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  • Essay / Ingmar Bergman's influence on international cinema

    It is difficult to estimate which contribution to cinema is worth more, it is impossible to differentiate exactly how a certain genre was born, it is impossible to discuss which film deserves attention and what doesn't. Regardless, it can be said without a doubt that Ingmar Bergman played a major role in the world of cinema. His film career spans more than half a century and includes the most diverse films. Bergman does not belong to any particular genre or movement, his films vary from surreal and abstract to realistic and natural, many of which are considered masterpieces. “At the time, the foreign films that made an impression on connoisseurs mainly came from France, Italy and Japan. Bergman, however, was a one-man film movement. His instant eminence created a cottage industry of Bergmania.” Not only does Bergman's style remain recognizable among his works, but its reflections can easily be found in other directors' films. The themes he discovered, the philosophical ideologies he followed and the distinctive features of the visual component he included in his films greatly inspired future directors. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayIngmar Bergman has always been different and unique. The main ideas of Bergman's plays and films are closely related to religion, death, personality crisis and the search for true relationships between people. His creative journey in the film industry began in the 1940s, and it was the beginning of Ingmar finding “his” actors and themes. Upon reflection on his development as a director, these early films seem naive, somewhat naïve, more like a poetic melodrama. In his “Prison” (1949), the author decided for the first time to make a non-commercial adaptation based on the screenplay of his own composition, thus indulging his own vision of cinema as an artistic field. After Bergman became an international star in the 1950s, he made a strong decision to make completely independent films. While the filmmakers defined the visual component with a pure and austere style, Ingmar Berman, as a director, experimented radically with genres, but as one of his critics, John Donner, said: "Bergman's films are not isolated pieces, they are also part of a whole.” As they say, Bergman influenced the authors of the future, but in fact his influence also widely extended to the directors of his century. The film, considered not only one of the most important works of Bergman, but also in international cinema – “Wild Strawberries” (1957), became a global sensation. Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky included “Wild Strawberries” (1957) in the list of their favorite films. Woody Allen, Wim Wenders, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Michael Haneke have noted that this image had a considerable impact on their own films. In "Wild Strawberries" (1957), Bergman opened a completely new concept of space-time relationships in cinema - the method of merging the inner layer of time with the outer one. Additionally, in this film, the visual component includes an adaptation of the main character's dreams combined with reality. This largely echoes surrealism and the works of the great Spanish director Luis Buñuel, the combination of real life and dreams can be evidenced, for example in “The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie” (1972) and “Belle de jour » (1967).Bergman often drew inspiration from his own life for hismovies. Sometimes he gave the characters certain characteristics of people he knew personally, sometimes he showed his own dreams or events, sometimes he simply "narrated" a film autobiographically. As Grigorieva said: “It is remarkable that after the success of Bergman's “Wild Strawberries” (1957), the world saw “8½” (Federico Fellini, 1963), “Amarkord” (Federico Fellini, 1973 ), “Mirror” (Andrei Tarkosvky, 1975) and other works based on autobiographical motives and confessional intonation. The action of many of Allen's films, for example "Another Woman" (1988), "Stardust Memories" (1980), "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989) or "Deconstructing Harry" (1997), has a similar free structure : the narrative often goes in unexpected directions, includes memories, dreams, episodes from the past and represents a journey into the inner world, the study of the soul of the main characters (Grigorieva, 2017). The dark, gloomy atmosphere is one of the main visual components in Bergman's film. He began to implement his personal notion of the use of color from his earliest works and developed it considerably. Bergman in his films often turned to the dark style, and this can be said not only about the design of the film, but also about the topics covered by the author. The characters in his films can be described as follows: they are externally happy people who are buried in internal unhappiness. In his “Fanny and Alexandre” (1982), the epilogue contains a sentence: “We will live in our little, little world. We will preserve it, we will cultivate it and decorate it", - and this expression says a lot about the style of Bergman's films as a whole. Bergman shows a lyrical hero who confronts the truth about life beyond his own existence, but he only sees this “truth” through the prism of his own experiences, his