmography is being celebrated like never before.

Starting this February at NYC’s Film Forum and then expanding throughout the nation “the largest jubilee of a single filmmaker” will be underway in a massive, 47-film retrospective. Featuring 35 new restorations, including The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Scenes from a Marriage, Fanny and Alexander, and many, many more, Janus Films has now debuted a beautiful trailer alongside the full line-up of films.

The Ingmar Bergman retrospective begins on February 7 at NYC’s Film Forum and then will expand to the following cities this spring:

Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Wa

Detroit Film Theatre,...

Editor’s Note: This article is presented in partnership with FilmStruck. Developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in collaboration with the Criterion Collection, FilmStruck features the largest streaming library of contemporary and classic arthouse, indie, foreign and cult films as well as extensive bonus content, filmmaker interviews and rare footage. Learn more here.

Last week, IndieWire asked our readers to name their favorite movies in the Criterion Collection, which resulted in hundreds of responses that pretty much covered every nook and cranny of Criterion’s massive library. It was great to see many readers listing dramas as diverse and polarizing as Robert Altman’s “3 Women,” George Sluizer’s “The Vanishing” and Fritz Lang’s “M,” but at the end of the day, our survey revealed which 10 titles our Criterion subscribers can’t get enough of.

An intriguing mix of reliable film landmarks and a few surprises, below is...

My guest for this month is Patrick Gibson, and he’s joined me to discuss the film I chose for him, the 1957 drama film Wild Strawberries. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

My original review of Wild Strawberries This film was the last role by legendary Swedish actor Victor Sjöström, who directed The Phantom Carriage You can’t fly directly from Stockholm to Lund these days, you have to go to Malmö and drive. It takes about two hours total A flight from Stockholm to Sydney, Australia takes almost 24 hours, so a bit longer Ingmar Bergman was having an affair with his leading lady Bibi Andersson during the making of this film Norwegian Black Metal and Swedish Death Metal are two things that I associate with Scandinavia A Mitzvah is a good dead, and a Mensch is someone who does them Virtually every Bergman film was...

The New York Indian Film Festival (Nyiff) announced the full lineup last night for their 16th year of celebrating independent, art house, alternate, and diaspora films from/about/connected to the Indian subcontinent (May 7 – May 14). Dedicated to bringing these films to a New York audience, the festival will feature 40 screenings (35 narrative, 5 documentary) –all seen for the first time in New York City. In addition, the festival will also feature five programs of short films.

The festival highlights various cinemas of India’s different regions. All the films are subtitled in English and some of the languages this year include Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telegu, Assamese, Haryanavi and Urdu. This year’s festival will feature a couple of sidebars –Nfdc restored first films of filmmakers and a three-generations sidebar, films of Bimal Roy, Basu Bhattacharya and Aditya Bhattacharya.

The festival’s film lineup includes 2016 National Award winners A Far Afternoon,...

Criterion repackages one of its earlier Ingmar Bergman inclusions this month, restoring his brilliant, enigmatic 1972 masterpiece Cries and Whispers for Blu-ray release. Financed with Bergman’s own money, the auteur had difficulty securing an American distributor, eventually finding an unlikely champion in Roger Corman, of all people, who had recently established his own releasing company, New World, and was in search of prestige titles to build artistic merit.

Rushed to theatrical release to qualify for Academy Awards consideration, it would secure five nominations, including for Best Picture and Director, winning Best Cinematography for Sven Nyqvist, before going on to be selected to play out of competition at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival (awarded the Vulcain Prize of the Technical Artist). In Bergman’s illustrious filmography, it’s unnecessary (and incredibly difficult) to endow any one title as his best from a body of work that sports a myriad of celebrated examples spanning seven decades.

“Cries And Sisters”

By Raymond Benson

One of the late, great Ingmar Bergman’s skills as a filmmaker was to write and direct memorable roles for women. He was one of the few directors, such as Ford or Altman or Allen, who repeatedly relied on a “stock company” of actors throughout his career. While there were many wonderful male actors who worked for Bergman (Max von Sydow, Erland Josephson, Gunnar Björnstrand), we generally remember the women—Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, Bibi Andersson, among many—for baring their souls on screen in Bergman’s challenging, difficult works that always elevated the art of film to breathtaking levels.

