Limited glimpse of 2 film legends
“Liv & Ingmar” is the story of one of the most profound actress-filmmaker relationships in the 100-year history of feature films, as recalled by the actress with affection and honesty. In his later years, Bergman called Ullmann his “Stradivarius,” and the sheer number of masterpieces they made together is staggering: “Persona,” “Cries and Whispers,” “Scenes From a Marriage,” “Autumn Sonata” …
But “Liv & Ingmar” isn’t about the history of their working relationship, not really. It’s not an introduction to the movies they did together and, in fact, most of their collaborations are never mentioned by name. There is no narrator to take the uninitiated through the films one after the other, to give perspective or history or to gauge their development. The documentary is exclusively about Ullmann and Bergman as human beings and about how they got along.
As such, this is probably not a film for people who don’t know their work and are looking to get acquainted. Rather it’s for people who know their movies well enough to be able to tell a clip from “Shame” from a clip from “Scenes From a Marriage.” It’s for people who are fans enough to want to know what it was like to live on an austere Swedish island with Ingmar Bergman.
Like most relationships, the beginning was happy. Bergman, 47, and Ullmann, 26, were both married to other people when they started filming “Persona,” but something was going on between them almost from the beginning. “It was as if I were living within the soft walls of sunlight, desire and happiness,” she says. After filming was complete, Bergman followed Ullmann to her native Norway and pursued her, and soon both were divorced and living together.
In the film, Ullmann, who retains an unmistakable reverence and affection for Bergman, makes it clear that life with Ingmar was not a laugh-a-minute experience. On the plus side, there seemed to be a true bond, intense to the point of pain. On the other hand, Bergman was many years older than Ullmann and spent most of his day off by himself, writing. She wanted to have fun and instead was stuck in a dead silent house on a dead silent island.
Ullmann talks about how Bergman controlled her life and her schedule, though how he managed it is never explained. Perhaps through stern looks. In any case, she was allowed out only once a week, when she’d meet her girlfriends and get drunk — Ullmann talks several times about getting loaded; she seems to have been pretty fond of alcohol in her early years. But even on those cherished Wednesdays, she had a strict curfew and would find Ingmar waiting on the dock for her, checking his watch.
Scenes from Bergman films are included, ostensibly to illustrate the connection between real life and art, but they fail to illuminate and begin to feel like padding. Ullmann never talks about what would happen in their daily life when the writing was over, and it was time to make a movie. Did life become more fun, more social? Either way, the trajectory was heading downward. He was violent and jealous and “knew how to say things that would stay with you forever.” When you consider the cruelty with which Bergman’s characters treat each other, you can imagine he did.
It’s a strange thing about great art. It’s like a virtual universe that some people have access to, but even those people can’t live inside it. Bergman and Ullmann were most interesting in that virtual state. But as people, they were just people, subject to the same problems as everyone else.
“Liv & Ingmar” is interesting enough in a limited way, but a little more on making of their masterpieces — about the discussions, about the development of their art, about the specific ways Bergman actually played his Stradivarius — would have been welcome.