Ingmar Bergman stories

A couple of years ago at the Swedish Film Institute the switchboard forwarded a phone call to me from a man at a Swedish company. The following week a group of Chinese entrepreneurs and businessmen would be visiting Sweden and the man calling was involved with that. The reason he called the Swedish Film Institute was that the Chinese were fans of Ingmar Bergman and would like to have some kind of Bergman event while they were visiting and he wondered if I had any suggestions. (He himself was clearly not interested in Bergman and somewhat bewildered by the Chinese request.) I was unable to help the poor man but it is an excellent example of Bergman's unusual position in the world; how he is not just a famous filmmaker but a global touchstone, comparable to Shakespeare or Dickens. Very few filmmakers after all are worshipped as much by Chinese businessmen as teenage cinephiles in Uruguay.

Bergman's fame and global appeal has long been profitable for me too. For four years I worked exclusively with his legacy, as archivist at the Ingmar Bergman Archives and then as Bergman festival coordinator at the Swedish Institute, and this has led to many free lunches. Once I was doing some work in Athens with the Swedish embassy there and its secretary asked me if there was anyone in Greece I would like to meet. The first name I thought of was Theo Angelopoulos so I suggested him, half joking. The next day the secretary told me she had invited Angelopoulos for drinks. He had been reluctant, obviously, but when she had told him I had worked at the Bergman archives he immediately re-arranged his schedule so he could see me. (I believe he was disappointed with me though. "You're very young." was his first words. I got along much better with his wife.)

Hasse Ekman and Harriet Andersson in Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)

This year is the centenary of Bergman's birth and there will be plenty of celebrations and manifestations around the world. Festivals, retrospectives, conferences, theatre productions, books and whatnot. This blog will also engage with it, but more with his work then with personal anecdotes like today, even though I have quite a few of those.

My years in the world of Bergman was followed by several years immersed in the world of Hasse Ekman, which is fitting because they are uniquely connected. This connection is the big gap in the extensive writing of Bergman; almost all aspects of Bergman's life and work has been covered and discussed in excruciating detail, except the Ekman connection. My own writing, including my book and a few articles, has tried to close this gap but there is more to be done. Here and elsewhere.