Media gallery for
From the Life of the Marionettes

Bergman instructs Katarina (Christine Buchegger) and Peter (Robert Atzorn) on the set of From the Life of the Marionettes (1980).

Sven Nykvist was the only familiar face on set when From the Life of the Marionettes was shot.

Bergman, Sven Nykvist, Robert Atzorn (Peter Egermann), Christine Buchegger (Katarina Egermann), and Heinz Bennent (Arthur Brenner) during filming of From the Life of the Marionettes.

Just as in Sweden, Bergman managed to build an actor ensemble in Germany that could serve him just as well in front of the camera as on stage. The previous year, Walter Schmidinger (Tim Mandelbaum) had appeared in The Serpent’s Egg, and Christine Buchegger (Katarina Egermann) stared in Bergman’s production of Hedda Gabler at the Residenztheater.

From the Life of the Marionettes was the second film Bergman made in Germany. According to him, however, it was his only German film.

Peter Egermann (Robert Atzorn): ’Can you help me? Can I be helped? Can I continue living longer? Am I really alive? Or was my dream in effect the only brief moment of life I had? Of experienced and vanquished reality?’

As a patient at a psychiatric hospital, Peter (Robert Atzorn) retreats into himself and silence.

Ka (Rita Russek) – the victim of Peter’s (Robert Atzorn) mental short circuit. ’Only the one you kill owns – or controls one – completely.’

Peter (Robert Atzorn) and his secretary Frau Anders (Gaby Dohm).

Ka (Rita Russek) and Peter (Robert Atzorn). The film's opening catastrophe and the epilogue are both shot in colour, in contrast to the rest of the film.

Katarina (Christine Buchegger) in the film’s epilogue.

Cordelia Egermann (Lola Müthel) during a police interrogation.

Katarina (Christine Buchegger) listens to Tim’s (Walter Schmidinger) monologue about aging and the schizophrenic dichotomy inside, of feeling as a child and an old man at the same time.

Nykvist, Bergman, Rita Russek (Ka), and Robert Artzon (Peter Egermann) during filming of From the Life of the Marionettes.

Peter (Robert Atzorn) and his mother (Lola Müthel). ’The dominant mother and the absent father have given the patient a latent homosexuality that the patient barely knows about. It has a disruptive effect on the relationship to his wife and other women.’

Katarina Egermann (Christine Buchegger) and Martin Benrath (Mogens Jensen).

Katarina (Christine Buchegger), Artur (Heinz Bennent) and Peter (Robert Atzorn).

Rita Russek (Ka), Sven Nykvist, Bergman, and Robert Atzorn (Peter Egerman). Russek would become the first director to receive Bergman’s blessing to adapt Scenes from a Marriage for the stage.

Bergman's handwritten script of From the Life of the Marionettes begins with a preface in the form of a speech to the film crew.

Page from Bergman’s working script.

Workbook no 35 includes script drafts and notes on both From the Life of the Marionettes and Fanny and Alexander. Dated August 23rd, 78 – July 8th, 79.

In 1978 Bergman wrote the ambitious script Love with no Lovers. The script was rejected, but bits of it survives in From the Life of the Marionettes.’ This script was rejected by three impeccably conscientious producers. Their explanations varied but the basic message was the same: it’s impossible to make a movie from this material. Expensive. Would end in catastrophe. Self-destruction.’

First page in Bergman’s shooting script.

Page from Bergman's shooting script.

Page from Bergman’s shooting script.