Film-Making (Ingmar Bergman)

Bergman remembers several childhood experiences that later influenced his film-making. He recalls sitting under his grandmother’s dining-room table and “listening” to the sunshine, the cathedral bells, and the way light seemed to have sound. He also remembers seeing a picture of Venice come alive when sunlight moved over it, so that the canal seemed to flow and people seemed to move and speak. Another important memory is growing up in a vicarage, where he became familiar with life, death, funerals, marriages, baptisms, sermons, and the idea of the devil. He also cherished his magic lantern with coloured slides, and later his first film projector, which fascinated him and made a great success with its tiny film of a sleeping girl. These memories helped develop his imagination and his love of visual illusion.

Bergman says film-making is like conjuring because cinema creates illusion by deceiving the human eye. A film-maker uses an apparatus that turns still images into moving images, so the audience accepts what it sees as real. He even calls himself a conjurer or an impostor, because he can make viewers laugh, fear, believe, or feel deeply moved through tricks of light, darkness, and movement. So, like a conjurer, the film-maker produces wonder through illusion.

The first impressions are very vague and fleeting. They may come as a chance remark, a bit of conversation, a hazy pleasant event, a few bars of music, a shaft of light across the street, or even imagined actors in unreal roles. They are not a story yet, but a mental state full of associations, images, moods, rhythms, and feelings. If handled carefully, this tiny beginning can grow into a complete film.

Film-making is closest to music. Bergman says both film and music affect our emotions directly, not through the intellect. Film is mainly rhythm—like breathing in and out in continuous sequence. Just as music has tempo, rhythm, and emotional movement, a film also has its own rhythm, atmosphere, and pulse. That is why Bergman often experiences a film or play musically.

Bergman feels that films based on books are often unsuccessful because film and literature are fundamentally different art forms. A literary work has an irrational inner dimension, a germ of meaning, which is not easily transferable into visual form. When such a book is converted into a film, the film may lose its own special irrational power. To adapt a book, one must make many complicated changes, and even then the result may not justify the effort. He therefore believes films should not ordinarily be made from books.

According to Bergman, the relationship between a film-maker and the audience is one of reaction. A film is made to create an effect: the audience must be either attracted or repelled. If people do not react at all, the film is worthless. He also says he will not interpret his films for others; each viewer has the right to understand a film in his or her own way.

Bergman tells the story of the Cathedral of Chartres: after it was struck by lightning and burned down, people from all directions gathered to rebuild it together. They included master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, and burghers, and all remained anonymous. He relates this to his profession by saying that art once had a collective, humble purpose and was tied to worship. He wants to be one of those anonymous workers in the cathedral—making his small part, like a dragon’s head or an angel, as part of a larger creative whole.

Bergman’s main criticism of the contemporary film world is that it is dominated by the commercial industry. The film-maker has to walk a tightrope without a net, dependent on the public’s response. If audiences do not come, producers, bank directors, and theatre owners do not support the film-maker. He also sees the industry as a ruthlessly efficient sausage machine that destroys talent, initiative, and creative ability. Failure, criticism, and public indifference make film-making harder, and the freedom of the artist is constantly under pressure.

Bergman shows great sensory sensitivity throughout the text. For example, as a child he says he could almost hear the sunshine and the moving light in his grandmother’s apartment. He remembers the sound of cathedral bells, the way sunlight moved across the Venice picture, and how the picture seemed to come alive. He also recalls the smell of hot metal from the carbide lamp of his magic lantern. Later, he describes the cold, grey morning in Dalarna, the snowflakes, the rugged landscape, the forest, and the sight of cranes floating above the trees. These vivid sense impressions show how closely he notices sights, sounds, smells, and atmosphere.

Bergman shows that making a good film involves many invisible and complicated steps. A film begins with a vague mood or image, which must be developed into a clear screenplay. Then the writer must try to translate rhythms, moods, atmosphere, tensions, sequences, tones, and scents into words. Even then the script is only an imperfect basis, because it cannot fully capture the film’s breathing, pacing, or inner structure. During shooting, the director must coordinate many people and details while still remembering the original vision. So a good film is built through a long process of imagination, writing, planning, directing, and rhythm.

Film-making involves several risks. First, there is the risk that the original idea may not grow strong enough to become a film. Second, the script may fail to express the intended moods and rhythms. Third, once the film is made, the audience may not react as hoped, leading to failure, criticism, or public indifference. Bergman also suggests that the film-maker risks losing freedom because of the pressure of producers, banks, and theatre owners. So the whole process is uncertain and emotionally as well as financially risky.