A LETTER TO INGMAR BERGMAN

MAX VON SYDOW

Max von Sydow appeared continually in Ingmar Bergman’s films from 1957 to 1971, while at the same time forming a mainstay of Bergman’s theatrical companies at Hälsinghorg and Malmö. This letter was written as part of the special tribute issue of the Swedish film-magazine Chaplin, titled Ingmar Bergman at 70.

D‘EAR INGMAR,

I needn’t remind you of all the obvious things. Yet I am sure that many others will tell about them in detail I am thinking of all those magic moments on the stage and around the movie camera. Those moments when you made it feel so self-evident to us that we were accomplishing something deeply meaningful and absolutely necessary.

Few directors have shown such trust in their actors, simplified the machinery around them, and emphasized the human being as well as you have. I am deeply grateful to you for all of that — all the way from Jakob to Gregers Werle, from Antonius Block to the prelate, who never materialized. Antonius and his brothers unquestionably changed my life.

And for all the rest — what was neither immortalized by the movie camera nor analyzed by theater critics, what occurred in the shadow of the great drama outside the world of Block and Borg and Vergérus and Winkelman, at a quiet lunch of ham and eggs or at the tea table with the cookie package and the chocolate box; the brief moments that will not be part of history, when we disrespectfully made fun of both Borg and Vergérus, of Faust and Alceste, of Strindberg and Ibsen — and not least of ourselves. The echo of that laughter can probably still be heard at Hovs Hallar, in Skattungbyn, and on Farö. Or the evenings off in Malmö when you arranged LP concerts with Bach and Orff on the program and ran films on your private projector: everything from And Quiet Flows the Don to Mister Magoo. They were also important moments. Over the years their importance has deepened, and I think of them often. That was when the great penguins danced.

Do you remember that one time, on the slope behind the Filmstaden restaurant, when we ended a discussion about life after death by promising each other that the first one who had the opportunity would haunt the other, in all friendliness? I look forward with excitement to that encounter.

Do you remember the bridge we built, Ingmar, early one morning on Farö, when the water level was too high to enable us to walk with dry shoes out to the wreck in Through the Glass Darkly? The light was incredibly beautiful, with the morning fog filtering away all shadow and letting the colors of the landscape appear with complete Integrity. Everybody helped out, and after an hour and a half the project was finished and we could start filming.

We built a lot of bridges, Ingmar, between ourselves and also to the audience. And you inspired us.

You. won’t get any flowers from me, but a warm thank you and a kick for good luck with your next bridge. And the next. And the next….

Yours truly,
Max

The roles that von Sydow refers to in his letter are Jakob in Ingmar Bergman’s production of Vilhelm Moberg’s Lea and Rakel at the Malmö Municipal Theater in 1955; Gregers Wer le in Ibsen’s Wild Duck at the Royal Dramatic Theater in 1972; the knight Antonius Block in The Seventh Seal, Johan Borg in Hour of the Wolf, Andreas Vergérus in The Touch and Andreas Winkelman in The Passion of Anna.

Translated by Victor Kayfetz