Quotes & Sayings About Bergman

I tell my students that if you have enough preparation, you can handle the big interviews. You won't be intimidated. — Lowell Bergman

My basic view of things is - not to have any basic view of things. From having been exceedingly dogmatic, my views on life have gradually dissolved. They don't exist any longer. — Ingmar Bergman

I watched as Humphrey Bogart's character used beans as a metaphor for the relative unimportance in the wider world of his relationship with Ingrid Bergman's character, and chose logic and decency ahead of his selfish emotional desires. The quandary and resulting decision made for an engrossing film. But this was not what people cried about. They were in love and could not be together. I repeated this statement to myself, trying to force an emotional reaction. I couldn't. I didn't care. I had enough problems of my own. — Graeme Simsion

The anger and the creativity are so closely intertwined with me, and there's plenty of anger left. — Ingmar Bergman

I can do everything with ease on the stage, whereas in real life I feel too big and clumsy. So I didn't choose acting. It chose me. — Ingrid Bergman

I hate Sunday, I can't wait for Monday so I can go back to work again. — Ingrid Bergman

I have always appreciated the honest brutality of the international film world. One need never doubt one's worth in the market. Mine was zero. — Ingmar Bergman

Sometimes I work on film sets. I've done this for 40 years. I always wanted to photograph on the set of an Ingmar Bergman film. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity. — Mary Ellen Mark

I didn't choose acting. It chose me. — Ingrid Bergman

When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings. Music works in the same fashion; I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence. — Ingmar Bergman

I was as equally influenced by Bergman as I was [low-budget sexploitation filmmaker]. — John Waters

In Bergman's world I represented a sort of intellectual, skeptical, ironic person, rather cold and frustrated. When I went abroad and made films in Italy and other places, I was used in different ways. I was rather often cast as crazy people, maniacs. It was very good for me and it was fun because it is nice to play crazy people if you are not in reality. And I think perhaps that changed how Ingmar saw me. Suddenly I was on the more magical side of his world, playing the people with fantasies, variety, the artists. — Erland Josephson

Necessary illusions enable us to live. — Ingmar Bergman

As far as I can ascertain the reasons for missing a rising fish come from faulty reactions. When we miss a fish we are either too fast or too slow — Ray Bergman

I see the whole episode in my memory as if it were a very crisply photographed black and white movie. Directed by Bergman perhaps.We are playing ourselves in the movie version. If only we could escape from always having to play ourselves ! — Erica Jong

Aging is not uncomplicated. Creativity is an extraordinary help against destructive demons. — Ingmar Bergman

Occasionally I sense an insane wail deep down in the pit, the echo alone reaching me, striking without warning, a child weeping uninhibitedly, imprisoned forever. — Ingmar Bergman

The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. — Ingmar Bergman

No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. — Ingmar Bergman

I wasn't allowed to see movies when I was a child. It was against the religion I was raised in, Fundamentalist Baptist. I didn't go into a commercial movie house until I was a senior in college, and that was on the sly. It wasn't until I was in graduate school that I immersed myself in films. Then, I went to see all the films by Bergman, Fellini, etc. — Wes Craven

There has always been tension between reporters and the administration, particularly when it comes to war in the modern era. You can go to Kennedy or Johnson and see that they weren't happy with David Halberstam or Morley Safer. — Lowell Bergman

I don't want him to know that people like Louis's mom exist, that people fall into land mines of pain and can't crawl back out. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

If you took acting away from me, I'd stop breathing. — Ingrid Bergman

This damned ranting about doom. Is that food for the minds of modern people? Do they really expect us to take them seriously? — Ingmar Bergman

If people ask me, 'For you, what is your most important film?' I have a feeling that they all sort of want me to answer with one of the Bergman films. But I cannot choose. — Max Von Sydow

When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside. Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure - THE SERPENT'S EGG, THE TOUCH, FACE TO FACE and so on — Ingmar Bergman

