QPORIT

Presented, (exactly as it should be!) in conjunction with a major retrospective of Ingmar Bergman’s profound films made with Liv Ullmann, Dheeraj Akolkar’s LIV & INGMAR is a revealing appreciation of the emotional and intellectual depth of Ingmar Bergman’s direction and Liv Ullmann’s acting. Dheeraj Akolkar’s LIV & INGMAR was one of the highlights of the 2012 New York Film Festival.

This is a very important retrospective, and the first in a very long time. Many years ago, when a movie theater and a café existed alongside and underneath Carnegie Hall, there was a retrospective of Ingmar Bergman’s films in the theater, followed each week by a noted film critic discussing the film in the café. Some of us went every week, and it was a profound experience. (With the resources of the Film Society, it would be spectacular if they could put together some similar live seminars to further enrich the screenings.)

In a way, however, Akolkar’s LIV & INGMAR, does serve part of the function of providing some extra commentary on the films. Everyone interested in Bergman’s films, and especially those who come to the screenings should see LIV & INGMAR. (For that matter, anyone who is not interested in Bergman’s films should be, so they should also see LIV & INGMAR.)

This is such a terrific retrospective, my only regret is that it will be over so fast: if only there were a way to keep all these films available beyond this short, busy week.

In the film LIV & INGMAR, Liv talks about their life together, intercut with scenes from films she made with him. Her warmth and emotional power, and the way their life and her personality infuse the films is fascinating.

She also talks about Bergman’s compound on the island of Faro where many of the films were made. A center for filmmakers has been established at the site, co-founded by Linn Ullmann, the daughter of Liv and Ingmar. The Bergman Center has had difficulty sustaining itself and deserves to have a strong financial foundation. (More about the Bergman Center and the – not directly related – Ingmar Bergman Foundation below.)

Liv Ullmann, in person, is warm and wonderful to talk with. Excerpts from our conversation can be seen below.

Currently she is filming her own adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, starring Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, and Samantha Morton. And she is planning to direct an adaption of A Doll’s House in New York.

 
FILMLINC ON LIV & INGMAR: THE FILMS… 

Liv Ullmann was 25, a new actress with a handful of films on her resume and Ingmar Bergman was 46 and widely considered one of the greatest living filmmakers when he invited her to work on a film called PERSONA, and the rest is cinematic history. Over twelve films in which he directed her, and two films she made based on his screenplays, Ullmann and Bergman formed one of the most remarkable and fruitful artistic collaborations ever. The intensity of their work on screen was matched by their passion off screen; they fell in love, and for about five years lived as a couple. Yet even after their romantic break-up they continued to be, as Bergman put it, “painfully connected.”

Liv & Ingmar – The Films (December 13-19) will include AUTUMN SONATA (1978), featuring Ingrid Bergman’s Academy Award-nominated performance as a famous concert pianist who reunites with the daughter (played by Ullmann) she had abandoned in pursuit of her career; the multiple Academy Award-nominated (and winner for Best Cinematography) CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972) which follows the intertwining relationship between three sisters and death; the landmark classic PERSONA (1966) with the duel of identities between an actress (Ullmann) and her nurse companion (Bibi Andersson); and “Scenes From a Marriage” (1974), Bergman’s first made-for-TV project and a harrowing relationship chronicle that is arguably unequaled in its depiction of the growth and destruction of a long term relationship.

Akolkar’s elegant documentary LIV & INGMAR, which screened at the 2012 New York Film Festival, is narrated by Ullmann and shows how much the relationship between Bergman and Ullmann became the subtext—and perhaps in a few cases such as ”Scenes From a Marriage,” the actual text—for many of the masterworks they created together.


Tickets are now on sale. Special Holiday pricing applies for the Liv & Ingmar: The Films series, with tickets $10 for General Public and only $7 for Students, Seniors (62+) as well as Film Society members. This offer does not apply to the theatrical release of LIV & INGMAR. 

Visit 


for additional information.



Film descriptions for Liv & Ingmar – The Films


AUTUMN SONATA (1978) 97 min
Format: 35mm
Country: USA
When a famous concert-pianist (Ingrid Bergman) goes home to Sweden for a reunion with the now-married, self-sacrificing daughter (Liv Ullmann) she essentially abandoned in favor of her career, the two women try to make their peace with the past. In flashback and in closeup, during a ferocious 24-hour encounter session, Bergman makes us see that the past is a country that can be revisited, but never really altered.
Friday, December 13
Monday, December 16


CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972) 95 min
Format: 35mm
Country: Sweden
A shattering close encounter with death, the painfully voluptuous visual and aural experience of which should elicit only an eloquent silence. Three sisters have taken up residence in a large family manor: Agnes (Harriet Andersson), dying in agony of cancer; Karin (Ingrid Thulin), ripped apart by a vampire-like appetite for human connection and an inability to get outside herself; and Maria (Liv Ullmann), trapped in her own narcissism and sensuality. Death, to Agnes's sisters, is inconvenient, an affront to their egotism-- they are heartless souls islanded within the rounds of their flesh. In contrast, the dead Agnes, sacramentally cradled against her maid's earth-mother breasts, finds heaven-- even resurrection-- in sweet memories of summer innocence. This superb film plumbs the deepest, darkest waters of the female body and spirit to find transcendent beauty and truth.
Friday, December 13
Monday, December 16

 

FACE TO FACE (1975) 136 min
Format: Digibeta
Country: USA
The brilliant Liv Ullmann plays a psychiatrist whose sanity begins to erode during a stay with her grandparents while her daughter and husband are away on trips. Originally a made-for-TV miniseries, FACE TO FACE dives soul-deep into the landscape of Ullmann's face as she confronts and succumbs to madness. "When the camera is as close as Ingmar's sometimes gets," testifies Ullmann, "it doesn't only show a face but also what kind of life this face has seen." With Erland Josephson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, and the always-superb cinematography of Sven Nykvist.
Sunday, December 15
Thursday, December 19

 
HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) 89 min
Format: 35mm
Country: USA
Originating from a script entitled The Cannibals, HOUR OF THE WOLF is the first of three films featuring Max von Sydow as Bergman's alter ego, the artist in retreat to an island (Faro, the director's own home) where all his demons and imagined monsters can come out to play, threatening to possess their creator and "disappear" him into the darkness behind the brain. A strikingly Gothic tale of horror, HOUR OF THE WOLF owes much to Bram Stoker's Dracula in its evocation of the artist's admirer's and tormentors as vampires, flocks of flesh-eating birds and insects. A puppet show of Mozart's The Magic Flute, staged after dinner in a sinister castle, counters the artist's descent into nighttime madness with a quest that ends in light and joy. With Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin, and Erland Josephson.
Saturday, December 14
Thursday, December 19 


LIV AND INGMAR (Liv og Ingmar) 82 min
Director: Dheeraj Akolkar
Countries: Norway/UK/India
She was 25, a new actress with a handful of films on her resume; he was 46 and widely considered one of the greatest living filmmakers. He invited her to work on a film called PERSONA, and the rest is cinematic history. Over twelve films in which he directed her, and two films she made based on his screenplays, Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman formed one of the most remarkable and fruitful artistic collaborations ever. The intensity of their work on screen was matched by their passion off screen; they fell in love, and for about five years lived as a couple. Yet even after their romantic break-up they continued to be, as Bergman put it, “painfully connected.” Narrated by Ms. Ullmann, Dheeraj Akolkar’s elegant film shows how much their relationship became the subtext—and perhaps in a few cases such as “Scenes From a Marriage,” the actual text—for many of the masterworks they created together.
Theatrical run begins Friday, December 13

 
THE PASSION OF ANNA (1969) 100 min
Format: 35mm
Country: USA
Filmed on Faro, Bergman's bleak island home, THE PASSION OF ANNA is really the case history of a contemporary Everyman, one Andreas Winkelmann (Max von Sydow), a lost soul ricocheting emotionally among a trio of equally damaged folk. Trapped in one of Bergman's hellish marriages, Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson are worlds apart-- she, fading from lack of love; he, armored in cold cynicism. Anna (Liv Ullmann), the woman who becomes Andreas' lover, assaults him with her righteous honesty until he explodes in brutal rage. All are helpless to halt the horrific murder of animals on the island, as well as the lynching that results. THE PASSION OF ANNA is a devastating modern day take on THE SEVENTH SEAL.
Saturday, December 14
Tuesday, December 17

 
PERSONA (1966) 83 min
Format: 35 mm
Country: USA
The temptation is to take Bergman's masterpiece for granted. It is probably the most famous of all those modern, post-Pirandellian films concerned with themselves as works of art. It also contains one of the most truly erotic sequences on film, demonstrating what can be done on screen with told material. An actress named Elizabeth (Liv Ullmann) elects to become silent and is put into the care of Alma (Bibi Andersson), a nurse companion. The actress's act, we soon learn, has two aspects: it is a wish for ethical purity, but it is also a species of sadism, a virtually impregnable position of strength from which to manipulate her nurse, who is charged with the burden of talking. By the end of the film, the two characters are engaged in a desperate Strindberg-like duel of identities, and Bergman has turned that struggle into a metaphor for the fate of language, art, and consciousness itself.
Tuesday, Dec 17



