Ranking Ingmar Bergman
If you ask me, Ingmar Bergman is far and away the most brilliant director to have ever set images to film. His movies are rich in symbolism and subtext, while simultaneously delivering beautifully written characters and powerful instances of wrenching emotion. All of his films that I've seen I'd say are worth seeing (so even the bottom of the list is still good), and at the top are some of the best works of art the medium has ever seen.
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- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsIngrid ThulinGunnar BjörnstrandGunnel LindblomA small-town priest struggles with his faith.Winter Light is a film about the search for answers to existence in a world where the answers either do not exist, or even if they do, can never be found. Many films (and works in other mediums) have explored the nature of the spiritual crisis. None have done it as successfully as Bergman does in a succinct 80 minutes that, despite their brevity, is permanently etched into the mind. The uniquely human search for existential meaning and fulfillment is explored in various ways through the principle characters - Björnstrand's pastor caught in a crisis of faith and preaching to a dwindling congregation, Max von Sydow's parishioner trapped by his crippling fear of nuclear annihilation, Thulin's teacher pursuing a perpetually spurned love...all portrayed absolutely brilliantly. This low-key chamber piece nevertheless packs one of the most powerful emotional punches of any film in history, and to this day has never even slightly lessened its hold on my mind.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsBibi AnderssonLiv UllmannMargaretha KrookA nurse is put in charge of a mute actress and finds that their personae are melding together.Only a hair's breadth behind Winter Light, and I'd argue that, from an objective stand-point, this is the superior film, packed full of haunting imagery and layers of meaning building to a multitude of different possible interpretations, this is experimental cinema that never alienates the viewer, drawing them deeper into its enigmatic folds with each frame, rather than leaving them a passive observer. Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann are beyond brilliant in their roles, and every scene is a compositional work of brilliance, from Elisabeth standing bathed in the glow of a TV set in a dark hospital room to the rightly lauded combining of the two faces. The writing is powerful (I defy anyone to say Andersson's recount of a beachside tryst, and the twice repeated tirade that focuses unflinchingly on both actresses' faces one after the other are not some of the best ever). Persona is a true classic in every sense of the word.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsBertil GuvePernilla AllwinKristina AdolphsonTwo young Swedish children in the 1900s experience the many comedies and tragedies of their lively and affectionate theatrical family, the Ekdahls.This isn't my absolute favorite Bergman film (although it's obviously up there), but it is unquestionably his masterpiece. It stands apart in his filmography in the way that it feels not only like an introspective self-analysis, as much of his work does, but also a fairy tale in its weaving of magic and ghosts into the story itself - and in a much more grandiose way than The Magician or the conclusion of The Virgin Spring. A scene often cited as one of the best (at least, from those who have seen the full 5 hour version) is that of Oscar's late night story to his children about the adventures attached to a small weathered chair in their nursery. The entire film sees Bergman's enthusiasm for his own tale follow this natural joy seen in the act of storytelling in this particular scene. And there's another difference between Fanny and Alexander and most of the rest of Bergman's catalogue - dark happenings do occur, but this is truly a joyous film, and the perfect send-off for the greatest career the cinema has ever seen. For all his fears and insecurities, Bergman was a man who loved to weave his stories, even if he wasn't usually satisfied with the end result. Most of his films are a search for catharsis. This shows why one is able to find catharsis in the medium at all.
- StarsLiv UllmannErland JosephsonBibi AnderssonTen years within the marriage of Marianne and Johan.Like Fanny and Alexander, the full 5 hour version of this needs to be seen to reach its full, and extraordinarily powerful effect. But in this portrait spanning ten years of a disintegrating marriage lies what I consider to be the single greatest and most authentic depiction of human relationships ever captured in the film medium. Most movies based around the end of a relationship deal almost exclusively in bitter words, rage, and (often) hatred, to the point where it's hard to figure out how the central couple could have possibly fallen for each other in the first place. In Scenes from a Marriage, some of the most emotionally vicious scenes I've ever seen are interspersed with moments of genuine tenderness between the two. They can go from expressing deep sympathies and regret over the lost opportunity between them, to violent physical assault in almost as short a time as it takes to blink. The barrage of verbal barbs sting all the more acutely because they are borne from what started out as, and very well might still be, love. Sometimes these characters will make you hate them (one of them, in particular, in my case), but it never feels anything less than absolute truth, as real as any documentary. And I feel compelled to mention that this is the fastest five hour watch I've ever experienced - it honestly felt shorter than most traditional films, despite its being, essentially, a series of extended conversations between two people. But the emotions contained cover the entire realm human experience, and this is Bergman at his most emotionally naked, exploring people who in their complacency think they would last forever instead drifted apart.