“TASCHEN: wonderful publisher of sumptuous tomes.”

THE INGMAR BERGMAN ARCHIVES
Self-analysis of a filmmaker
Excerpt from the essay by Ingmar Bergman
Filmmaking is a part of me. It is a driving force like
hunger and thirst. Some people express themselves by
writing books, painting pictures, climbing mountains,
beating their children, or dancing the samba. I express
myself by making films.
The great Jean Cocteau has written in The Blood of a Poet
about his alter ego staggering along a nightmarish hotel
corridor, where behind all the different doors lie what
has made him what he is. Without having the unique
qualities of Cocteau, I am going to attempt to convey
you to the workshop where I make my films. I must
apologize if the visit does not come up to expectations.
The workshop is at present quite a mess as the owner is
too busy to keep it tidy. Moreover, the lighting is pretty
bad in certain places, and some rooms we will not enter
at all—these have PRIVATE in large letters on the
doors—and your guide is rather unsure as he does not
know what will be of interest to you.
However, let us take a look behind some of the doors.
This does not mean that we will find what we are looking
for, but the search may possibly provide some odd
pieces for that peculiar jigsaw puzzle of filmmaking.
When I was 10 years old I received my
first rattling film projector, with its
chimney and lamp, and a band of film that
went round and round and round
A motion picture is a perforated length of film made up
of a number of still photographs, small and rectangular
in shape—there are 52 of them to each meter of film—
each separated from its neighbor by a thick black line.
At first sight these photographs seem the same, but if
examined closely slight differences can be detected;
when they are projected successively on a screen, usually
at the rate of 24 a second, the illusion of movement can
be created. While each of these photographs is moving
into position for projection a mask moves over the lens
of the projector and the screen is black until the next
picture is projected.
When I was 10 years old I received my first rattling film
projector, with its chimney and lamp, and a band of film
that went round and round and round. I found it both
mystifying and fascinating. Even today I remind myself
with childish excitement that I am really a conjurer, as
cinematography is based on deception of the human
eye, which because of the rapid movement is incapable
of separating rather similar pictures.
I have worked it out that if I see a film that has a running
time of one hour, I sit through 27 minutes of complete
darkness. When I show a film I am guilty of deceit.
I am using an apparatus that is constructed to take
advantage of a certain human weakness, an apparatus
with which I can sway my audience in a highly emotional
manner—to laugh, scream with fright, smile,
believe in fairy stories, become indignant, be shocked,
be charmed, be carried away, or perhaps yawn with
boredom. Thus I am either an imposter or, in the case
where the audience is willing to be taken in, a conjurer.
I perform conjuring tricks with a conjuring apparatus
so expensive and so wonderful that any performer in
history would have given anything to own or to make
use of it.
This involves—or ought to involve—a serious moral
problem for those who work in the film industry. I do
not propose to go into the misuse of the cinema by commercial
interests, though it would be of interest if a scientist
could one day invent an instrument that could
measure how much talent, initiative, genius, and creative
ability have been destroyed by the industry in its ruthless,
efficient sausage machine. At the same time it ought
to be recognized that the rough must be taken with the
smooth, and there is no reason why film work should be
an exception. Its brutality is unmasked, but that can be
an advantage.
The tightrope, which the ambitious filmmaker is obliged
to walk, is like that of a circus without a net. For the
tightrope walker and the filmmaker are subject to the
same inevitable risk: They can fall down and break their
necks. Now somebody will say that surely this is an exaggeration.
There cannot be such a danger in making a
film. I say there is just that danger. It is true, as I pointed
out, that one must be a conjurer. But no one conjures
the producer, the bank director, the cinema owners, or
the critics when the public refuses to go to see a film
and lay down its hard-earned money, by which the producer,
the bank director, the cinema owners, the critics,
and the conjurer will live.
The tightrope, which the ambitious
filmmaker is obliged to walk, is like that
of a circus without a net
I have a recent and extraordinarily painful example of
how I myself was dangerously poised on the tightrope.
An extremely adventurous producer had put up the
money for one of my films, and after a year of frantic
activity was born Sawdust and Tinsel.
Criticism was generally unfavorable. The public stayed
away, the producer reckoned up his losses, and I expected
to have to wait 10 years for my next experiment in
the medium. If I were to make a further two or three
films that involved financial losses, the producer would
rightly consider that he could not dare to put his money
on my talent.
I would suddenly find myself a suspicious character, a
spendthrift, and I would get plenty of time to think
about the actual employment of my so-called artistic talent.
The conjurer would be deprived of his magic wand.
When I was younger I did not know this fear. Work was
a fascinating game and, whether the result was profitable
or not, I was as happy as a sandboy. The tightrope walker
danced on his rope, unaware of the void and the hard
ground beneath him.
The game has become a bitter struggle. The tightropewalking
act is now performed with eyes open, and the
rope is attached to fear and uncertainty. Each performance
totally exhausts one’s entire strength. Creation is an
urgent necessity, just as much for mental as for financial
reasons. Failure, criticism, indifference of the public hurt
more today than yesterday. The wounds are deep and
lasting.
Jean Anouilh used to play a little game to put off the
fear he felt when beginning a new work. He used to
think like this: “My father is a good tailor. He feels real
satisfaction in the work of his hands—a pair of practical
trousers or an elegant coat. The joy and satisfaction of a
good artisan. The pride of a skilled workman who
knows his craft.”
My own feeling is similar. I recognize the game and very
often play it: My films involve good craftsmanship. I am
conscientious, industrious, and extremely careful. I do
my work for everyday purposes and not for eternity; and
my pride is the pride of a good craftsman.
Yet I know that what I tell myself is self-deception, and
an incessant anxiety calls out to me: “What have you
done that will endure? Is there a single meter in any one
of your films that will mean something for the future,
one single line, one single situation that is completely
and absolutely real?”
Above left: Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson and Ingmar
Bergman on the set of Persona, 1966. Above right: Ingmar
Bergman and Sven Nykvist framing a close-up of Bibi
Andersson as Alma in Persona, 1966. Photos: Bo A. Vibenius
© Svensk Filmindustri Opposite: Summer with Monika,
1953. Photo: Louis Huch © Svensk Filmindustri
| 12 | “Opening this weighty tome is like getting your hands on cinema’s Holy Grail.”—METRO, London, on The Stanley Kubrick Archives