I supply my own angels and demons. I exist on a stony beach, which lowers itself in waves toward a protective ocean. A dog barks; a child cries; the day sinks and becomes night. You can never scare me. No human being will be able to scare me ever again. I have a prayer that I repeat to myself in absolute stillness: May a wind come to stir up the ocean and the stifling twilight. May a bird come from water out there and explode the silence with its call. — Ingmar Bergman

In Paris, when the picture came out [Casablanca] they weren't too pleased with it. They didn't like the political point of view. The picture was taken off immediately and was never sold to television. A while ago it was brought in and opened in five theatres in Paris, as a new movie. They had a big gala opening where I appeared and people were absolutely crazy about it. — Ingrid Bergman

When you're as chaotic as I am, you need a very firm structure in your life. — Ingmar Bergman

I would have been happier if I'd been anonymous. — Ingmar Bergman

On a personal level, there are many people who have meant a great deal to me. My father and mother were certainly of vital importance, not only in themselves but because they created a world for me to revolt against. — Ingmar Bergman

Limits aren't there to tell us "you can't." Limits are there to tell us "you shouldn't. — Katie Bergman

When you feel perpetually unmotivated, you start questioning your existence in an unhealthy way; everything becomes a pseudo intellectual question you have no interest in responding whatsoever. This whole process becomes your very skin and it does not merely affect you; it actually defines you. So, you see yourself as a shadowy figure unworthy of developing interest, unworthy of wondering about the world - profoundly unworthy in every sense and deeply absent in your very presence. — Ingmar Bergman

Life wasn't about freeing up human souls. It was about creating obedient slaves in the hierarchical construction of the society - with God at the top, then the king and then the father. — Ingmar Bergman

I remember those days with Bergman with great nostalgia. We were aware that the films were going to be quite important, and the work felt meaningful. — Max Von Sydow

I had great femme mentors, I had good role models of gentle men, I found ways to be a butch that did not require being an ass in public, ways of masculinity that were not misogyny - which is what I see more often than I used to these days, this way of butches distancing themselves from any and all things feminine by embodying the worst excesses of men, from relatively harmless ones like spitting on the street and wearing too much cheap cologne to behaving as though women were an entirely separate species of second-class citizen, the objects of jokes and derision. — S. Bear Bergman

A kiss is the natures way to stop a conversation, when the words are superfluous — Ingrid Bergman

I'm only interested in two kinds of people, those who can entertain me and those who can advance my career. — Ingrid Bergman

A kiss is a secret told to the mouth instead of the ear; kisses are the messengers of love and tenderness. — Ingrid Bergman

The mineral kingdom consists of the fossil substances found in the earth. These are either entirely destitute of organic structure, or, having once possessed it, possess it no longer: such are the petrefactions. — Torbern Bergman

We're too busy busting whorehouses or solving murders. That's what makes the show so funny — Jaime Bergman

Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. — Ingmar Bergman

She didn't like weepy films. She liked to
quote D. H. Lawrence : "Sentimentalism is the working off on yourself
of feelings you haven't really got." Hers were grim European films
- Antonioni, Bertolucci, Bergman - films where everybody
died or wished they had. — Janet Fitch

Give me an hour and I'll make a lifetime out of it. — Ingrid Bergman

Old age is like climbing a mountain. You climb from ledge to ledge. The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you become, but your views become more extensive. — Ingmar Bergman

I have always admired him (Bergman), and I wish I could be an equally good filmmaker as he is, but it will never happen. His love for the cinema almost gives me a guilty conscience — Steven Spielberg

There were no promises, no obligations between living things, she thought. Not even humans. Just raw need hidden by a game of make-believe. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

My pictures are always part of my thinking, and my emotions, tensions, dreams, desires. — Ingmar Bergman

Instead of wishing for the Field Guide, be glad to live in the beautiful chaos of each of us finding our way into our own gendered menu, our own identity, and our own name for it, which - if you will just love us while we do this complex and fragile part - we will kiss into your mouth with such gratitude when we're through. — S. Bear Bergman

When my daughter, Clare, was 4, she told me that a school friend had told her what I did for a living. Clare asked me, 'Is it true you play Jack Rabbit?' — Peter Bergman