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsÅke GrönbergHarriet AnderssonHasse EkmanThe complicated relationships between a circus ringmaster, his estranged wife and his lover.Here's where extreme personal bias comes into play - I adore films with beautifully stark nature scenes, filmed in the naturally ethereal black and white aesthetic. It's a reason Max Ophuls' Le Plaisir is one of my favorite films. And it's just as striking here, in the first film to see Bergman collaborate with cinematographer Sven Nykvist, one of the best pairing in motion picture history. (Not to downplay his co-cinematographer, Hilding Bladh). The story itself is quite good, and sees some of Bergman's tentative first steps into one his main themes, the eternal struggle of the artist or entertainer, and the role of such a figure, as well as the disintegrating relationships between people. It's handled quite well, but not quite enough to justify its place so high on this list, while also outstripping most of his oeuvre, including several largely accepted classics. That is where the image comes into play - this film has some of the most singular and powerful images in the cinematic canon. The silhouette of the wagons that bookend the story, the overexposed images in the story told to Albert about Frost and Alma's run-in with an army battalion, shot as if to recall old silent films, the mirrors and reflections that dominate the theatre...the emotions, for me at least, already handled marvelously by its terrific central performers, were only heightened by one of, if not the, most gorgeous work in Bergman's filmography. To my mind, this is certainly his most underrated work, and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the best he ever made.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsIngrid ThulinGunnel LindblomBirger MalmstenTwo estranged sisters, Ester and Anna, and Anna's 10-year-old son travel to the Central European country on the verge of war. Ester becomes seriously ill and the three of them move into a hotel in a small town called Timoka.The Silence is one of Bergman's most thematically focused films, and incredibly rich in that regard - almost everything deals with the loss of communication between people. The story follows two sisters who have grown to hate each other, one of them isolated from the world, sick, and dying, the other using sex as a means of escapism, as they take a trip, along with one's son, and stop in a hotel in a foreign country on the brink of war. And in tying into the theme, one must ask - how is it that most wars begin? The latter sister has sex with a man who doesn't speak the same language. But the presentation, it must be said, is subtle, but still very much based in surrealism. There are long stretches of silence, roving through the unconsciously unsettling hallways of the hotel to the point where it almost feels like a forerunner to The Shining. The Silence is not a horror movie, but make no mistake - it has portions that are haunting in the extreme, constructed with Nykvist's calm yet brooding cinematography.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsMax von SydowGunnar BjörnstrandBengt EkerotA knight returning to Sweden after the Crusades seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsHarriet AnderssonLiv UllmannKari SylwanWhen a woman dying of cancer in early twentieth-century Sweden is visited by her two sisters, long-repressed feelings between the siblings rise to the surface.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsMaj-Britt NilssonStig OlinBirger MalmstenTwo violinists playing in the same orchestra fall in love and get married, but they can't get along.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsMax von SydowIngrid ThulinGunnar BjörnstrandA traveling magician and his assistants are persecuted by authorities in Sweden of the 19th century. Their capture, however, didn't bring victory to those in power.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsMaj-Britt NilssonBirger MalmstenAlf KjellinA lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years prior during a brief summer vacation.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsMax von SydowBirgitta ValbergGunnel LindblomIn 14th-century Sweden, an innocent yet pampered teenage girl and her family's pregnant and jealous servant set out from their farm to deliver candles to church, but only one returns from events that transpire in the woods along the way.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsUlla JacobssonEva DahlbeckHarriet AnderssonIn Sweden at the turn of the century, members of the upper class and their servants find themselves in a romantic tangle that they try to work out amidst jealousy and heartbreak.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsVictor SjöströmBibi AnderssonIngrid ThulinAfter living a life marked by coldness, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsLiv UllmannErland JosephsonBörje AhlstedtMarianne, some thirty years after divorcing Johan, decides to visit her ex-husband at his summer home. She arrives in the middle of a family drama between Johan's son from another marriage and his granddaughter.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsHarriet AnderssonGunnar BjörnstrandMax von SydowRecently released from a mental hospital, Karin rejoins her emotionally disconnected family in their island home, only to slip from reality as she begins to believe she is being visited by God.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsLiv UllmannMax von SydowSigge FürstIn the midst of a civil war, former violinists Jan and Eva Rosenberg, who have a tempestuous marriage, run a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsInga LandgréStig OlinMarianne LöfgrenA small-town piano teacher is shocked by the arrival of her foster daughter's real mother, whose young lover soon follows and causes further disruption.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsNine-Christine JönssonBengt EklundMimi NelsonA suicidal factory girl out of reformatory school, anxious to escape her overbearing mother, falls in love with a sailor who can't forgive her past.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsIngrid BergmanLiv UllmannLena NymanA devoted wife is visited by her mother, a successful concert pianist who had little time for her when she was young.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsLiv UllmannBibi AnderssonMax von SydowA recently divorced man meets an emotionally devastated widow and they begin a love affair.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsMax von SydowLiv UllmannGertrud FridhWhile vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsEva HenningBirger MalmstenBirgit TengrothA needy couple in a bad marriage travel back to Stockholm after a trip to Italy. Meanwhile, a widow resists seductions from two different persons - her psychiatrist and a lesbian friend.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsHarriet AnderssonLars EkborgDagmar EbbesenA pair of teenagers meet one summer day, start a reckless affair and abandon their families to be with one another.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsLiv UllmannErland JosephsonAino TaubeTwo psychiatrists have their marriage tested when one suffers a mental breakdown.