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- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsVictor SjöströmEdith ErastoffJohn EkmanA stranger comes to work at widow Halla's farm.Getting to know Victor Sjöström – first through his pictures, and then by meeting him in person – was to me a tremendous personal experience. It all began very early with The Phantom Carriage. I must have been around 12, 13. It made a very deep impression on me. I was deeply shaken by that film. Not that I understood it or anything. I rather think I was struck by its enormous cinematographic power. It was an entirely emotional experience. I can still remember it. I remember certain sequences, certain scenes that made an enormous impression on me.
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsVictor SjöströmHilda BorgströmTore SvennbergOn New Year's Eve, the driver of a ghostly carriage forces a drunken man to reflect on his selfish, wasted life.Getting to know Victor Sjöström – first through his pictures, and then by meeting him in person – was to me a tremendous personal experience. It all began very early with The Phantom Carriage. I must have been around 12, 13. It made a very deep impression on me. I was deeply shaken by that film. Not that I understood it or anything. I rather think I was struck by its enormous cinematographic power. It was an entirely emotional experience. I can still remember it. I remember certain sequences, certain scenes that made an enormous impression on me.
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsEmil JanningsMaly DelschaftMax HillerAn aging doorman is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbors and society after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel.I guess I have a certain weakness for silent films from the second half of the 1920s, before cinema became infected by sound. At this time, cinema was creating its own language. There was Murnau and The Last Laugh, with [Emil] Jannings, a film told exclusively with images, with extraordinary dynamism and fantastic sensuality in its visual choices, superbly directed. Then Murnau made Faust and eventually his masterpiece Sunrise. Three astonishing works, which tell us that Murnau — at the same time as [Erich von] Stroheim in Hollywood — was well engaged in the process of creating a largely original and autonomous language. I have many favorites among German movies of this period.
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsGösta EkmanEmil JanningsCamilla HornThe demon Mephisto wagers with God that he can corrupt a mortal man's soul.I guess I have a certain weakness for silent films from the second half of the 1920s, before cinema became infected by sound. At this time, cinema was creating its own language. There was Murnau and The Last Laugh, with [Emil] Jannings, a film told exclusively with images, with extraordinary dynamism and fantastic sensuality in its visual choices, superbly directed. Then Murnau made Faust and eventually his masterpiece Sunrise. Three astonishing works, which tell us that Murnau — at the same time as [Erich von] Stroheim in Hollywood — was well engaged in the process of creating a largely original and autonomous language. I have many favorites among German movies of this period.
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsGeorge O'BrienJanet GaynorMargaret LivingstonA sophisticated city woman seduces a farmer and convinces him to murder his wife and join her in the city, but he ends up rekindling his romance with his wife when he changes his mind at the last moment.I guess I have a certain weakness for silent films from the second half of the 1920s, before cinema became infected by sound. At this time, cinema was creating its own language. There was Murnau and The Last Laugh, with [Emil] Jannings, a film told exclusively with images, with extraordinary dynamism and fantastic sensuality in its visual choices, superbly directed. Then Murnau made Faust and eventually his masterpiece Sunrise. Three astonishing works, which tell us that Murnau — at the same time as [Erich von] Stroheim in Hollywood — was well engaged in the process of creating a largely original and autonomous language. I have many favorites among German movies of this period.
- DirectorMauritz StillerStarsLars HansonSven ScholanderEllen Hartman-CederströmA drunkard priest who has been cast out by his community struggles to atone and regain his honour and dignity.
- DirectorCarl Theodor DreyerStarsMaria FalconettiEugene SilvainAndré BerleyIn 1431, Jeanne d'Arc is placed on trial on charges of heresy. The ecclesiastical jurists attempt to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.When asked if he liked Dreyer’s films: “Yes, in a protesting way. [S]ome of his pictures have infected me. But in a very strange way, he has always been an amateur. Like Antonioni.”
- DirectorCharles ChaplinStarsCharles ChaplinMerna KennedyAl Ernest GarciaThe Tramp finds work and the girl of his dreams at a circus.From a MoMA profile: “Every year on his birthday (Bastille Day), Bergman screened Chaplin’s melancholy masterpiece The Circus for family and friends. The guy wasn’t all existential angst. Sometimes, he could enjoy an inept tightrope walker with his pants falling down being attacked by a barrel of monkeys. Was this funny, or a metaphor for life?”
