Ingmar Bergman Studies

Updated September 19, 2011

Film Studies For Free brings you, below, a very long list indeed of links to online and openly accessible studies of the work of Ingmar Bergman. The list was especially inspired by hearing of the first of the three video studies above, via Adrian Martin, Corey Creekmur and Christa Fuller. This news led to the subsequent discovery of the rest of this amazing videographic trilogy on Bergman's films by Jonas Moberg. Update: FSFF has learned that these videos were devised by Thomas Elsaesser, during his year as Ingmar Bergman Professor at Stockholm University in 2007 in conjunction with the project "Ingmar Bergman in the Museum" (a summary of which is linked to below). Initially, seven of these videos were planned, to go with each of the chapters in the book Film Theory - An Introduction through the Senses. The research for all seven Bergman Senses Videos was carried out by Elsaesser, together with Anne Bachmann, a PhD student at Stockholm University, and Jonas Moberg then edited three of them. Sadly, time ran out on the project and the remaining four planned videos weren't completed.

Bergman scholars and fans should also know about Ingmar Bergman: Face to Face, the beautiful website of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, which showcases and links to numerous further resources. Sight and Sound has also just featured a fascinating essay by Lena Bergman on her father's viewing habits in his unique private cinema, a converted barn on Fårö, the Baltic island where he lived until his death in 2007. This year’s Bergman Week festival takes place in the cinema on Fårö from 28 June to 3 July. Television viewers in the UK might, in addition, like to hear that Film4 will show 16 Ingmar Bergman films in a series beginning next week. Yay!

If FSFF says so itself, the below list is probably one of its best ever (do scroll right down for all the videos). It was certainly one of the most rewarding to compile... It hopes you will find it in equal parts enjoyable and useful.

