Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads

Between Theory and Practice

Maaret Koskinen, Louise Wallenberg

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781501389641
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501389627
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

This collection offers new and insightful perspectives on Ingmar Bergman's work as a film and theatre director as well as writer of fiction.

Ingmar Bergman's rich legacy as a film director and writer of classics such as The Seventh Seal, Scenes From a Marriage, and Fanny and Alexander has attracted scholars not only in film studies but also of literature, theater, gender, philosophy, religion, sociology, musicology, and more. Less known, however, is Bergman from the perspective of production studies, including all the choices, practices, and routines involved in what goes on behind the scenes. For instance, what about Bergman's collaborations and conflicts with film producers? What about his work with musicians at the opera, technicians in the television studio, and actors on the film set? What about Bergman and MeToo?

In order to throw light on these issues, art practitioners such as film directors Ang Lee and Margarethe von Trotta, film and opera director Atom Egoyan, and film producer and screenwriter James Schamus are brought together with academics such as philosopher and film scholar Paisley Livingston, musicologist Alexis Luko, and playwright and performance studies scholar Allan Havis to discuss Bergman's work from their unique perspectives. In addition, Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads provides, for the first time, in-depth interviews with Bergman's longtime collaborators Katinka Faragó and Måns Reuterswärd, who both have first-hand experience of working intimately as producers in film and television with Bergman, covering more than 5 decades. In an open exchange between individual and institutional perspectives, this book bridges the often-rigid boundaries between theoreticians and practitioners, in turn pointing Bergman's studies in new directions.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Why Bergman, Why Now?
• 1 Hour of the Wolf: Nightmares and Creativity
• 2 Working with Bergman: Interview with Film and Television Producers Katinka Faragó and Måns Reuterswärd
• 3 Ambiguity and the Making of Nattvardsgästerna/Winter Light
• 4 The Passion of Anna: The Wondrous Alchemy between Actors and Landscape, Interview with Atom Egoyan
• 5 Scenes from on and off the Set: Ingmar Bergman, Power, and MeToo
• 6 For Good or for Bad?: Bergman’s Ambivalent Influence—Some Observations
• 7 Jacobi’s Burden: “Jewish” Figurations in Fanny och Alexander
• 8 Producing The Magic Flute (1975): Conversation with Måns Reuterswärd and Katinka Faragó
• 9 Metareference, Metalepsis, and Music in Liv Ullmann’s and Ingmar Bergman’s Faithless
• 10 Bergman’s The Magician: The Art of Creating Illusions
• 11 Author, Auteur, Actor: Twenty-one Fragments on Bergman, Ullmann, and Persona
• 12 Dear Director: Adapting Bergman’s Failures and Leftovers into a Play, and a Fan-letter into a Film
• 13 Making (the) Silence Speak: Remake, Retake, Rectify
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Filmography
• List of Editors and Contributors
• Index
• Copyright