own world, which he “clings to, cultivates and decorates” Speaking of another incarnation of Bergman's use of. colors by the author, the plot of "Cries and Whispers" (1972) focuses on the painful relationships within blood relatives, one of whom is seriously ill. Thanks to the use of red shades, this. Pain can be easily read simply on the basis of the visual component. This dark atmosphere, as well as the plot, is reflected in Allen's film, namely "Interiors" (1978), made as a tribute to Bergman. Reference to Bergman is also visible in “The Dreamers” (2003), a film by Bernardo Bertolucci. In one scene, the viewer can notice a poster for “Persona” (1966), and Bertolucci thus pays homage to the auteur cinema classic, Ingmar Bergman. Many European directors have repeatedly confessed their love for Bergman. Danish director Lars von Trier said: “I studied film at university and during the whole semester almost every class was about Bergman. And it took a disproportionate place in my cinematic memory. I watched them all, Bergman, even the soap commercials. Lars von Trier seems to have taken him as a model in this regard. Violetta Savchits says that Lars von Trier is the heir of two great Scandinavian geniuses: the Dane Karl Theodor Dreyer and the Swede Ingmar Bergman and this is explained. Bergman sometimes even describes some authors as “boring”. When watching his films, the viewer may see them as very diverse, but each of them is undoubtedly dialogue-driven. An important theme of his films is certainly the relationships between people and he repeatedly draws the viewer's attention to long conversations of the characters. and their thoughts. At the same time, Lars, the director, who embodies rebellion in the world ofmodern cinema, often refers to this Bergman technique. His scenes are long, measured and psychologically tense, like the scenes described by Ingmar. Berman was a true master of conversations and he particularly worshiped the representation of characters' thoughts. In his “Autumn Sonata” (1978), the master fully demonstrates his skill in placing the viewer in a position of emphasis. Particular attention should be paid to the references in Bergman's films to religion, specifically to God and faith. He continually questions religion and the loneliness of man, he often turns to Christian symbolism, giving the viewer a mythical filling of the image. Bergman became a director who wanted to be a philosopher in the field of cinema. “Religious imagery, subtly present in Bergman's earlier work, assumes a new centrality in these films. Bergman's films have always been full of masks, symbols of dissimulation and solitude. The ticking of clocks, an ever-present reminder of mortality, fills the space vacated by the absent orchestra,” - this sentence highlights what Bergman really brought to cinema with the way of representing philosophical ideas. His "The Seventh Seal" (1957), a mythical allegory, had a huge impact on the world of cinema, as he began to use specific symbols in his works, a reflection on life and death, faith and his loss, he questioned everything. like he always did. “His philosophical Odysseys could have been epoxyed on questions of life and death, of God and man”, – we say in “Antonioni, Bergman and the soul” (2007). The list of authors inspired by Bergman's philosophy is endless. It is nevertheless appropriate to highlight Andreï Tarkovsky, whose influence is undeniable, great and lasting. Even though Tarkovsky describes religion in a different way, his difficult path to God, as Séance Magazine puts it, is imbued with images of Scripture from the great cinema of Ingmar Bergman. Ingmar Bergman's work has been strongly associated with close-up - In fact, he can be described as a past master in the art of conveying a psychological portrait of character through close-ups, and this can be demonstrated notably in Persona (1966). Gronstad says that a reflection of Bergman's technique can be found in the works of John Cassavetes, Jean-Luc Godard, Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergio Leone, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Atom Egoyan. Speaking of another characteristic reception of the master, his famous depiction of the sky is still considered its own trait, since most of his films include a trademark shot directed upwards. Bergman's "Heaven of God" is found in the works of great authors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Werner Herzog and Alain Resnais. In "Bergman Gains International Fame with The Seventh Seal", it is broadly emphasized that in the world of cinema, Bergman's style and substance influenced the new great directors born in the 1920s and 1930s who began their works major in the 1960s. François Truffaut and others used some of Bergman's techniques. All things considered, not enough can be said about Ingmar Bergman as a filmmaker and his influence on international cinema. The variety of his works makes it possible to confidently assert the talent of the director, and therefore gives his disciples the opportunity to be inspired by his works. If we consider the art world in the broad sense, the master's influence is found not only in the field of cinema, but also in contemporary painting and even in literature. Bergman shows various emotions in his films in a very special way, in his own way. The way his contribution to the world of 2019./