Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words – Film Review by Frank L.

Directed by Stig Björkman
Writers: Stig Björkman, Dominika Daubenbüchel
Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, Pia Lindström

Ingrid Bergman would be famous even if the only movie she had ever made was Casablanca in 1942 with Humphrey Bogart. That was an early success for her and there were many more to come. She was born in 1915 in Sweden to a German mother who died two years later and a Swedish father who died when she was eleven. Of him she retained intense memories throughout her life. He delighted in photographing her and in turn she loved being photographed by him. Bergman’s daughter, the actor Isabella Rossellini, in this insightful documentary explains how important this relationship between Bergman and her father was to her throughout her career. It was this confidence from her happy memories of being photographed by him which enabled her to overcome her own shyness and be, when in front of the camera, her own self.

Bergman, even though she had a peripatetic existence in Sweden, Hollywood, New York, Italy, Paris and London to name some of the principal places where she lived, managed, to keep with her an extensive stash of personal material. Included in this vast trove are letters, photographs and 16 mm film, some of which predates the Second World War. This revelatory archive of material is well mined by Björkman as he intersperses some of the private material with contemporary public newsreel, excerpts from her films and interviews with her four children. She certainly did not have a conventional domestic life, three husbands plus Robert Capa, the photographer, as a lover is quite a haul. However her own self- discipline as linguist and swimmer together with her poise surmounts majestically those who sought to criticise her life. Reflecting on the criticism she had received in the United States about her initially adulterous affair with Rossellini she defiantly stated some years later “…If you don’t like the performance, you can walk out, but to criticise people’s private life, I thought was wrong.” She had worked out for herself where the boundaries were and did not need other people to tell her where they were.

The interviews with each of her four children from her first two marriages are particular revealing. Although she undoubtedly must have hurt them by being so far away from them for such long periods, never mind the two divorces, there remained in each of them after the initial pain a critical affection not for Ingrid Bergman as the famous actor but for her as their mother. One of them says simply she was such fun. She lead a life, full of contradictions admittedly, in her part time role as a mother, but the four adults seem to be more balanced and calm than many others who have had more conventional upbringings.

Bergman was a woman of great beauty, sophisticated but yet flawed. Bjorkman has melded from the public and private archives a script that gives the viewer some insight into the complexities of her life. Over thirty years after her death, Bjorkman has created a gracious cinematic tribute to her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEh5Nh4a9WE