The greatest of all filmmakers – News

He was a film titan, a pioneer of the author's film. He has shaped generations of directors. The church worked on him as he did with her, and millions of couples found their wedding scenes in his works. His work has long been part of the canon of film history. The greatest honor was given to Ingmar Bergman when he was named best director of all time at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998.

On July 14, the Swedish director of cinema and theater, died in 2007 , would be 100 years old to become. And although many things have been written and filmed about it, there is no standard human biography yet. As if nobody would dare to clbadify this singular Titan, who is not in a drawer. For the birthday there is at least an approximation. But not by any of the usual suspects, Woody Allen, for example, or Martin Scorsese. But by the director Margarethe von Trotta.

She also admits that we had to persuade her a long time of this film. Go for oversized colleagues, for icons, which can only be wrong and only make you small. But the choice is more appropriate than one would badume at the outset. Because for von Trotta everything started with Bergman's "Seventh Seal". Until the age of 18, she is interested in painting, opera and theater. But then she came to Paris in 1960, was formally forced into the cinema by her comrades. I saw there the film of Bergman.

From Trotta Bergman's film "Die Bleierne Zeit" gave the strength to continue

But that would not have been enough to get close to his oversized colleagues. But when Margarethe von Trotta was the first woman to win the first prize of the Venice Film Festival in 1981 for her film "Die Bleierne Zeit", it is Liv Ullmann, the permanent muse of Bergman, who offered her the Lion d & # 39; gold. And that was for von Trotta, she admits in a conversation with Liv Ullmann, "as if Ingmar, my master, was standing behind you and blessing me." Years later, Bergman of Trotta confessed that "Die Bleierne Zeit" gave him the power to continue in a serious crisis.

This is how the filmmaker set out to explore the world of Bergman. And no, she knew it quickly enough, as usual the documentation. From the beginning, we can see her standing on the beach where "The Seventh Seal" was filmed 60 years ago. Then she sits with Liv Ullmann on a couch, and together, they exult on the strong, modern emancipated images of women in her films. Trotta travels a lot in this movie. In Paris, where she discovered "she" Bergman. In Stockholm, where he was born and where he worked at Dramaten Theater and Filmstaden. After Munich, where, after his departure because of a degrading tax in Sweden, he found a new artistic home – even with the Schlöndorff / von Trotta couple. And finally in Farö, the small island to which Bergman has recently retired.

Trotta does not only meet traveling companions – actresses with whom he worked together at the Munich Residenztheater, and Katinka Faragó, his badistant for 30 years. She also meets two of her many children: Ingmar Bergman Jr. and Daniel Bergman, a director himself. She talks to colleagues like Carlos Saura or scriptwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, influenced by Bergman. But also with young directors like Olivier Assayas, Ruben Östlund or Mia Hansen-Løve. And again and again, the master himself has his say: in archival documents partially published for the first time and in which he speaks German as material from Munich

Bergman loved his actors, he left anger to the crew members

a fascinating puzzle, a game of inner and outer views. Östlund reports that there is a division in Swedish film schools between those who are interested in Bergman and those who follow Bo Widerberg. Faragó remembers how much Bergman loved his actor, that he could never have shouted at him. And if he's angry with her, leave her angry to the crew members. Von Trotta never gets away with it, always involves it again. And thus becomes the personal leader in the spheres of Bergman.

Even the abysses are affected. The eternal and bitter dispute of the pastor's son with the church. His inability to enter into permanent relationship. And the deep life crisis that had gripped him in his near-exile in Munich. The most moving moment, however, is when Daniel Bergman recounts how his father was sitting in his chair when he was old and how much he missed his actors. When his sister complained that he could not say the same thing about his children, he would have replied: "Because it is not the case".

"In Search of Ingmar Bergman" D 2018, 99 Min. from age 12, R: Margarethe von Trotta, D: Ullmann's Liv, Daniel Bergman, Ruben Östlund, daily in the Abaton, Pbadage, Zeise; www.weltkino.de/film/kino/auf_der_suche_nach_ingmar_bergman

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