• 'Ingmar Bergman: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library'
• Michael Bird, 'Music as Spiritual Metaphor in the Cinema of Ingmar Bergman', Kinema, Spring, 1996
• Pedro Blas Gonzalez, 'Smiles of a Summer Night', Senses of Cinema, 50, 2009
• Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, 'Review: Irving Singer (2007) Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on his Creativity. Cambridge, MASS: MIT Press', Film-Philosophy, 14.1, 2010
• Michael Brashinsky, 'The Spring, Defiled: Ingmar Bergman's Virgin Spring and Wes Craven's Last House on the Left', Play it Again, Sam, ed. by Andrew Horton and Stuart Y. McDougal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)
• Amir Cohen-Shalev, 'Beyond Reconciliation: Filial Relationship as a Lifelong Developmental Theme in Bergman’s Films', Style: Volume 43, No. 1, Spring 2009
• Thomas Elsaesser, 'Ingmar Bergman – Person and Persona: The Mountain of Modern Cinema on the Road to Morocco', European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood (Amsterdam University Press, 2005 - Scroll to p. 133 in PDF)
• Thomas Elsaesser, 'Ingmar Bergman in the museum? Thresholds, limits, conditions of possibility', Journal of AESTHETICS and CULTURE Vol. 1, 2009
• Hamish Ford, 'Ingmar Bergman', Senses of Cinema, 23, 2002
• Hamish Ford, 'The Silence', Senses of Cinema, 50, 2009
• Ed Gallafent, 'Two Views Over Water: Action and Absorption in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries(1957)', in James Walters and Tom Brown (eds), Film Moments: Criticism, History, Theory (2010)[scroll down in large PDF]
• Daniel Garrett, 'Dark Nights of the Soul: Themes in Irving Singer’s book Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Acts of Love Can Redeem Loneliness', Offscreen, December 31, 2010
• Daniel Garrett, 'Wild Strawberries: A Brief Note about Ingmar Bergman and Pauline Kael', Offscreen, 9.9, September 30, 2005
• Sarah W. Gilmartin , 'The Masks of Performance: Art’s Aesthetic and Social Representation in Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander (1983)', Inter-Disciplinary.net, 1st Global Conference (2007)
• Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, 'The Fairy-Tale Theatre: Reception and Authorship at the Margins of the Ingmar Bergman Archive', Archives and Aueturs Conference, Stirling University, September 2009
• Ananya Ghoshal, '“Not a day has gone by in my life when I haven’t thought about death” - Ingmar Bergman', in Mortality, Dying and Death: Global Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by T. Chandler Haliburton and Caroline Edwards (Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2008 - scroll to p. 338 in PDF)
• Erik Hedling, 'Shame: Ingmar Bergman’s Vietnam War', Nordicom Review 29 (2008) 2, pp. 245-259
• Erik Hedling,'[English Language review of] Birgitta Steene, Måndagar med Bergman: En svensk publik möter Ingmar Bergmans filmer. Stockholm: Brutus Östlings bokförlag Symposion, 1996', TijdSchriftvoorSkandinavistiek, 1, 1999, pp. 174-179
• Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, 'Silence and Fury: Rape and The Virgin Spring', Screening the Past, 28, 2010
• Vreni Hockenjos, 'Strindberg through Bergman: A Case of Mutation', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1
• Poul Houe, 'Faces as Facts of Fiction', Scandinavian Canadian Studies/Etudes Scandinaves au Canada, 18, 2009
• Jesse Kalin, 'Preface', The Films of Ingmar Bergman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• Jesse Kalin, 'Introduction: The Geography of the Soul', The Films of Ingmar Bergman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• Maaret Koskinen, 'Ingmar Bergman, the biographical legend and the intermedialities of memory', Journal of AESTHETICS and CULTURE Vol. 2, 2010
• Maaret Koskinen, 'Everything Represents, Nothing Is": Some Relations Between Ingmar Bergman's Films and Theatre Productions', Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 5.1
• Maaret Koskinen, 'From Short Story to Film to Autobiography: Bergman’s Intermedial Variations', Film International, January 14, 2011
• Maaret Koskinen, 'Ingmar Bergman', Swedish Institute, 2007
• Tarja Laine, 'Failed Tragedy and Traumatic Love in Ingmar Bergman’s Shame', in Kooijman, Jaap, Patricia Pisters, Wanda Strauven (eds), Mind the Screen: Media Concepts According to Thomas Elsaesser (Amsterdam University Press, 2008 - scroll to p. 60 in PDF)
• Marco Lanzagorta, 'Cries and Whispers', Senses of Cinema, 25, 2003 
• Kevin B. Lee, 'The Soul of the Megapixel: Ingmar Bergman’s Saraband and Scenes from a Marriage', Reverse Shot, June 9, 2008
• Rikard Loman, 'Bergman’s Vintersagan at the Royal Dramatic Theatre', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1
• Brian McIlroy, '[Review of] Steene, Birgitta. 2005. Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide', Scandinavian Canadian Studies/Etudes Scandinaves au Canada, 16, 2006
• Lloyd Michaels, 'Introduction', Ingmar Bergman's Persona (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 
• Karin Nykvist, 'Remembering and Creating Childhood in the Works of Ingmar Bergman and August Strindberg', in Negotiating Childhoods, Edited by Lucy Hopkins, Mark Macleod & Wendy Turgeon (Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2011)
• Darragh O’Donoghue, 'The Seventh Seal', Senses of Cinema, 50, 2009
• John Orr, 'Camus and Carné Transformed: Bergman's The Silence vs. Antonioni's The Passenger', Film International, 3.5, 27, 2007
• S. Ruken Öztürk, 'Besieged and Liberated Woman in 'Art' Films: The Problem of Private Sphere', Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi, (hakemli dergi) 58 (2), 2003:153-176
• Arthur Rankin, 'The Child Archetype in Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander', Senses of Cinema, 50, 2009
• Thomas Redwood, '[Review of] Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Film and Dreams: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Sokurov, Kubrick and Wong Kar-wai. New York: Lexington, 2007, Screening the Past, 23, 2008
• Daniel Ross, '[Review of works by Irving Singer]', Screening the Past, 25, 2009
• Steven Shaviro, 'Ingmar Bergman', The Pinocchio Theory, July 31, 2007
• Daniel Shaw, 'Woman as vampire: Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966)', Kinoeye, Vol 2, Issue 15, Oct. 2002
• Irving Singer, 'Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher' (video podcast), MIT World, November 2007 (embedded below)
• Murray Smith, '[Review of] Paisley Livingston, Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: On Film as Philosophy', Notre Dame Philosophical Review, May 19, 2010
• Birgitt Steene, Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
• Birgitta Steene, 'The Transpositions of a Filmmaker: Ingmar Bergman at Home and Abroad', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, 20, no 1, 1999
• Birgitta Steene, 'The Sjöberg-Bergman Connection: Hets – Collaboration and Public Impact' TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1 
• Michael Stern. 'The Face as a Fingerprint: Mediation, Silence, and the Question of Identity in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona', Konturen, Vol. 3, 2010
• Sharon Lin Tay, 'On the Edges of the Authorial Voice: Liv Ullmann’s Faithless, Gendered Authorship, and Ingmar Bergman', Women on the Edge: Twelve Political Film Practices (London: Palgrave, 2009) (excerpt)
• Egi Törnqvist, Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
• Elsie Walker, 'An 'Incorrigible Music: Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata', Kinema, 2008
• Denise Ming-yueh Wang, 'Ingmar Bergman’s Appropriations of the Images of Death in The Seventh Seal', 제17권 1호 (2009): 41-62
• Thomas E. Wartenberg, 'Review of Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on His Creativity', Notre Dame Philosophical reviews, May 23, 2008
• Lynn R. Wilkinson, 'Playful Performances: Ingmar Bergman’s Bildmakarna and Film Authorship', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek vol. 30 (2009), nr. 1
• Margareta Wirmark, 'Strindberg versus Bergman: The End of Spöksonaten', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1 
• Robin Wood, 'Call Me Ishmael [on Fanny and Alexander]', originally published in Canadian Forum, 41, 1983, republished in MOVIE, Issue 2, 2011 
• Rochelle Wright, '[Review of] Philip and Kersti French. Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället). London: BFI Film Classics, 1995. Pp. 77. And Margareta Wirmark. Smultronstället och dödens ekipage. Stockholm: Carlssons, 1998', TijdSchriftvoorSkandinavistiek, 20, 1999, nr. 1
• Rochelle Wright, '[Review of] Marilyn Johns Blackwell, Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman [Studies in Scandinavian Literature and Culture, eds. George C. Schoolfield and Robert E. Bjork], Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1997', TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek, vol. 20 (1999), nr. 1  

Irving Singer, 'Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher' (video podcast), MIT World, November 2007

Liv Ullmann at the Bergman Week 2010, speaking about the filming of Face To Face with Ingmar Bergman. She talks about the relationship between a director and his actors, and specifically the scene when her character commits suicide in the film.

Wim Wenders talks about Ingmar Bergman

Agnes Varda talks about Bergman.

David Stratton talks about Ingmar Bergman.

Bergman Center interviews American director John Landis about Ingmar Bergman at Venice International Film Festival.

Bergman Center interviews French actor Jean-Marc Barr about Ingmar Bergman at Venice International Film Festival.