Swedish film icon Ingmar Bergman died on Monday and 90% of you were like, “the ‘Casablanca’ star? She was still alive? Poor thing.”
If we can’t convince you why Bergman’s chilly, glacially-paced despairing meditations on death aren’t more fun than eating glass and totally worth watching, perhaps other filmmakers you barely recognize can change your mind.
Woody Allen. the nebish, neurotic jewish director called Bergman, “the greatest film artist of my lifetime.” Allen’s long career had many nods to the Swede, but none were as homageistically bleak as “Interiors” (- the favorite Woody Allen film of sad bastard Ben Gibbard for those of you who have accidentally stumbled onto us on your way from Brooklyn Vegan, hello!).
Richard Attenborough, knighted Sir of stately historical cinema mien (Gandhi, Chaplin, C.S Lewis); he who himself likely has not much time left on this earth said, “The world has lost one of its very greatest filmmakers.”
Super-repressed egghead Calvinist and writer of “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and other self-tormented internal worlds, the encyclopedic Paul Schrader said, “It is impossible for anyone of my generation not to have been influenced by Bergman. He made film-making a serious and introspective enterprise.”
Gilles Jacob, the current director of the Cannes Film Festival was apparently extremely inebriated when he nonsensically called Bergman, “a pioneer of genius.” Next month Jacob will also bestow the coveted Montgomery Burns award for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence.
The lanky and innocuous Michale Apted, head of the Directors Guild and director of the celebrated “Up” documentary series was equally vague with his praise calling Bergman, “a director’s director.” Which is sort of like a used car salesman calling a fallen comrade admirably slick.
Actor Max von Sydow – the only living human being with the distinction of having acted in both “The Seventh Seal” and “Strange Brew” – who starred in 11 Bergman films said, “No-one counted for me as much as Ingmar Bergman,” and said he had “immense gratitude,” for having worked and befriended the filmmaker.
Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith and other American directors with little-to-no knowledge of Bergman’s films were coincidentally not available for comment (this is analogous to rock musicians admitting to never having really heard a Bob Dylan record). [ed. Where was noted film historian Marty Scorsese?]
If that didn’t make you put down the newest Dane Cook film, we’re not sure what will. Update: More thoughts on Bergman can be found at Deadline Hollywood and Roger Ebert (who collated a list of thoughts emailed to him by people like David Mamet, Richard Linklater, Guy Maddin and David Gordon Green, who gave at least one solid reason to watch a Bergman film, “All those good-lookin’ Swedish babes.”
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
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- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
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- Rodrigo Perez
