Images: My Life in Film [Hardcover]

Ingmar Bergman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 1994

The highly acclaimed Swedish director comments on his more than fifty films and a life spent in film, in an illustrated chronicle of Bergman's career. By the author of Sunday's Child. 50,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In candidly discussing more than 30 of his movies, from Torment (1944) to Fanny and Alexander (1982) and more recent made-for-TV films, Swedish director Bergman offers a disarming glimpse into his private world. We learn that Wild Strawberries was a desperate, doomed attempt to justify himself to his "mythologically oversized parents" who had cruelly punished him as a child, while Through A Glass Darkly reflects his confused, noncommunicative marriage to Kabi Laretei. Bergman also divulges his numbing fear of death and ironically frequent thoughts of committing suicide. For each film discussed, he pinpoints its essential themes, relates on-set anecdotes and trenchantly analyzes what he sees as its strengths and failings. Excerpts from his workbooks, plus film stills and photographs round out a self-portrait that will captivate fans.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Warmly appealing, indispensable review of all his films by Swedish filmmaker Bergman as he sits down to look at each one, many of which he's not seen for 30 or 40 years. Bergman begins by dismissing 1973's Bergman on Bergman--in which he answered questions put to him by three Swedish interviewers--as being full of defensive lies by himself. Fans familiar with that work may be put off by the early pages here, as well as by other stretches, which wobble with head-stuff and as writing are inferior to the more keenly detailed verbalizations in the earlier work the director now intends to outstrip. Today's Bergman has less to say about the nuts and bolts of his filmmaking, focusing instead on motives for his screenplays and on how he wove threads of his own character through different characters from film to film. His strongest moments come when pointing out his failures, fears, and shortsightedness in various works, huge humiliations he brought on himself by not following his first instincts--sometimes by settling too quickly for a smooth surface, at other times by deluding himself for years that he'd created strong works (The Serpent's Egg, Shame, and others) that he now joins his critics in dismissing, at least in part--though not without the keenest eye for what went wrong and what seduced him into his delusions. One feels Bergman's pain as he edits his 312-minute Fanny and Alexander, filmed for Swedish TV, down to a three-hour theatrical release for the rest of the world. More amusing: his take on his famous trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence. Bergman now finds no reason to call it a trilogy: ``It was a Schnaps-Id‚e...an idea found at the bottom of a glass of alcohol....'' One of the century's greats looks at the bugs under his rocks. All told, stronger than his autobiography, The Magic Lantern (1988). (More than 200 b&w photographs) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing; 1st English-language ed edition (January 27, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559701862
• ISBN-13: 978-1559701860
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,052,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #95 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Movie Directors

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Help for understanding Bergman, April 30, 2002

By 

Kathleen Meagher "darthsmiles" (Augusta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Images: My Life In Film (Paperback)

I took an Ingmar Bergman class, and I therefore had to watch a lot of Bergman films as well as analyze and write about them. Many of Bergman films as many know are sometimes very hard to understand. However this book cleared up so many things for me in the films. The fact the book is mostly Bergman commenting on his own films is great, so you don't have someone else trying to interpret someone else's mind. I you need or want to better understand and enjoy Bergman's works, get this book!!