A highlight among the fourteen films in the programme is the screening of The Virgin Spring, introduced by Max von Sydow (seldomly seen in Bergman contexts these days)! The festival, arranged by the Lumières themselves (sort of), is going on from 14 to 20 October, and Quentin Tarantino will be there, too. Not sure if I'll have the opportunity to ask him if he's aware that his Death Proof is in fact a remake of Persona.
Read more here.
Helmed by the, well, also legendary filmmaker Guy Maddin. Whether Jason Schwartzman still is considered as lead we don't know. But (as you, no doubt) we'll keep ourselves posted here.
"Love that movie, one of the greats."
"by the greatest director on earth, one masterpiece"
"One of the crown jewels of the Criterion Collection!"
"Greatest Fathers Day present ever."
"I hate having to upgrade all the time but in this case its worth it. If this gem from Bergman isn't a masterpiece, I don't know what is."
Etc.
12 June, Ingmar Bergman Foundation CEO Jan Holmberg will be visiting, speaking about the Bergman legacy.
The exhibit continues until 23 June. The Russian-versed can read more here (and the rest of us can enjoy some of the beautiful pics).
[Photography above courtesy of Arne Carlsson.]
Beata Bergström were among other things the Royal Dramatic Theatre's – and hence Ingmar Bergman's – still photographer form many years. The exhibition will run until 6 January, 2014.
But why not celebrate the hundred and first anniversary as well? We are proud to present a newly-written essay by Professor emeritus Egil Törnqvist, sorting out the complex and fascinating relationship between two giants of Swedish culture. Enjoy it at The Ingmar Bergman Universe.
P.S. Törnqvist recently published the highly interesting study Drama as Text and Performance: Strindberg’s and Bergman’s Miss Julie (Amsterdam UP). Read it! It's free!
Cosy up this weekend with a smattering of Bergman-related musical entertainment! Every Saturday [update: a Saturday every now and then], we offer up a new song that relates to Bergman in some interesting manner. Over time, we plan on building up a pretty-little playlist suitable for any occasion, aptly entitled The Original Ingmar Bergman Spotify Playlist. (For more on Bergman and music, click here.)
Satuday song #5 is:
The main character of the television piece In the Presence of a Clown is uncle Carl Åkerblom, engineer and recurring Bergman figure. Set in the early 20th century, the film opens with Åkerblom sitting alone in his hospital room – he is admitted in an asylum – playing the same piece over and over again on a grammophone: the first eight measures of 'Der Leiermann' ('The Organ Grinder'), the last lied of Schubert's cycle Die Winterreise.
Discharged from the hospital, Åkerblom starts working on what is meant to be the world's first talkie, about 'the passionate love story between the genius Franz Schubert and fille de joie Mizzi Veith.'
For this reason, Käbi Laretei and Hanns Rodell perform a number of Schubert pieces in this TV film. Seemingly a bit odd that this very composer should feature so prominently in such a late Bergman production, as only one other Schubert piece is featured in all his other films, when Impromptu Nr. 3 from Theme and Variations in B-Major makes a brief aural appearance in Fanny and Alexander.
Bergmans script is subtitled 'Eight improvisations, with the eighth written as a rondel'.
Hence, and as so many times before, Bergman thought of his opus not only to be about music, but also being music.
F:150
Hand writings, Drafts, Sketches
[Notebook No 48 / Ingmar Bergman]
[1940]
c:a 55 p., c:a 12 sketches ; 22 x 17 cm
Spiral pad (notes from both directions). Undated. Text on cover: "This is my notebook. My name is Ingmar Bergman" ... Notes from Mäster-Olofsgården, thoughts about theatre, letter drafts, manuscript fragments and sketches.
' – will take whoever nicks this notebook.'
J:069
Biographica
Journals
[Planning calendar 1975]
[120] s. ; 10 x 26 cm
Contains misc. notes, including rehearsal hours for Twelfth Night and shooting of Face to Face and journal entries + drawn devils (28 August).
This day, thirty-eight years ago, Bergman was in New York City. During the day, he had time for a lunch (in a rocking skyscraper) sell the world rights for Face to Face to Dino de Laurentiis and watch Liv Ullmann in her Broadway debut A Doll's House (which, by the way, she now plans to stage her own translation of).
