The legendary Ingmar Bergman was both talented and prolific, with nearly 60 films as director to his credit. He often took inspiration from his own life, be it his experiences as the son of a Lutheran minister, his adulterous liaisons with his many lovers, his home life with any of his five wives, or simply his own artistic process. His films were personal and he constantly rehashed and reworked the same preoccupations. The themes and plots of his films, when viewed in hindsight, coalesce into a whole that showcases his tortured genius. Here are five of his most recommended ones.
Summer with Monika (1953)
Ingmar Bergman’s early work usually depicted cynical youngsters struggling against the adult world, and this particular film can be cited as a classic example of those early years. Summer with Monika starred Harriet Andersson as the eponymous heroine (the first of the many gritty, fiery and sexually bold characters she would play for Bergman) along with Lars Ekborg. The film narrates the story of their idyllic summer affair, Monika’s subsequent pregnancy and their real life intrusions, all of which eventually becomes a character study of young love, separation and infidelity.
The Seventh Seal (1957)
This film has become a part of Bergman’s larger identity for eternity. Bergman’s films, The Seventh Seal features Max von Sydow and Bengt Ekerot in the lead roles, and the allegorical narrative focuses on a knight returning from the Crusades. When Death comes for him, the knight challenges the reaper to a game of chess in the hope of gaining enough time to find some kind of meaning to his life. As he sets off through plague-ridden medieval Sweden, the knight encounters a group of travelling players – a silver lining to death’s dark clouds. The Seventh Seal was released at a time when the western world was riddled with nuclear anxiety, and its theme of man’s relationship with life and death resonated across the board. Its commercial success ushered in the era of arthouse cinema at the global level.
Winter Light (1963)
This rather underrated gem is considered a part of Bergman’s trilogy that also includes Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and The Silence (1963). Starring Max von Sydow in the lead, this film takes a meditative look at faith and God’s silence while being replete with anxious motifs about the atomic age. The narrative of Winter Light concerns a pastor struggling with his dwindling congregation and his declining faith and also includes a fisherman seeking solace from the same pastor. A bitter, sparse film, the themes of Winter Light continue to resonate with nuanced cinephiles while also carrying forward nuclear anxieties that The Seventh Seal explores in the 1950s.
Cries and Whispers (1972)
Bergman’s “color stock” phase not only retains his signature cinematic introspections, but also includes excursions into new media like television. However, Cries and Whispers ranks among the advance guard of this phase. Featuring Harriet Anderson, Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin in key roles, the film follows the life of a cancer-ridden woman lying on her deathbed. She is cared for by her cold and distant sisters, all of whom reside in a large country manor at the turn of the century. Using flashbacks, the narrative chronicles their lives, loves, cruelties and humiliations. The use of the color red in the art direction (which Bergman declared to be the manifestation of the soul) must be noted as a visual metaphor, while the regular insertion of ticking clock sounds serves as a guide to the passage of life, one of Ingmar Bergman’s major themes.
Autumn Sonata (1978)
Hollywood luminary Ingrid Bergman and Ingmar Bergman collaborated only once for this film. Like Wild Strawberries (1957) before it, Autumn Sonata features another variation on the theme of parental-child relationships. Ingrid stars as a career driven pianist who decides to visit her daughter, only to find years of bitterness and resentment unspooling between them (the result of Charlotte prioritising her career over her motherly duties). Dedicated fans of Ingmar Bergman’s work have noted that the dilemma Charlotte experiences (mother vis-a-vis artist) is perhaps a subtle hint to Bergman’s own workaholic temperament. It is also well known that despite the two Bergmans not getting along, they delivered a classic film.
