The disc features high-definition digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, audio commentary by Peter Cowie, introduction by Bergman, Jörn Donner´s documentary Ingmar Bergman on Life and Work and last but not least, behind-the-scenes footage shot by Bergman – watch the set in full colour!
Read more here.
Read more here.
(Apropos of our new first page picture.)
D:090
Director's script, Stage theatre, 1981
Fräulein Julie : ein naturalistisches Trauerspiel / [von] August Strindberg ; Deutsch von Peter Weiss [with Ingmar Bergman's notes and sceneries]
82 pp. sewn.
Manuscript published by Suhrkampf Verlag 1976. Director's script with IB's notes in Swedish. On page 28 a christmas card with revisions in the text. Scandinavian drama for a German audience.
R:016
Statuette. Gilded bronze lion.
B:041
Shooting script, Feature film
Persona / by Ingmar Bergman [with handwritten notes and sceneries]
90 pp., bound + appendix ; 30 x 22 cm
Typewritten screenplay. Shooting script with photographs. Appendix 1: Tentative shooting schedule, 2 pp.
This whole Bergman and fashion thing never seems to go out of style.
Granted, new Dsquared2 spring ad has even stronger references to Alfred Hitchcock, but the nods to Bergman are, as Style.com points out, plain to see as well. Hello, mirrors!
http://youtu.be/db5m-57_8Nw
By the way, as the persons before the mirror, we see the Canadian designer twins themselves.
Ingmar Bergman writes in Images about their cooperation:
First of all we needed a conductor. I asked Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, and old friend. In his inimitable accent he replied: 'Nein, Ingmar, nicht das alles noch mal! (no, Ingmar, for the last time, no!) That was exactly how to respond to the paradox of The Magic Flute: musically it is insanely difficult. Despite this fact, the conductor is seldom rewarded for his efforts. Next I turned to Eric Ericson whom I admire and respected as choirmaster and conductor of the oratorios. He responded with a definite no. But I did not give up. He possessed all the talents I wanted in a conductor: a tingling warmth in his approach to music, a passion for interpretation, and – most of all – a feeling of natural voice, which he had developed during his fabulous career as choirmaster. Finally, he accepted.
Speaking of the Pope, we’d like to bring your attention to one of our coolest colleagues.
The Vatican Secret Archives is perhaps not that secret: the adjective should be understood as ’private’ (from lat. secretum), since it is owned by the Pope himself. The archives were founded by Paul V in 1612, making it 390 years our senior.
And you don’t need to be a fan of neither Umberto Eco nor Dan Brown to appreciate the suggestive nature of their commercial campaign:
Admit that it's a little hard to comprehend that Victor Sjöström's office glimmered in different shades of brown; that the dress Ingrid Thulin sported for the conferment ball was light blue or that Bibi Andersson's chins took on a becoming reddish hue. Here's an update for you: reality had colour even when black and white films such as Wild Strawberries were shot.
But sometimes it happens that we'll get to see a behind-the-scenes colour still, that a preserved costume is on display in a museum or that a colourful prop is found in an archive somewhere – and suddenly we're reminded of the fact that most of reality, including that of the past, comes in colour.
Our friends of the Criterion Collection gave us the other day a few remindres of this, where the purple splendour of Last Year in Marienbad was particularly awesome):
From these kind of musings, there is but a small step to counterfactual history speculations: what if e.g. Through a Glass Darkly was in colour! Actually, it was pretty close. In February 1960, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter announced that Bergman's next film was to be in colour:
'Max von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand are already contracted for parts in the colour film, which only has four parts. The working title for the as yet unwritten film is "The Wallpaper", which is all Ingmar Bergman wants to reveal, except that this wallpaper is green and of importance to the story.'
We are happy to be able to confirm this last note! That the wallpaper was green, that is. Because on the very same day Criterion published their colour stills from classical black and white movies, our colleagues of the Swedish Film Institute library stumbled upon an interesting item in their holdings: the wallpaper which would have named the film. Design: the one and only P A Lundgren! As we speak, we're having a small meeting room at Film Institute redecorated into a cozy nervous breakdown space.
Through a Glass Darkly is a nice title, what with the reference to St. Paul and everything. But at least today we wouldn't have minded the title Bergman had in mind when he had jettisoned 'The Wallpaper' (but had to exchange upon discovering a recently published Swedish novel by Olle Hedberg had the same title): 'True Colours'.
PS. Stand-in for Harriet Andersson above is Ola Törjas of the Swedish Film Institute library.