They said you were mentally healthy, but your madness is the worst — Ingmar Bergman

I usually take a walk after breakfast, write for three hours, have lunch and read in the afternoon. Demons don't like fresh air - they prefer it if you stay in bed with cold feet; for a person who is as chaotic as me, who struggles to be in control, it is an absolute necessity to follow these rules and routines. If I let myself go, nothing will get done. — Ingmar Bergman

Worrying about parents is a waste of time. It's your life. Let's have a martini. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

I have thus decided to make a certain film and now begins the complicated and difficult-to-master work. To transfer rhythms, moods, atmosphere, tensions, sequences, tones and scents into words and sentences in a readable or at least understandable script. This is difficult but not impossible. — Ingmar Bergman

Today we say all art is political. But I'd say all art has to do with ethics. Which after all really comes to the same thing. It's a matter of attitudes. — Ingmar Bergman

I'm hungry for you. Old you, new you. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

What I want to do is make films that astonish people, that astound people, and I hope you want to do that too. It's easy to make money. It's easy to make films like everybody else. But to make films that explode like grenades in people's heads and leave shrapnel for the rest of their lives is a very important thing. That's what the great filmmakers did for me. I've got images from Fellini, from Bergman, from Kurowsawa, from Bunuel, all stuck in my brain. — Terry Gilliam

There's nothing like a love song to give you a good laugh. — Ingrid Bergman

The theater was my mother and my father. — Ingrid Bergman

I am very shy with people I don't know. — Ingmar Bergman

I have such difficulty calming down - my stomach, my head, reality, everything. That is the reason I live in Faro. — Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman had a great sense of humor, and he had a very special, characteristic laugh that you always recognized - if he went to watch a theater show, 'Ah! He is here tonight.' — Max Von Sydow

There hasn't been anyone with whom I can discuss my scripts. Even when the film is done, there is no one I can show it to who gives his sincere opinion. There is silence. — Ingmar Bergman

Use the longest leader you can handle. Usually you can handle one much longer than you imagine. Remember that the purpose of the leader is to conceal artificiality. If you believe a leader is at all necessary then you must admit that the longer the leader the better chances you have for success — Ray Bergman

Bergman was courageous in choosing people to do things that they themselves might not expect to play. — Max Von Sydow

My life has been wonderful. I have done what I felt like. I was given courage and I was given adventure and that has carried me along. And then also a sense of humor and a little bit of common sense. It has been a very rich life. — Ingrid Bergman

The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence of each other. — Ingmar Bergman

You should move toward whatever changes, whatever surgeries, whatever renovations or alterations or restorations will create you in the glory you deserve, oh yes you should. And you should do it with your usual style, and you should do it without shame, and when you're healed up and ready we can go shopping for something fabulous to showcase the many wonders of you. But — S. Bear Bergman

We make each other alive; it doesn't make a difference if it hurts. — Ingmar Bergman

Power is a funny thing. Sometimes you can just take it. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

You must train your intuition - you must trust the small voice inside you which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide. — Ingrid Bergman

I think I'm Swedish because I like to live here on this island. You can't imagine the loneliness and isolation in this country. In that way, I'm very Swedish - I don't dislike to be alone. — Ingmar Bergman

When I made '101 Reykjavik,' people talked about 'Almodovar on ice.' When I made 'The Sea,' people referenced Bergman. — Baltasar Kormakur

I'm just saying: I have never really felt like a girl is not the same as I have always felt like a boy. I mention this because when I have these tortuous inner conversations about how I may yet need to change my body and whether (and in what way) I am prepared to invest myself in the destination model of transition, I have to keep reminding myself of this important thing. — S. Bear Bergman

I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my Life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say. — Ingrid Bergman

I once had a dream, or a vision, and I imagined that dream to be of importance to other people, so I wrote the manuscript and made the film. But it is not until the moment when my dream meets with your emotions and your minds that my shadows come to life. It is your recognition that brings them to life. It is your indifference that kills them. I hope that you will understand; that you when you leave the cinema will take with you an experience or a sudden thought - or maybe a question. The efforts of my friends and myself have then not been in vain ... — Ingmar Bergman

