Ingmar Bergman: An Enduring Legacy

This book on Swedish film-maker Ingmar Bergman contains 18 new essays, representing parts of modern scholarship on the director’s work, mainly in the cinema. Most of the contributors to the book, some of them Swedish, others American or British, have written lavishly on Bergman previously, some even for decades.
Bergman is one of the most written about artists in film history and his fame still lingers all over the world, as could be seen in the celebrations of his centenary in 2018. The book was specifically conceived back then with the aim to present fresh angles on his work, even if many essays also focus on traditional aspects of Bergman’s art, like philosophy and psychology. Thus, the book presents a number of essential subjects which have been hitherto somewhat absent from Bergman studies: like the director’s relations with Hollywood and transnational film production. It also focuses on Bergman’s highly sophisticated use of film music and his prominence as a writer of autobiographical literature and the inevitable intermedial relations to his films that this will encompass. Finally, it also addresses Bergman’s complex relations to Swedish politics.
Many different approaches and methods are employed in the book in order to show that Bergman still is a relevant and important artist. The analyses generally focus on some of his most memorable films, like Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona and Fanny and Alexander, but also on rarer material like Hour of the Wolf, The Lie and Autumn Sonata.