Not the one in Casablanca: Ingmar Bergman
Swedish director Ingmar Bergman–not to be confused with Ingrid Bergman, who was way prettier–died today at the age of 89.
I have to say that Bergman is one of those directors that we’ve all heard of–”Oh, right, Ingmar Bergman,”–but that the general public seems to have missed. It’s easy to let that happen when everything’s in Swedish; those of us who haven’t been to either Sweden or film school tend, frankly, not to care very much. I, for one, have never seen an Ingmar Bergman film, though I’d be willing to bet they’re fantastic. I have no reason to believe otherwise.
Maybe this is all about the dichotomy between high and low cinema, or high and low culture? Between what an ambitious filmmaker wants to express through the medium of the motion picture, and what audiences want to see? Who knows, perhaps good old Ingmar was the Farrelly Brothers of Sweden in his day, though I doubt it. Maybe we think Swedish films are going to be all about fish and eternal winter. Maybe it’s just that we’re uncomfortable with movies that aren’t in our own language, though foreign films aren’t that uncommon. I just wonder why so few people seem to be unfamiliar with one of the most talented and successful filmmakers of the twentieth century.
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