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MONDAY, SEPT. 21st, 1998.
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PRESS RELEASE: For release September 17, 1998
Every Friday in September, the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable network will feature films from one of the world's greatest directors, Ingmar Bergman.
Ranging from early films like 1953's MONIKA (Sept. 4, 4 a.m. ET) and A LESSON IN LOVE (1954, Sept. 11, 12 a.m.), in which he first worked out his personal views on human isolation and female psychology, through more recent international hits like 1978's AUTUMN SONATA (Sept. 18, 8 p.m.), his only film with fellow Swede Ingrid Bergman, TCM's Bergman festival follows the career of a director whose personal obsessions have helped shape the course of world cinema.
TCM will present the films that cemented his international reputation, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955, Sept. 18, 10 p.m.) and 1957's THE SEVENTH SEAL (Sept. 25, 8 p.m.), along with the most acclaimed film of his early period, WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957, Sept. 11, 8 p.m.). The festival kicks off on September 4 with Bergman's trilogy on the silence of God: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961, 10 p.m.), WINTER LIGHT (1963, 12 a.m.) and THE SILENCE (1963, 2 a.m.). From Bergman's mature period, in which he switched his focus from metaphysical and religious issues to human relationships, come PERSONA (1967, Sept. 11, 2 a.m.), the film most often cited as the start of his contemporary style; the New York Film Critics Award winner CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972, Sept. 25, 2 a.m.); and 1978's AUTUMN SONATA (Sept. 18, 8 p.m.), which won Ingrid Bergman acting awards from the New York Film Critics, the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review.
Bergman has said that "To shoot a film is to organize a complete universe," and he has indeed created a universe of his own through the course of almost half a century as a director and writer. He entered filmmaking as a writer in 1944, earning critical acclaim with his first script, for Torment, a tortured love triangle involving a sadistic school teacher and two students. The film's success led to Bergman's first shot at directing, Crisis, in 1945. Through the early '50s, Bergman developed his craft in a series of emotionally charged, realistic dramas like MONIKA, the story of a summer romance that leads to pregnancy and marriage.
Despite the quality of his early films, however, he remained unappreciated in his native Sweden and largely unknown in other countries until he took the Cannes Film Festival by storm with two award-winning hits in a row;the turn-of-the-century romantic comedy that inspired the hit musical "A Little Night Music," SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, and the allegorical tale of a medieval knight playing a chess game with Death to learn the meaning of life in THE SEVENTH SEAL. The international success that followed these films made Bergman one of the world's most acclaimed directors. He has been honored with three Academy AwardsÆ for Best Foreign Language Film, seven other nominations for writing and directing and the Irving G. Thalberg Award for his outstanding body of work as a producer. In addition he has received nine awards from the National Society of Film Critics, seven each from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review, five from the Cannes Film Festival and lifetime achievement awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the Director's Guild.
In addition to his career-long pursuit of such recurring themes as the relationship between humanity and God in the modern world, human isolation and female psychology, Bergman's works are unified by his repeated use of the same actors and cameramen. For many of his black-and-white films, including SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, THE SEVENTH SEAL and WILD STRAWBERRIES, he worked with director of photography Gunnar Fischer. His most prominent cameraman was Sven Nykvist, who started working with Bergman in the '50s and went on to supervise the trend-setting color cinematography of such films as CRIES AND WHISPERS and FANNY AND ALEANDER (1982), each of which won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography. Bergman's stock company of actors, all of whom worked with him extensively in theatre as well as on film, has included Liv Ulmann, Max von Sydow, Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin and Gunnar Bjornstrand.
Ingmar Bergman Festival
Friday, September 4
8 p.m. - THE VIRGIN SPRING (1959):starring Max von Sydow and Brigitta Pettersson
10 p.m. - THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961):starring Max von Sydow and Harriet Andersson
12 a.m. - WINTER LIGHT (1962):starring Ingrid Thulin and Gunnar Bjornstrand
2 a.m. - THE SILENCE (1963):starring Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindbloom
4 a.m. - MONIKA (1952):starring Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg
Friday, September 11
8 p.m. - WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957):starring Victor Sjostrom and Bibi Andersson
10 p.m. - THE DEVIL'S EYE (1960):starring Jarl Kulle and Bibi Andersson
12 a.m. - A LESSON IN LOVE (1954):starring Eva Dahlbeck and Gunnar Bjornstrand
2 a.m. - PERSONA (1966):starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann
4 a.m. - ALL THESE WOMEN (1964):starring Jarl Kulle and Harriet Andersson
Friday, September 18
8 p.m. - AUTUMN SONATA (1978):starring Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann
10 p.m. - SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955):starring Ulla Jacobsson and Eva Dahlbeck
12 a.m. - BRINK OF LIFE (1958):starring Eva Dahlbeck and Ingrid Thulin
2 a.m. - SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1973):starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson
4 a.m. - SUMMER INTERLUDE (1951):starring Maj-Britt Nilsson and Alf Kjellin
Friday, September 25
8 p.m. - THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957):starring Max von Sydow and Gunnar Bjornstrand
10 p.m. - THE MAGIC FLUTE (1951):starring Ulric Cold and Josef Kostlinger
12:30 a.m. - DREAMS (1955):starring Harriet Andersson and Eva Dahlbeck
2 a.m. - CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972):starring Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann
4 a.m. - SAWDUST AND TINSEL (1953):starring Harriet Andersson and Gunnar Bjornstrand
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