Media gallery for
Autumn Sonata

Page from Bergman's shooting script.

Sven Nykvist and Liv Ullmann (Eva) during the filming of Autumn Sonata.

Filming wasn't completely problem-free. Particularly difficult was the working relationship with Ingrid Bergman. Despite radically different working methods, the actress and the director nevertheless ended up getting along pretty well. As Bergman writes in Images: ’Once she told me: If you don’t tell me how I should do this scene, I’ll slap you.’ I rather liked that.’

The whole film crew in matching sweaters during the filming of Autumn Sonata.

Bergman with his daughter Linn (the young Eva) during the filming of Autumn Sonata.

Ingrid Bergman (Charlotte), Liv Ullmann (Eva) and Halvar Björk (Viktor) during filming of Autumn Sonata.

Paul (Gunnar Björnstrand), Charlotte’s agent. The small supporting role became Björnstrand’s penultimate part in a Bergman film. His last would be as the actor and director Filip Landhal in Fanny and Alexander four years later.

The role of Eva became Bergman and Liv Ullmann’s daughter Linn’s second and final part in a Bergman film.

Eva (Liv Ullmann) with her disabled sister Helena (Lena Nyman), who’s been neglected by their mother.

Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman): ’Chopin was emotional, Eva, not sentimental. There is a chasm between emotion and sensibility. The prelude you played speaks of suppressed emotion, not reveries. You have to be calm, clear and austere. Take the first few bars. It hurts but he’s not showing it.'

Bergman and Liv Ullmann (Eva) during the filming of Autumn Sonata. It would be 25 years until Ullmann appeared in a Bergman film again.

Bergman, Liv Ullmann (Eva), Ingrid Bergman (Charlotte), and Sven Nykvist during the filming of Autumn Sonata outside Oslo. Bergman enjoyed being in an unfamiliar environment, even though he had some reservations. As he writes in Images: ’Everything we needed was available there, even though the place was dilapidated and had not been kept up. The crew members were friendly but a little amateurish.’

Käbi Laretei, Bergman's wife at the time, instructs Ingrid Bergman on the set of Autumn Sonata.

Viktor (Halvar Björk): "I asked, did she love someone else? She replied that she had never loved another person, that she was incapable of loving.”

Eva (Liv Ullman): ’To me, man is an unparalleled creation. Like an unfathomable thought. Everything exists in man, from the highest to the lowest. Man is created in God's own image, and everything exists in God. And so man is created, but also the demons and the saints, the prophets and the artists and all those who destroy. Everything coexists, grows together. Enormous patterns that constantly change. Do you know what I mean?’

Workbook no 33 contains notes on Autumn Sonata and The Serpent's Egg. Dated Nov 8, 1975 – 30 March, 1976.

Page from the handwritten script of Autumn Sonata. Dated Fårö August 10th, 1976.

Bergman’s shooting script.