Ingmar Bergman talks of his dreams and demons in rare interview

[Wetzelbill]

Bergman talks of his dreams and demons in rare interview

Xan Brooks
Wednesday December 12, 2001
Guardian Unlimited

Ingmar Bergman offered an insight into his life and working methods in a rare interview with Reuters earlier this week. The venerated film-maker discussed the demons which drive his films and recounted a recent dream about a "large, shimmering green bird" that spoke to him in a field. "I am normally afraid of birds and have never dreamt of any bird in my life," he said. The 85-year-old director implied that the dream was a message from his late wife, Ingrid.
Bergman also discussed his early influences and the strict upbringing which he says led him to escape into a fantasy world. "Hence my difficulty in separating the dream world from the real one. I became a great liar to escape the punishments. Caning was at the core of upbringing 70 years ago, but it was still horrific."
The creator of such landmarks as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Cries and Whispers, Bergman became a byword for a certain strain of anguished art-house cinema. He admits that it was his own personal demons that were behind his most famous films. "The demons are innumerable, arrive at the most inappropriate times and create panic and terror," he explained. "But I have learned that if I can master the negative forces and harness them to my chariot, then they can work to my advantage." The trick, he said, was to create some beauty out of the ugliness. "Lilies often grow out of carcasses' arseholes," he quipped.

Bergman retired from film directing in 1982 after the release of his Oscar-winning Fanny and Alexander. Since then he has worked mainly in the theatre, but will return to the cameras next year to direct a TV film, Don't Go. Of the current crop of younger film-makers, the Swedish legend likes Lukas Moodysson, Atom Egoyan, and Alexander Sokurov. But he reserves his most fulsome praise for Danish maverick Lars Von Trier who, Bergman said, "does not understand what a genius he is."

http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Exclusive/0,,617467,00.html

[Captain Hilts]

1. Check out the Cavett interview now on DVD. nt