Desire Avenue

Just read the sad news of the death of Ingmar Bergman,indisputedly one of THE greatest film directors ever born.
Most foresightedly,BBC4 recently did a weekend retrospective on him,showing 2 films and documentaries and interviews with him .He seemed quietly at peace and content on his Faroe island.

That's sad.There's probably five or six Bergman films on my all-time favourite list.The conventional hackneyed wisdom is that his films are gloomy and depressing,but I'd say that the best of them celebrate life,courage,humanity and compassion against the odds-especially the earlier films-Wild Strawberries,Summer with Monika,Virgin Spring,Seventh Seal and Smiles of a Summer Night,and all done with Shakespearian range and quality,fabulous acting and wonderful to look at.
I missed one of the nights on BBC4 and have been kicking myself ever since-I caught 'Tinsel and Sawdust' (which I love-really reminds me of my theatre days),but what was the other film shown,John?

barrett wrote:Most foresightedly,BBC4 recently did a weekend retrospective on him,

I always thought that Ingmar Bergman (despite the surname) was a woman !!
Oh well,one lives and learns.

sound world wrote: I missed one of the nights on BBC4 and have been kicking myself ever since-I caught 'Tinsel and Sawdust' (which I love-really reminds me of my theatre days),but what was the other film shown,John?

Dave,The first film shown was "Journey into Autumn" .Interesting that they showed two of his lesser known early films,neither of which i'd seen before.
The second documentary shown was repeted following "Tinsel and Sawdust",if you saw that.The first doc.wsa an Arena prog where Bergman is interviewed by the South Bank Show guy(cant remember his name).Very interesting,I'm sure they'll repeat it.

Damn,haven't seen 'Journey into Autumn'.I taped the docu,only to find that the tape was only 2 hour rather than 3,so half of it hasn't recorded
I should let my son set up technology for me.

Yeah,are'nt kids great.If it were'nt for them i would never have worked out how to use my digital camera!!!
Perhaps some kind person wil get tou Journey to Autumn for your Bithday .I'm sure you'd love it.

barrett wrote:Yeah,are'nt kids great.If it were'nt for them i would never have worked out how to use my digital camera!!!

It's not so much the setting-up as remembering how to do it next time,sequences of buttons etc.
Once upon a time,TV (here) consisted of BBC or ITV,an on/off button and a few knobs which did weird things to the (already fuzzy) picture.Now we have a video,TV,DVD and STB stacked on top of each other,100 channels to watch (and we don't even have Sky) a Playstation on one side and an impenetrable tangle of wiring round the back.And you wonder why I don't watch TV.
My latest Minidisc has a manual that's twice as big as the MD itself

Technology will eat itself...eventually [tup]

RobB wrote: I always thought that Ingmar Bergman (despite the surname) was a woman !!
Oh well,one lives and learns.

You mean Ingrid Bergman, perhaps?

For me Bergman was one of those directors I admired, rather than liked. Impossible not to appreciate the craft, he was truly gifted. Very demanding emotionally, though.

Coincidentally they're showing 'The Seventh Seal' in our local arthouse cinema tomorrow,and the chance to see it (one of the most amazing films to LOOK at,apart from anything else) on the big screen is not to be missed.
And this article-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story ... 67,00.html
is a good summary of what I was saying above about the stereotypical image of Bergman as a gloommeister.

blue wrote:

RobB wrote: I always thought that Ingmar Bergman (despite the surname) was a woman !!
Oh well,one lives and learns.

You mean Ingrid Bergman, perhaps?

Thats the person I was thinking of .
I just knew he had to be a woman.

I loved him
Antonioni just died too, there's no stopping, the last greats are leaving us one by one...