The autobiography is especially interesting on Bergman’s creative process. An egoist through and through, but with a keen hope that his egoism might yet be translated into a universal humanism. Others, such as his numerous marriages, births of his children, etc. Key incidents, such as the spurious tax investigation of his affairs which prompted him to later take up a self-imposed exile from his beloved Sweden, get a thorough airing.
At times full of anger as he recalls, usually, his childhood relationship with his father. Somewhere in between, I think, lies this autobiography. Better perhaps would be an opportunity to witness the many, many plays he staged over his long career, if that were possible.
The easiest insight into famed film director Ingmar Bergman is probably found through viewing his films. He died in 2007 and I discovered his work when I viewed The Seventh Seal for the first time in 2009, just before my grandfather died.Īt least Bergman's legacy lives on through his films, books (including those written by his lovers, family, admirers, and critics), interviews, and the foundation (/en). After a long career, in 1980 Bergman announced the production of Fanny and Alexander, which would become his last film and one of his most beloved, a couple months after I was born. He was born in 1918, as was my grandfather. Knowing the outline of my grandfather's life helps me place Bergman's life in recent history. It's a feeling I commonly have for historical figures that I'm interested in but in this case the proximity of his life to mine makes it particularly acute. I sometimes find myself grieving that I only discovered Bergman soon after he died- that I couldn't love him while he was alive. In a different time and place, I think I would have been the best of friends with him. Having closed the book a few minutes ago, my overwhelming feeling is of a warm kinship with young Ingmar. Bergman also tells of the experiences of fear and occasional idyllic happiness that caused his adult unhappiness and self hatred.Like his films, Bergman's memoir dokuments the varieties of human life in an artistically honest way, even the elements we typically avoid or don't acknowledge. Bearing all the narrative trademarks of a Bergman film, his autobiography unfolds not in strict chronology, but as a series of flashbacks to his childhood of bitter unhappiness: "our family", he writes "were men and women with a catastrophic heritage of excessive demands, bad conscience, and guilt".
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