The only thing I consider appalling would be to suddenly become a vegetable and a burden on other people. A soul slowly dying out, trapped in a body in which the insides gradually sabotage me - that, I think, would be terrifying. — Ingmar Bergman

I have a feeling of complete balance. The sea, the house, the loneliness, the light. Everything is clearer. Much more precise. I have the feeling that I am living on a limit, and I'm crossing that limit sometimes. — Ingmar Bergman

I remember thinking that moms were not allowed to be sad, that surely women grew out of sadness by the time they had children. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

When people speak admiringly of a butch, what I see is someone who has taken on the best gendered characteristics of both woman and man, left a lot of the stuff born of misogyny and heterosexism behind, and walked forward into the world without apology. — S. Bear Bergman

There are so many books I want to read. Difficult books. That's what I intend to do and what I'm longing for. — Ingmar Bergman

Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased making films, and Steven Soderbergh - they all have something to say, they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another great couple of examples of the strength of American cinema is American Beauty and Magnolia. — Ingmar Bergman

Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure ... — Ingmar Bergman

I feel very strongly that I'm surrounded by other realities. — Ingmar Bergman

Venice is beautiful, but like a Bergman movie is beautiful; you can admire it, but you don't really want to live in it. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I usually say I left puberty at 58. — Ingmar Bergman

I hope I never get so old I get religious. — Ingmar Bergman

If a face like Ingrid Bergman's looks at you as though you're adorable, everybody does. You don't have to act very much. — Humphrey Bogart

I've never sought success in order to get fame and money; it's the talent and the passion that count in success. — Ingrid Bergman

Artistic license sneered through the thin fabric. — Ingmar Bergman

Me sitting down for dinner with Ingmar Bergman felt like a house painter sitting down with Picasso. — Woody Allen

It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then. — Ingmar Bergman

Cole!" Cassandra smacked him on the shoulder.
"Wha-?" When he opened his mouth all you could see was half-chewed goo.
"How old are you?" I demanded. I threw shrimp at him and it got stuck in his tangle of wig hair. Bergman fished it out, wiped it off, and put it back on the serving dish.
"Now, thats disgusting," said Cassandra.
"Children!" Vayl's voice boomed in our ears, loud and sudden enough to make us all jump guiltily. "I trust you are all preforming actual work right now."
"Chill out, Vayl," I replied. "Bergman is just conducting and experiment to see how vampires respond to ingesting brown hair dye."
"That makes me curious, Vayl," said Cole in a sticky, goodie-between-the-gums voice that reminded me of Winnie the Pooh after a major honey binge. "Have you ever colored your hair? You know blonds have more fun."
"Not when they are in the hospital. — Jennifer Rardin

Since Socrates and Plato first speculated on the nature of the human mind, serious thinkers through the ages - from Aristotle to Descartes, from Aeschylus to Strindberg and Ingmar Bergman - have thought it wise to understand oneself and one's behavior. — Eric Kandel

On acting to daughter Isabella Rossellini: Keep it simple. Make a blank face and the music and the story will fill it in. — Ingrid Bergman

We lived in the bowels of New York City. It was a struggle just to survive. This nice suburban kid hadn't had to do much of that before. — Peter Bergman

The world is a den of thieves, and night is falling. Evil breaks its chains and runs through the world like a mad dog. The poison affects us all. No one escapes. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world. — Ingmar Bergman

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images. — Ingmar Bergman

Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. A little twitch in our optic nerve, a shock effect: twenty-four illuminated frames a second, darkness in between, the optic nerve incapable of registering darkness. — Ingmar Bergman

As students of the silver screen recall, Bogart's admonition about future regret led Bergman to board the plane and fly away with her husband. Had she stayed with Bogey in Casablanca, she would probably have felt just fine. Not right away, perhaps, but soon, and for the rest of her life. — Daniel M. Gilbert