- DirectorJulien DuvivierStarsJean GabinGabriel GabrioSaturnin FabreA wanted gangster is both king and prisoner of the Casbah. He is protected from arrest by his friends, but is torn by his desire for freedom outside. A visiting Parisian beauty may just tempt his fate.As for international influences, Bergman explains to [Jan] Aghed by way of a story about French critical snobbery that he is not nearly as indebted to the universally beloved Jean Renoir as he is to Julien Duvivier and Michel Carné,who seem considered by all but him to be less figures.
- DirectorMarcel CarnéStarsAnnabellaJean-Pierre AumontLouis JouvetOn the meandering Canal St. Martin, at the Parisian Hôtel du Nord, a nearly fatal gunshot separates a dejected young couple. But, amid a sad but beautiful panorama of lively characters, love has the final say. Can life be a fairy tale?As for international influences, Bergman explains to [Jan] Aghed by way of a story about French critical snobbery that he is not nearly as indebted to the universally beloved Jean Renoir as he is to Julien Duvivier and Michel Carné,who seem considered by all but him to be less figures.
- DirectorMarcel CarnéStarsJean GabinMichel SimonMichèle MorganA military deserter finds love and trouble (and a small dog) in a foggy, French port city.As for international influences, Bergman explains to [Jan] Aghed by way of a story about French critical snobbery that he is not nearly as indebted to the universally beloved Jean Renoir as he is to Julien Duvivier and Michel Carné,who seem considered by all but him to be less figures.
- DirectorMarcel CarnéStarsJean GabinJacqueline LaurentArlettyAfter committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events that led him to the killing.As for international influences, Bergman explains to [Jan] Aghed by way of a story about French critical snobbery that he is not nearly as indebted to the universally beloved Jean Renoir as he is to Julien Duvivier and Michel Carné,who seem considered by all but him to be less figures.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsToshirô MifuneMachiko KyôMasayuki MoriThe rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.A French critic cleverly wrote that ‘with Autumn Sonata Bergman does Bergman.’ It is witty but unfortunate. For me, that is. I think it is only too true that Bergman (Ingmar, that is) did a Bergman… I love and admire the filmmaker Tarkovsky and believe him to be one of the greatest of all time. My admiration for Fellini is limitless. But I also feel that Tarkovsky began to make Tarkovsky films and that Fellini began to make Fellini films. Yet Kurosawa has never made a Kurosawa film. I have never been able to appreciate Buñuel. He discovered at an early stage that it is possible to fabricate ingenious tricks, which he elevated to a special kind of genius, particular to Buñuel, and then he repeated and varied his tricks. He always received applause. Buñuel nearly always made Buñuel films.
- DirectorBilly WilderStarsWilliam HoldenGloria SwansonErich von StroheimA screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.
- DirectorRobert BressonStarsClaude LayduNicole LadmiralJean RiveyreA young priest taking over the parish at Ambricourt tries to fulfill his duties even as he fights a mysterious stomach ailment.Robert Bresson (with the exception of Mouchette and Diary of a Country Priest) and Carl Theodor Dreyer, Akira Kurosawa after Rashomon and Luchino Visconti after La Terra Trema hold small place in his cosmology.
- DirectorJacques TatiStarsJacques TatiNathalie PascaudMicheline RollaMonsieur Hulot comes to a beachside hotel for a vacation and accidentally, but good-naturedly, causes havoc.I have seen Les Vacances de M. Hulot (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday) countless times. I sit and wait for the parts I enjoy. These can be whole sequences, great moments or just details.
- DirectorFederico FelliniStarsAnthony QuinnGiulietta MasinaRichard BasehartA care-free girl is sold to a traveling entertainer, consequently enduring physical and emotional pain along the way.We were supposed to collaborate once, and along with Kurosawa make one love story each for a movie produced by Dino de Laurentiis. I flew down to Rome with my script and spent a lot of time with Fellini while we waited for Kurosawa, who finally couldn’t leave Japan because of his health, so the project went belly-up. Fellini was about to finish Satyricon. I spent a lot of time in the studio and saw him work. I loved him both as a director and as a person, and I still watch his movies, like La Strada and that childhood remembrance – what’s that called again? (The interviewer has also seen the movie several times, but just now the title slips his mind. Bergman laughs delightedly.) Bergman: Great that you’re also a bit senile! That pleases me. (Later the same day, several hours after the interview, the phone rings.) Bergman: ‘AMARCORD!'
