INGMAR BERGMAN, 1918--2007

The 1950’s, in this country, was a fearful time. There was communism, nuclear weapons, and juvenile delinquents. (You can take that to mean working class kids.) The bourgoisie was also afraid of sex; there was no porn industry in the fifties. To slake their thirst for the latter, the middle class flocked to “art” films--it was like reading Playboy for the fiction. One went to foreign movie houses, not to see bare breasted beauties, or so one claimed, but to acclaim cinematic genius. Ingmar Bergman made Summer with Monika, Illicit Interlude and A Lesson in Love, among others, in this decade. He was very popular. BFP does not know how many viewers accidentally discovered film brilliance while waiting for the good scenes, but there must have been a few.

At any rate, for those who really did go to art houses to see art, this was a golden age. And Bergman was rightly considered the genius among geniuses. He was also mocked and parodied mercilessly. “Watching his films was like watching paint dry,” said some critics. When someone deals honestly and powerfully with difficult, irresolvable issues, some people become uncomfortable, and lash out as a way of not dealing with their disquiet.

Artists, and Bergman was one of the greatest of this or any century, struggle to understand, to articulate with eloquence and intensity something profound about the human spirit, about the need to connect with others, (and about how difficult that is), about the difficulty of discerning truth from lies, about God, and about death. They know they do not have any answers to the questions they raise, but they also know they must forever try to come to grips with the most important questions of our existence. Perhaps they will succeed in creating one pinprick of light to illuminate a small piece of the darkness we forever stumble in. Maybe they will hit upon the right question to ask so that another, after them, will be able to find the answer. Possibly, simply by telling us there is no cure, we will be put at peace.

Artists, no matter how obscure, will always have an audience if they are honest and challenging, because there will always be men and women, forever young, trying to come to grips with the same concerns. We keep trying to find meaning. They will want to know how earlier great thinkers dealt with the anxieties they are now experiencing. Some of these students, in becoming writers, painters, or artists of any craft, will forever be influenced by Sawdust and Tinsel (Can you guess why it was released in America as The Naked Night ?) The Silence, Persona, Fanny and Alexander, Shame, Wild Strawberries, Scenes From a Marriage, The Virgin Spring, To Joy, Smiles of a Summer Night.

Yes, Cinemaniacs, this great man is no longer with us, but do not despair. To paraphrase Ma Joad, in a totally different context (not from the book, but the movie), “we keep a-comin'. We're the people that [question]. They can't wipe us out. They can't lick us. And we'll go on forever, ... 'cause... we're the people [that question.]”