Cries and Whispers is an excellent example of the power of the female actor. It’s essentially a four-woman chamber piece, taking place in the late 1800s in Sweden, about three sisters and a servant, their relationships to each other,...

Editor's Note: RogerEbert.com is proud to reprint Roger Ebert's 1978 entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica publication "The Great Ideas Today," part of "The Great Books of the Western World." Reprinted with permission from The Great Ideas Today ©1978 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

It's a measure of how completely the Internet has transformed communication that I need to explain, for the benefit of some younger readers, what encyclopedias were: bound editions summing up all available knowledge, delivered to one's home in handsome bound editions. The "Great Books" series zeroed in on books about history, poetry, natural science, math and other fields of study; the "Great Ideas" series was meant to tie all the ideas together, and that was the mission given to Roger when he undertook this piece about film.

Given the venue he was writing for, it's probably wisest to look at Roger's long, wide-ranging piece as a snapshot of the...

Movies 20-11

20. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) directed by Wes Craven

Before he was the one-line-loving, crassly, campy class clown known as Freddy, Fred Krueger was the stuff of genuine nightmares. Scarred and grinning in his striped wool sweater, Fred prowls the dreamscape realm of the local high schoolers, the children upon whom he once preyed before their parents got smart and burned him alive. Years ago, Fred was a janitor at the elementary school; he lured children into the boiler room, where, it’s insinuated, he molested and maimed the kids. Now, years later, he returns to haunt the dreams of the children of Suburbia, America. Craven conjures the most surreal imagery of his wildly uneven career here, and Robert Englund instills Craven’s iconic creation with sharp, wry kind of terror, his playful delivery still ironic before the sequels declawed him. He wears his ratty old fedora like...

Dutch director was best known for The Vanishing and River Phoenix’s last film, Dark Blood.

George Sluizer, the Dutch director best known for The Vanishing and Dark Blood, River Phoenix’s last film, died in Amsterdam on Saturday (Sept 20) following a long illness, according to Dutch media. He was 82.

“Sluizer had been ill for a long time. In 2007 he barely survived a ruptured artery and after that his health remained fragile,” according to Dutch public broadcaster Nos, quoting relatives.

The director, producer and screenwriter was born in Paris, where he attended the Idhec film academy.

He made his first film in 1961, Hold Back the Sea, a documentary that won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Up until the early 1980s, Sluizer produced and directed many documentaries and TV specials. He also worked as a producer on numerous films, including Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and Cancer Rising with Rutger Hauer.

As a writer...

Horse Money

Caro Danny,

Festival time once more, for me the most valuable time. Time to soak in contrasting cinematic visions from across the globe, of course, and time to run into old and new friends. My first couple of days at a place like Toronto, I’m rather ashamed to say, mainly consist of playing catch-up. Not just catching up with titles which have already received coverage in other festivals, but also with fellow writers and cinema-lovers whom I practically only get to see once a year. As lonely as the basic act of movie-watching can be, to me the atmosphere here has always been an intoxicatingly communal one. The joy of leaping from screening to screening is matched only by the pleasure of discussing those discoveries with others—a dialogue that flows fluidly from contemporary releases to classic obscurities and gives a festival as vast as Tiff the intimate sense of shared exploration.

Persona

Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman

Sweden, 1966

Ingmar Bergman’s Persona is probably the great Swedish filmmaker’s most perplexing and thought-provoking work; it’s certainly his most surreal. Unusual imagery and curious narrative developments aren’t necessarily foreign to the rest of his filmography, but they have never been as frequent as they are here, nor have they been as overtly inexplicable. (Even if their meanings remain unclear, at least the dream sequences in Wild Strawberries can be clearly identified as dreams; there is no such easy rationalization here.) With so much happening in this 1966 feature, so many levels of story and visual complexity, it’s little wonder that Persona has yielded a great deal of discussion and analysis. And subsequently, it’s little wonder that the newly released Blu-ray/DVD from the Criterion Collection is accompanied by an excellent gathering of supplemental material, enhancing an already fascinating film,...