Rest in peace, sir.

My other favourite of Bergman's is Winter Light. Maybe because I was brought up going to a church with dwindling numbers, and filled with the same doubts Bergman seems to be working out here. Like many of his films, it's like an ancient story blank enough for you to contribute to its meaning. And Gunnar Bjornstrand is extraordinary.

Sorry for the shitty anecdote. At least I don't try to give shit to Mori, if you catch my drift...

PERSONA is #2 on my ALLTIME LIST.

#1?

MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA.

Bergman = greatest Director ever.

easily.

When I was a kid in Austin in the 70s, my dad, who taught at UT, used to let me sit in on the Bergman films he used to show his students occasionally. While a lot of the subtext obviously soared above my youthful noggin at the time, I could still appreciate the power of some of the films, such as The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries (the first dream sequence gave me nightmares for some time). Subsequent viewings of his films over the years have been almost universally and increasingly rewarding since there seems to be something in almost every one which speaks to whichever stage in life you happen to be in at the time. Can’t really say that about too many other directors.

Currently I’m living in the city of Uppsala in Sweden, the town of Bergman’s birth and where he spent a lot of his youth. Every day on the way to work I pass by several locations where he shot some of the exteriors for Fanny & Alexander. I also have a friend who lives in the same apartment building Bergman’s grandmother used to live and where Bergman himself would spend holidays as a child. Not only that, but I regularly go to Slottsbiografen (The Castle Cinema) on the same street, an old art house movie theater in which Bergman spent countless hours falling in love with movies at a tender age.

Needless to say, all this stuff feels extra poignant today.

While I don’t like everything the man did (Saraband being particularly awful), there is no denying his importance to an entertainment and art form all of us here claim to love passionately. The film world has lost one of the true greats, but as long as companies like Criterion still exist, we can enjoy his work forever.

Må du vila I frid, Ingmar.

So, never seen any Bergman, but consider yourself a film fan with a mind that's open to more than just simple 'entertainments', do yourself a favour and buy a criterion dvd or hell even sample his greatness by downloading some Bergman via torrent or usenet (it is out there), open yourself up to another world of film. That's the greatest respect you could pay the passing of a master like Bergman, ensuring that his films are still seen and appreciated by brand new audiences, even after the man himself is no longer with us.

Despite some of its goofiness, I LOVE Blowup. I don't feel so bad about someone dying in their 80's or 90's after a full, productive life full of such high achievements. Lucky men.

I know you're not looking down on us from a higher place, as most religious people would have us believe. You're just gone. Nonexistent. We're left with your collection of remarkable films, like memories of a life well spent.

Farväl.