- DirectorFederico FelliniStarsMarcello MastroianniAnita EkbergAnouk AiméeA series of stories following a week in the life of a philandering tabloid journalist living in Rome.We were supposed to collaborate once, and along with Kurosawa make one love story each for a movie produced by Dino de Laurentiis. I flew down to Rome with my script and spent a lot of time with Fellini while we waited for Kurosawa, who finally couldn’t leave Japan because of his health, so the project went belly-up. Fellini was about to finish Satyricon. I spent a lot of time in the studio and saw him work. I loved him both as a director and as a person, and I still watch his movies, like La Strada and that childhood remembrance – what’s that called again? (The interviewer has also seen the movie several times, but just now the title slips his mind. Bergman laughs delightedly.) Bergman: Great that you’re also a bit senile! That pleases me. (Later the same day, several hours after the interview, the phone rings.) Bergman: ‘AMARCORD!'
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsAnthony PerkinsJanet LeighVera MilesA Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.I think he’s a very good technician. And he has something in Psycho, he had some moments. Psycho is one of his most interesting pictures because he had to make the picture very fast, with very primitive means. He had little money, and this picture tells very much about him. Not very good things. He is completely infantile, and I would like to know more — no, I don’t want to know — about his behaviour with, or, rather, against women. But this picture is very interesting.
- DirectorMichelangelo AntonioniStarsJeanne MoreauMarcello MastroianniMonica VittiA day in the life of an unfaithful married couple and their steadily deteriorating relationship.“He’s done two masterpieces, you don’t have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up, which I’ve seen many times, and the other is La Notte, also a wonderful film, although that’s mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau. In my collection I have a copy of Il Grido, and damn what a boring movie it is. So devilishly sad, I mean. You know, Antonioni never really learned the trade… He concentrated on single images, never realizing that film is a rhythmic flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his films. But I don’t feel anything for L’Avventura, for example. Only indifference. I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica Vitti was a terrible actress.”
- DirectorMichelangelo AntonioniStarsDavid HemmingsVanessa RedgraveSarah MilesA fashion photographer unknowingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park.“He’s done two masterpieces, you don’t have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up, which I’ve seen many times, and the other is La Notte, also a wonderful film, although that’s mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau. In my collection I have a copy of Il Grido, and damn what a boring movie it is. So devilishly sad, I mean. You know, Antonioni never really learned the trade… He concentrated on single images, never realizing that film is a rhythmic flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his films. But I don’t feel anything for L’Avventura, for example. Only indifference. I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica Vitti was a terrible actress.”
- DirectorBo WiderbergStarsThommy BerggrenKeve HjelmEmy StormAn aspiring young writer lives in a bleak working class block in the late 1930s.From Bergman’s website: “That is his masterpiece, an impeccable film.”
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsAnatoliy SolonitsynIvan LapikovNikolay GrinkoThe life, times and afflictions of the fifteenth-century Russian iconographer St. Andrei Rublev.Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. It was a room I had always wanted to enter and where he was moving freely and fully at ease. I felt encouraged and stimulated: someone was expressing what I had always wanted to say without knowing how. Tarkovsky is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.
- DirectorVilgot SjömanStarsBibi AnderssonPer OscarssonJarl KulleJacob returns home to Sweden after four years in Paris. Charlotte, his sister, plans to marry Baron Alsmeden, which arouses Jacob's jealousy. He flirts with Ebba to take revenge on his sister. Old suppressed feelings awaken between them.From a Criterion interview: “The camera and voyeurism are closely related to each other, but there are very few cinematic instances where the theme of the camera as voyeur has been developed. When I made my first love scene in my first film, I suddenly felt like a voyeur. I hadn’t thought of that before. This is part of the director’s profession. I told Bergman about this experience and he said, ‘Yes, you certainly are a voyeur. And you have a big camera which is catching it for you so that you can look at it over and over again.'
- DirectorJan TroellStarsMax von SydowLiv UllmannEddie AxbergSmåland, Sweden, mid-19th century. A farming family struggle with their rocky, unyielding land, and decide to embark on the arduous journey to new hope in America.