 
SARABAND (2004) 107 min
Format: HD Cam
Country: Sweden
In this sequel to 1973's Scenes From A Marriage, using the same incomparable acting duo of Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, Ingmar Bergman has given us a glorious late masterpiece. Marianne decides to look in on her ex-husband Johan, to see how the old goat is doing after all these years. While the two revisit their wounds and rediscover an irritable, mocking fondness for each other, they are suckered into a more volatile power struggle between Johan's widowed middle-aged son Henrik and his beautiful, talented daughter Karin. Both father and daughter are cellists; and the dance and musical form to which the title alludes conveys their elegant, risky movements of converging and parting. Bergman's ability to push scenes beyond civility to explosive feelings of love and hate remains unsurpassed. The acting of the four principals is peerless. This is no old man's sentimental valentine, but a work of shocking vitality and robustness, sublimely poised, directed by one of the grandmasters of cinema.
Saturday, December 14
Wednesday, December 18

 
Scenes From a Marriage (1974) 168 min
Format: Digibeta
Country: Sweden
Bergman's first shot-for-TV effort, Scenes originally ran 300 minutes in six parts-- each with a chapter title ranging from "Innocence and panic ..." to "In the middle of the night, in a dark house..." A truly harrowing chronicle -- much of it in lacerating close-up-- of the death of what initially looks like a perfect marriage. Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann are nothing short of miraculous as they fight out over a period of years all of the skirmishes and assaults, retreats and truces, betrayals and surrenders that constitute their coming apart and reconstitution -- as couple and individuals. A Swedish-TV Civil War, Scenes makes us see how poisonous and sustaining the umbilicals of Bergman's marital unions can be.
Sunday, December 15 


SHAME (1968) 102 min
Format: 35mm
Country: USA
Two married musicians (Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann) have withdrawn to a remote island, where they survive by growing and selling fruit, indifferent to everything outside their small world. Civil war and institutionalized violence overwhelm them (“Sometimes it’s like a dream. Not mine. I’m forced into someone else’s dream.”), stripping them of every pretense of autonomy, privacy, or decency, until only shame remains. Bergman speaks of the Vietnam newsreel that gave birth to this shattering masterpiece: “An old man and woman were walking with a cow … And all of a sudden, a helicopter … started up and began making a racket … And the cow tore itself loose, and the old woman dashed away after the cow, and the helicopter rose and rose, and this old man just stood there, completely non-plussed and utterly confused and desperate. And, somehow, more than all the atrocities I’ve seen, I experienced that third party’s misery, when everything breaks loose over his head.”
Saturday, December 14
Wednesday, December 18


THE SCHEDULE

13-19 DECEMBER 2013
===================
FRI
13 - … LIV AND INGMAR

FRI
13 
     7:00 AUTUMN SONATA
     9:15 CRIES AND WHISPERS
SAT
14      
     2:00 SARABAND
     4:30 PASSION OF ANNA
     6:45 HOUR OF THE WOLF
     8:45 SHAME
SUN
15  
     2:00 SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE
     8:00 FACE TO FACE
MON
16 
     6:45 CRIES AND WHISPERS
     8:45 AUTUMN SONATA
TUE
17  
     7:00 PERSONA
     9:00 PASSION OF ANNA
WED
18 
     6:45 SHAME
     9:00 SARABAND
THU
19 
     6:30 FACE TO FACE
     9:15 HOUR OF THE WOLF


LINKS

LIV ULLMANN ON WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liv_Ullmann

LIV ULLMANN ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0880521/

MISS JULIE ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2667960

A STORY ABOUT LIV’S PRODUCTION OF MISS JULIE
http://www.screendaily.com/features/set-report-miss-julie/5055884.article



INGMAR BERGMAN ON WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingmar_Bergman

INGMAR BERGMAN ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000005/



AUTUMN SONATA (1978) 97 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077711

CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972) 95 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467

FACE TO FACE (1975) 136 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074147

HOUR OF THE WOLF 1968) 89 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063759

LIV & INGMAR (Liv og Ingmar) 82 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2327430

THE PASSION OF ANNA (1969) 100 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064793

PERSONA (1966) 83 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060827

SARABAND (2004) 107 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299478

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1974) 168 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070644

SHAME (1968) 102 min ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063611


THE INGMAR BERGMAN FOUNDATION

The Ingmar Bergman Foundation administers the Ingmar Bergman Archives. This unique collection of over 60 years of creative output was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2007. The Archives are not open to the public, but here we offer you a sneak peak. And oh, there's a blog.

http://ingmarbergman.se/en/content/start

 
THE BERGMAN CENTER ON FARO

This wonderful cultural institution established with the support and energy of Linn Ullmann, the daughter of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman, provides access for film studies to the compound where Ingmar lived and filmed. There is an annual gathering of film studies, and the Center has many other important activities events and services.

http://bergmancenter.se/en/


LIV & INGMAR
ON AMAZON

INGMAR BERGMAN


LIV ULLMANN






*   *   *   *   *   VIDEO   LIV ULLMANN TALKS WITH QPORIT
ABOUT ACTING, WORKING WITH INGMAR...

Labels: Cries and Whispers, film society of lincoln center, FSLC, Hour of the Wolf, Ingmar Bergman, Liv & Ingmar, Liv Ullmann, New York Film Festival, NYFF, Persona, Scenes from a Marriage