film for Bergman.
Katinka Farago, a robust woman in her thirties, hardly has time for coffee; she wants a moment to speak with Bergman about the next week's production schedule, and he listens and nods as she explains, urgently, her problems. It is the duty of a production manager to have problems; no one has ever met one who did not. Katinka came to Stockholm from Hungary in 1956, a refugee, and got a job as Bergman's script girl. He made her production manager a few years ago, in charge of all the logistics of time, space, and money. This is her seventeenth film with Bergman.
Sven Nykvist photographs Bergman's films. He is a tall, strong, fiftyone, with a beard and a quick smile. He is usually better-dressed than Bergman, but then almost everyone is; "Ingmar," a friend says, "does not spend a hundred dollars a year for personal haberdashery." Nykvist first worked for Bergman on The Naked Night in 1953, and has been with him steadily since The Virgin Spring in 1959. This will be his nineteenth title for Bergman, and the two of them together engineered Bergman's longdelayed transition from black and white to color, unhappily in All These Women and then triumphantly in A Passion of Anna and Cries and Whispers.
Nykvist is in demand all over the world, and commands one of the half-dozen highest salaries among cinematographers, but he always leaves his schedule open for Bergman. "We've already discussed the new film the year before," he says, "and then Ingmar goes to his island and writes the screenplay. The next year, we shoot-usually about the fifteenth of April. Usually we are the same eighteen people working with him, year after year, one film a year."
At the Cannes Film Festival one year, he said, Bergman was talking with David Lean, the director of Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago. "What kind of crew do you use?" Lean asked. "I make my films with eighteen good friends," Bergman said. "That's interesting," said Lean. "I make mine with 15o enemies."
It is very rare for Bergman to invite visitors-the word "outsiders" almost seems to apply-to one of his sets. It is much more common, during a difficult scene, for him to send one technician after another out to wait in the hall, until the actors are alone with Bergman, Nykvist, a sound man, an electrician, and the demands of the scene.
"When we were making Cries and Whispers," Liv Ullmann recalls, "none of the rest of us really knew what Harriet Andersson was doing in those scenes of suffering and death. Ingmar would send away everyone ex- ceptjust those few who must be there, and Harriet. When we saw the completed film, we were overwhelmed. It was almost as if those great scenes had been Harriet's secret-which, in a way, they were supposed to be, since in the film she died so much alone."
Liv is sitting in her dressing room, waiting to be called for the next scene. It will be a difficult one; she must explain to her child in the film why she tries to kill herself.
"They say Ingmar has changed," she says, "and he has. He doesn't look the same when he walks on the set. He's mellowed, in a nice way. He's sweeter. We've all been through some hard times with him-fights on the set-but he seems more tolerant now."
Perhaps, she said, Bergman has worked through the problem of death which haunted so many of his films. "He's faced it as a reality, and accepted it, and suddenly there's almost a sense of relief: in Cries and Whispers and Scenes from a Marriage there's a kind of acceptance at the end that wasn't there before. And in this film. He's been saying for years he's going to make a film of The Merry Widow. Well, now I really think he will. It may not be The Merry Widow, but it will be something warm and sunny. He is the most adult director in the world, making serious films for adults, but now if he could really let the child inside of him come out ... and I think he's reached the point where he can."
She lowers her voice. There is movement down the corridor, and it may
Katinka Farago, a robust woman in her thirties, hardly has time for coffee; she wants a moment to speak with Bergman about the next week's production schedule, and he listens and nods as she explains, urgently, her problems. It is the duty of a production manager to have problems; no one has ever met one who did not. Katinka came to Stockholm from Hungary in 1956, a refugee, and got a job as Bergman's script girl. He made her production manager a few years ago, in charge of all the logistics of time, space, and money. This is her seventeenth film with Bergman.
Sven Nykvist photographs Bergman's films. He is a tall, strong, fiftyone, with a beard and a quick smile. He is usually better-dressed than Bergman, but then almost everyone is; "Ingmar," a friend says, "does not spend a hundred dollars a year for personal haberdashery." Nykvist first worked for Bergman on The Naked Night in 1953, and has been with him steadily since The Virgin Spring in 1959. This will be his nineteenth title for Bergman, and the two of them together engineered Bergman's longdelayed transition from black and white to color, unhappily in All These Women and then triumphantly in A Passion of Anna and Cries and Whispers.
Nykvist is in demand all over the world, and commands one of the half-dozen highest salaries among cinematographers, but he always leaves his schedule open for Bergman. "We've already discussed the new film the year before," he says, "and then Ingmar goes to his island and writes the screenplay. The next year, we shoot-usually about the fifteenth of April. Usually we are the same eighteen people working with him, year after year, one film a year."
At the Cannes Film Festival one year, he said, Bergman was talking with David Lean, the director of Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago. "What kind of crew do you use?" Lean asked. "I make my films with eighteen good friends," Bergman said. "That's interesting," said Lean. "I make mine with 15o enemies."
It is very rare for Bergman to invite visitors-the word "outsiders" almost seems to apply-to one of his sets. It is much more common, during a difficult scene, for him to send one technician after another out to wait in the hall, until the actors are alone with Bergman, Nykvist, a sound man, an electrician, and the demands of the scene.
"When we were making Cries and Whispers," Liv Ullmann recalls, "none of the rest of us really knew what Harriet Andersson was doing in those scenes of suffering and death. Ingmar would send away everyone ex- ceptjust those few who must be there, and Harriet. When we saw the completed film, we were overwhelmed. It was almost as if those great scenes had been Harriet's secret-which, in a way, they were supposed to be, since in the film she died so much alone."
Liv is sitting in her dressing room, waiting to be called for the next scene. It will be a difficult one; she must explain to her child in the film why she tries to kill herself.
"They say Ingmar has changed," she says, "and he has. He doesn't look the same when he walks on the set. He's mellowed, in a nice way. He's sweeter. We've all been through some hard times with him-fights on the set-but he seems more tolerant now."
Perhaps, she said, Bergman has worked through the problem of death which haunted so many of his films. "He's faced it as a reality, and accepted it, and suddenly there's almost a sense of relief: in Cries and Whispers and Scenes from a Marriage there's a kind of acceptance at the end that wasn't there before. And in this film. He's been saying for years he's going to make a film of The Merry Widow. Well, now I really think he will. It may not be The Merry Widow, but it will be something warm and sunny. He is the most adult director in the world, making serious films for adults, but now if he could really let the child inside of him come out ... and I think he's reached the point where he can."
She lowers her voice. There is movement down the corridor, and it may
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