More convincingly than ever before, and using her as a medium, Ingmar Bergman has managed to construe the incurable loneliness of the soul. Between two screenings I struggled to think of an earlier film by Bergman or anyone else which in the same naked way feels like a punch in the soul but in vain.Ībove all, this is Ingrid Bergman's film. Let me begin by saying that I find the power of Autumn Sonata to affect both enormous and unique. We are to be forced into it, to feel how the mirrors close in on us. We are no longer intended to experience it at a distance. His new film Autumn Sonata comes close to this approach, but something new has happened to the play in the confined space. As well as Ingrid Bergman in her best (ever) film role, of course.įor a long period of his life as a mature artist, Ingmar Bergman has been heading towards the enclosed world of the chamber play, in which a few people meet and talk with, or past, each other, and where the space of the drama opens solely onto the landscape of dreams, or of the soul. But this is Bergman's version, and it has its harrowing moments and memorable instants which can recommend it to all Bergman admirers. I can well imagine a more rounded view of the perils of being a mother and child. I myself am more cold-hearted and suspect that it might exacerbate the feelings of guilt already held by working mothers. The way he deals with the role of the mother is reported to have disturbed a number of those who have already seen the film. Once she told me: 'If you don't tell me how I should do this scene, I'll slap you!' I rather liked that."Īutumn Sonata is a film I can appreciate, but to a certain extent (only) on Bergman's terms. In her case I was forced to use tactics that I normally rejected, the first and foremost being aggression. I discovered early into our rehearsals that to be understanding and offer a sympathetic ear did not work. I belive that with her he never hesitated to be disrespectful and arrogant, which evidently was precisely the best method to make her listen. In Hitchcock's films, for instance, she is always magnificent. After all, she had done excellent work in several American films. In spite of her mechanisms for receiving director's cues not being placed where one expected to find them – and where they ought to be – she still must have been somehow receptive to suggestions from two or three of the former directors. I believe that she possessed some sort of inspired system of working, albeit a strange one. It was clear that she had a different approach to her profession than the rest of us. Starting on the first day when we all read the script together in the rehearsel studio, I discovered that she had rehearsed her entire part in front of the mirror, complete with intonations and self-conscious gestures. rather, it was a kind of lenguage barrier, but in a profound sense. I did not have what one would call difficulties in my working relationship with Ingrid Bergman. The crew members were friendly but a little amateurish. Everything we needed was available there, even though the place was dilapidated and had not been kept up. Of course, when the wind blew in certain directions, the air traffic passed right overhead, but otherwise it was old-fashioned and cozy. Built in 1913 or 1914, the buildings have been left just as they were. As it turned out, I felt perfectly content to work in the primitive studios on the outskirts of Oslo. That is the reason I made the strange arrangement to shoot Autumn Sonata in Norway. My decision was final: I would never work again in Sweden. I wrote the screenplay for Autumn Sonata in a few weeks in order to have something up my sleeve in case The Serpent's Egg flopped with a somersault. Once long ago planned to adapt Hjalmar Bergman's novel The Boss, Mrs. She had snuck a letter into my pocket, in which she reminded me of my promise that we would make a film together. The last time I had seen her was at the Cannes Film Festival at the screaning of Cries and Whispers. The idea of working with Ingrid Bergman was an old desire, but that did not initiate the story. Bergman writing on the genesis of the film in Images: My Life in Film:
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