Ingmar Bergman Film Studies

Ingmar Bergman, the great Swedish film director, as one member of the "trinity" of the western movie history, promoted the western movie to a high peak with the other two counterparts Fellini and Tarkovsky. In addition to directing films, Ingmar Bergman also created dramas and TV plays. Among some 100 works he made before his death, half of them are movies.Bergman was born in a Lutheran family. His father was a Lutheran priest; therefore, from his childhood Bergman had a sensitive feeling for the religion, especially the relationship between the God and the common mortal, which was clearly exhibited in his later works. Moreover, the parents' marriage life and his marriage experiences both provided Bergman rich creating materials. Nearly all of his movies made before 1955 were probing into the emotion crisis of the family life, in particular the relation between the husband and the wife, the parent and the children. Furthermore, Ingmar Bergman also expressed his concern about the art and the human life. Some of his works even focused on the relationship between art and science, family life or religion, which made the theme of his films much more extensive.Owing to the influence of Scandinavia cultural tradition, Bergman had ardently loved drama and image art since he was very young. There was a transfer in the duration of the Bergman's directing career. Before stepping into the film circle, he mainly worked in the theatre and directed dramas. And such great dramatists as August Strindberg, Brecht, Ibsen and Eugene O'Neill had great effects on Bergman's film creating in themes and forms. Particularly his "Indoor Drama Films", many of which had obvious theatre style. As for the image and sound strategies Bergman applied in his films, they were also quite outstanding. Firstly, Bergman was expert in modeling. By using a combination of the brief and exaggerating expressing devices, he created many thought—stimulating film images. In addition, he had a deep love for music, especially the classicism and romanticism music. He commonly employed such music in his movies to produce a variation effects.The author of this thesis makes efforts in exploring the main themes and form styles of Ingmar Bergman's films by using analysis and summarizing methods, and also making a further interpretation of his films' social meaning and realistic value.