Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Bergman on Filmmaking.
Posted by Ben in Art Film

Whenever I see another Bergman film (and that is often thanks to the somewhat perverse immediacy of Netflix) I always forget what a chore they are to watch, and how unforgettable they are. The films are wonderfully honest, showing humanity without magic or cheap tricks. Bergman is not driven by an ideal, a perfect story, but by the desire to present what is true, what is timeless, what is ultimately not bound.

Perhaps it’s a Swedish thing; Max von Sydow says it’s a Bergman thing.
Whatever it is, I find it impossible to ignore, and I love it.

The filmmaker himself gives perhaps the most helpful explanation I’ve heard of how art and religious faith may entwine:

From Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman (1960)

People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer to describe what I would like my aim to be. There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.

Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; ‘eternal values,’ ‘immortality’ and ‘masterpiece’ were terms not applicable in his case. The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation.

The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other’s eyes and yet deny the existence of each other.

We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster’s whim and the purest ideal. Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon’s head, an angel, a devil — or perhaps a saint — out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts.

Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.

4 Responses to “Bergman on Filmmaking.”

Julie K comments:
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

This is great! Beautifully written and full of insight. Thank you.

Brade comments:
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

Pretty amazing thoughts… “invulnerable assurance and natural humility” are worthy goals.

taaron comments:
Thursday, December 18th, 2008

I must confess, I don’t know anything about Bergman, and I hope that he does indeed believe in Christ, but he nailed it with the statement, “art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship.” Well said. Good post.

Ben comments:
Friday, December 19th, 2008

TAaron,

Bergman never called himself a “Christian”. In his public interviews, he actually cites Winter Light as a personal milestone for his own faith, that is, possibly, to give it up.

But, if there’s a thread of autobiography in his films then, we can guess that he lived in tension with his own beliefs, and that atheism was not a satisfactory, or true, conclusion.

Since he’s describing his art-form in the previous quote, you can see the worship he’s describing in the films themselves.

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