Essentially, he was a director's director.
Yes, many behind the camera were in awe of the auteur - including Woody Allen - who knew him personally.
The New York Times recently asked Allen to reflect a little on Bergman.
"I've said it before to people who have a romanticized view of the artist and hold creation sacred: in the end, your art doesn't save you. No matter what sublime works you fabricate (and Bergman gave us a menu of amazing movie masterpieces) they don't shield you from the fateful knocking on the door that interrupted the knight and his friends at the end of the Seventh Seal."
According to Woody, Bergman enjoyed the process.
He cared little about the responses to his films.
It pleased him when he was appreciated, but as he told Mr. Allen once,
"If they don't like a movie I made - it bothers me - for about 30 seconds."
After all, it isn't possible to always please everyone.
"So amazing were his gifts as a storyteller that he could enthrall an audience with difficult material."
Although some walked out, and claimed after a screening that they didn't exactly understand the musings, they were inclined to confess they were gripped on the edge of their seats during every frame.
Bergman's allegiance was to theatricality. Although he was also a great stage director, his movie work wasn't just informed by theatre. The innovative director drew on painting, music, literature, and philosophy, according to the die-hard New Yorker.
Allen calls the renderings on film profound "Celluloid Poems"; in particular, those that focused brightly and insightfully on mortality, love, art, the silence of God, religious doubt, and failed marriage.
According to the Oscar-winning director, in spite of the dramatic themes, Mr. Bergman tended to be warm! amusing! jovial!
And did we doubt it?
Not surprisingly, he was also beguiled by the ladies.
Well, the way he lit the faces up on the screen (and the manner in which he artfully revealed their inner heartbeat) says it all, in my estimation.
In spite of all his quirks and philosophical and religious obsessions, Bergman was a born spinner of tales who couldn't help but entertain; in spite of the fact he was dramatizing the serious tomes of literary heavyweights such as Nietzsche and Kierkegaard.
One of my own favorite quotes of Kierkegaard is:
"You are that which you are in the process of becoming."
Mr. Allen admits that like all film stylists (I love that term!) - Fellini, Antonioni, and Bunuel - Bergman had his critics.
Allowing for what he refers to as "occasional lapses", Allen notes that people who know film best, the ones who make them - directors, writers, actors, and cinematographers - hold Bergman's work in the greatest esteem.
In closing, Mr. Allen noted that when he was asked how he was influenced by Bergman, he replied,
"He couldn't have influenced me. He was a genius and I am not a genius and genius cannot be learned or its magic passed on."
Amen!
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