Commentary - July 30, 2007 - Printable Version
- Adjö, Ingmar Bergman (Goodbye, Ingmar Bergman)
by Robin Buckallew Today, July 30, 2007, Ingmar Bergman passed away at the age of 89. He shall be sorely missed. Born in Uppsala, Sweden on July 14, 1918, he had a legendary career that spanned 7 decades, and he leaves behind an impressive portfolio, including more than 40 films he directed, 10 films he wrote that were directed by others, and a long list of stage productions and radio theater credits. Bergman has been an inspiration for numerous artists throughout the world, and has left behind a legacy much larger than a mere man. I would just like to say, adjö Ingmar Bergman. Goodbye, from the depths of my heart and spirit. It will be a long time before the world sees another such as you.
Many directors make films; Bergman made art. Many directors entertain; Bergman challenged. Many directors leave you amused; Bergman left you moved. I can truly say that, every time I watch a Bergman film, I come away realizing that I will never be the same again. I realize the world will never look the same again, life will never have the same meaning again. His films are works of stark beauty, filling the world with tragedy and tears, with philosophically wrenching uncertainty, and world-shaking doubt. Bergman asked questions, often questions he himself was unable to answer. He shattered illusions, and exposed our pretensions as the mere human folly they usually are. In spite of the trauma and the doubt that often make his films wrenchingly painful, many of his films have an eerily uplifting quality. At the end of a film, I doubt my own realities, I question deeply held beliefs, and I recognize most of humanity’s cherished truths as little more than the flotsam and jetsam of the known universe; still…I feel that I have been enlightened every time I view one of his masterpieces. For he reminds us that we are all, no matter how important we may imagine ourselves, deeply human. We are all flawed, subject to doubt and uncertainty, plagued by questions to which we have no answers. And he lets us know that that’s all right. It’s all right to have questions without answers. It’s all right to travel a road that never ends, to seek a destination that you will never find.
Throughout all his films, he struggles with the same existential questions that we all struggle with. What meaning is there in life? Does life truly have any meaning at all? Do we life and love, work and play, travel blind and deaf to the world around us, often mindless of those we hurt, to finish up in the end as dust? Questions – always questions. No answers. In the hands of lesser talents, this would leave a film with an empty, hollow, unfinished feeling. In the hands of a master, there is a richness, a feeling of ongoing art, much like life itself is always an unfinished work in progress. Bergman’s films dealt with human emotions that are familiar to all of us – sadness and anger, love and joy, fear and isolation, solitude and serenity. The characters weren’t larger than life – they were life. They weren’t heroes and villains, they were ordinary people, flawed and human, living ordinary lives in ordinary places, tortured by their very existence, yearning for understanding, and always kept from understanding by the limitations of human understanding and desire. Bergman’s characters, truly, looked through a glass darkly.
Today, the world is a poorer place, because Ingmar Bergman is no longer in it. Goodbye…Adjö…Ingmar Bergman.
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