Generations of filmmakers and film audiences have been inspired by the work of Ingmar Bergman, which has left indelible impressions on practically everyone everywhere who takes seriously the art of moviemaking.
Robert Emmet Long's Ingmar Bergman: Film and Stage is the first fully illustrated account of each of Bergman's films, from his earliest work in the 1940s to the films of the 1950s that established him as Europe's most important and innovative director, Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and The Magician. By the 1960s hardly a year would pass without a new Bergman movie, among the most memorable: The Virgin Spring, Cries and Whispers, Scenes from a Marriage, The Magic Flute, Autumn Sonata, Fanny and Alexander, and his recent Sunday's Children.
While his film work is widely known, less well known - though hardly less appreciated - is his work for the stage: his productions of classics such as Hamlet, King Lear, A Doll's House, Peer Gynt, Miss Julie, and Long Day's Journey into Night, as well as contemporary plays such as Yukio Mishima's Madame de Sade, have been hailed as startling and innovative - and they are magnificently illustrated in this book.
As Long says in the conclusion to this study, "In the seriousness of his commitment - in his fidelity to craftsmanship and in the intensity of his passion that can be electrifying - Bergman is surely one of our few great contemporary filmmakers."
Illustrated with more than 200 photographs - 36 in color - and accompanied by a bibliography and filmography, this volume stands as the most complete record of one of the most astonishing careers in the history of the cinema.
Robert Emmet Long is both a recognized critic of American and British literature and a commentator on the performing arts. He is either the author or editor of twenty-eight books, including Abrams' acclaimed 1991 publication The Films of Merchant Ivory.