Ingmar Bergman, widely regarded as one of the great masters of modern cinema died Monday at his home in Faro, Sweden, local media reported citing his daughter Eva Bergman. He was 89 years old.
Bergman, who approached difficult subjects such as plague and madness with inventive technique and carefully honed writing, became one of the towering figures of serious filmmaking.
He was "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera," Woody Allen said in a 70th birthday tribute in 1988.
Bergman first gained international appeal with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."
"The Seventh Seal," released in 1957, riveted critics and audiences. An allegorical tale of the medieval Black Plague years, it contains one of cinema's most famous scenes — a knight playing chess with the shrouded figure of Death.
"I was terribly scared of death," Bergman said of his state of mind when making the film, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the best picture category.
Bergman was also a prominent stage director. He worked at several playhouses in Sweden from the mid-1940s, including the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm which he headed from 1963 to 1966. He staged many plays by the Swedish author August Strindberg, whom he cited as an inspiration.
Bergman remained active later in life with stage productions and occasional TV shows. He said he still felt a need to direct, although he had no plans to make another feature film.
In the fall of 2002, Bergman, at age 84, started production on "Saraband," a 120-minute television movie based on the two main characters in "Scenes From a Marriage."
In a rare press conference, the reclusive director said he wrote the story after realizing he was "pregnant with a play."
"At first I felt sick, very sick. It was strange. Like Abraham and Sarah, who suddenly realized she was pregnant," he said, referring to biblical characters. "It was lots of fun, suddenly to feel this urge returning."
The son of a Lutheran clergyman and a housewife, Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala on July 14, 1918, and grew up with a brother and sister in a household of severe discipline that he described in painful detail in the autobiography "The Magic Lantern."
He broke with his parents at 19 and remained aloof from them, but later in life sought to understand them.
The story of their lives was told in the television film "Sunday's Child," directed by his own son Daniel.
The date of the funeral has not yet been set, but will be attended by a close group of friends and family, the TT news agency reported.
Source: Xinhua/agencies
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article