Ingmar Bergman: The Image Maker

The title for this exhibition of Bergman images comes from my twenty years of collaboration with him as stills photographer for theatre and television. Since Ingmar often declared ‘Theatre is my wife and film my mistress’, you could say I worked with him and his ‘wife’. Bergman often told me I was his ‘close-up’ in my images of his stage plays. His films are famous worldwide, although he created 150 theatre and radio productions and just 70 films and documentaries for television and cinema — theatre was undoubtedly his ‘wife’. Ingmar Bergman had a very prolific career. I photographed Bergman’s first stage production, August Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’ in 1984, and cooperated with him up until his last play in 2003, ‘Saraband’, based on his own script for television. During that time I worked with the director on 20 different productions.

The black and white photographs included in this exhibition were taken by different photographers at his film shoots generally from 1951 to 1976. The year 1976 was also a turning point for Bergman, when he moved from Sweden to exile in Germany for eight long years. The earlier stills such as those from ‘The Seventh Seal’ and ‘The Virgin Spring’ were photographed by Louis Huch, who spent many years working for the Svensk Filmindustri (SF) production company. His iconic shots are closely associated with Ingmar Bergman’s most famous films.

The stills from the set of ‘Fanny and Alexander’ were photographed by Arne Carlsson on 12×16 cm glass plates. ‘Fanny and Alexander’ was a huge box-office success and remains a regular feature on Swedish National Television’s programme for Christmas Eve. Starting out as a driver when Bergman was filming ‘The Shame’ on the island of Fårö, Carlsson went on to become a photographer and cameraman, working closely with Bergman on many different projects. Included in the exhibition are Carlsson’s stills from ‘Fanny and Alexander’, showing the playful atmosphere on the set, and his beautiful pictures from ‘Autumn Sonata’, the film Ingmar made with Liv Ullman and Ingrid Bergman.

Bengt Wanselius, Stockholm, 3 April 2012