Featuring five of the director’s Academy Award®-nominated and winning films...Swedish director Ingmar Bergman died last July at the age of 89, leaving behind a legacy of artistic independence, brave inquiry and deeply personal expression in the dozens of films bearing his distinctive sensibility and style.
Born in Uppsala in 1918, Bergman made his home on the remote island Fårö for much of his life, plumbing his childhood, Lutheran background, family relationships and many romances as source material for his screenplays. His extensive work in Swedish theater and television, in addition to his acclaimed films, enabled him to direct essentially all of the leading actors in Sweden during his 60-year career. Artists he brought to international attention include Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann, as well as Sven Nykvist, his regular cinematographer since 1960.
Bergman earned nine Academy Award nominations in the Writing, Directing and Best Picture categories; three films he directed garnered the Oscar® for Best Foreign Language Film. Bergman also received the Academy’s Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which honors a producer’s body of work, in 1970. This retrospective features screenings of new prints and an installation of biographical materials by the Swedish Institute. It is presented in association with the Swedish Institute, the Consulate General of Sweden and Beyond Blond 2008.
Friday, April 4, at 7 p.m.FANNY & ALEXANDER (1982)Set in turn-of-the-century Sweden, this haunting film chronicles several seasons in the life of the Ekdahl family, as seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy. 188 mins.
Academy Award winner (1983): Foreign Language Film (Sweden), Art Direction (Anna Asp), Cinematography (Sven Nykvist), Costume Design (Marik Vos) Academy Award nominee (1983): Directing (Ingmar Bergman), Writing Screenplay written directly for the screen (Bergman)
Saturday, April 5, at 7 p.m.THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960)This somber fable set in medieval Sweden tells of the brutal rape and murder of an innocent girl and the chilling revenge exacted upon her attackers by her deeply religious farming family. 89 mins. Academy Award winner: Foreign Language Film (Sweden)Academy Award nominee: Black-and-White Costume Design (Marik Vos)
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961)On an isolated island, a young woman slips into schizophrenia as her father, a writer, dispassionately chronicles her descent. The woman’s discovery of the diary hastens her disintegration, and her husband and brother are implicated in her tragic fate. 91 mins.
Academy Award winner (1961): Foreign Language Film (Sweden)Academy Award nominee (1962): Writing Story and screenplay written directly for the screen (Ingmar Bergman)
Sunday, April 6, at 7 p.m.CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972)This intense character study explores the dynamics among three sisters, one of whom is dying of cancer, and the servant who looks after her. 88 mins.
Academy Award winner (1973): Cinematography (Sven Nykvist)Academy Award nominee (1973): Best Picture (Ingmar Bergman, producer), Costume Design (Marik Vos), Directing (Bergman), Writing Story and screenplay based on factual material or material not previously published or produced (Bergman)
AUTUMN SONATA (1978) In her last feature film appearance, Ingrid Bergman stars as a concert pianist reunited with her daughter (Liv Ullmann) after a seven-year estrangement; the tension between them is underscored by flashbacks from their earlier lives. 93 mins.
Academy Award nominee: Actress in a Leading Role (Ingrid Bergman), Writing Screenplay written directly for the screen (Ingmar Bergman)
Tickets may be purchased:• online at www.oscars.org • in person at the Academy box office• by mail (see pages XX–XX)Doors open at 6 p.m. All seating is unreserved For more information, call (310) 247-3600The Linwood Dunn Theater is located at the Academy’s Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study, 1313 Vine Street, Hollywood, California. The Academy’s newest theater is a 286-seat state-of-the-art screening facility.
Parking: Complimentary parking is provided in the Academy’s lot adjacent to the Pickford Center, (enter off Homewood, one block north of Fountain). Parking facilities close ½ hour after conclusion of an event.