The Looming Mountain

On the night between March 25 and 26, 1983, having just finished AFTER THE REHEARSAL, Ingmar Bergman wrote in his workbook-diary: “I don't want to make films again … This film was supposed to be small, fun, and unpretentious … Two mountainous shadows rise and loom over me. First: Who the hell is really interested in this kind of introverted mirror aria? Second: Does there exist a truth, in the very belly of this drama, that I can't put my finger on, and so remains inaccessible to my feelings and intuition? … We should have thrown ourselves directly into filming … Instead we rehearsed, discussed, analyzed, penetrated carefully and respectfully, just as we do in the theatre, almost as if the author were one of our dear departed.” Images – My Life in Film, from which this passage is taken, is late Bergman at his most typical where a text is an expertly crafted conjuring trick, altogether worthy of the self-aware, self-confidently tortured master magician. Furnishing his book, as in the passage just cited, with quite a few theatrical trap-doors, Bergman manages to speak as if from beyond the grave, or rather from inside the grave, intently scrutinizing us, the reader, how we react to the sight of the “dearly departed,” who is still enjoying the spectacle of hiding and revealing, knowing that there is always another mirror to be cracked, another veil to be torn aside.

For is not Bergman himself the mountainous shadow rising and looming over Swedish cinema, and even contemporary Swedish culture? When he retired from directing with FANNY AND ALEXANDER in 1983, was he tauntingly withdrawing to let a younger generation of filmmakers take up center-stage? Not really, for nearly fifteen years later, no one seems to have dared scale this particular mountain peak or hoist a different flag. Instead, Bergman has continued to be productive, in ways that are particularly remarkable. Not only has he directed several plays and operas, and continues to do so, he also remains in the news thanks to other media: being outspoken about the present situation of the Swedish film industry on television, or publishing his memoirs, reminiscences and recollections are only two ways in which the mountain shows its volcanic force.