CONFESSIONS OF A BERGMAN CO-WORKER

CUNNELL LINDBLOM

Gunnel Lindhlom’s association with Bergman as both stage and screen actress dates back to the 1950s. She appeared in such classics as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring, and Winter Light. She is also the director of the films Summer Paradise, Sally and Freedom and Summer Nights among others.

WE’RE THE BEST OF FRIENDS,” SAID KARL-OSKAR TO Kristina in his lilting Smâland dialect, in one of the most beautiful declarations of love in Swedish literature.”

We have been closely acquainted and have worked together frequently since 1954, Ingmar and I, although actually for me it began even earlier. And it was love at first sight.

I was fifteen years old and had seen Camus’s Caligula at the Göteborg Municipal Theater. I didn’t know what a director was, much less that someone named Ingmar Bergman had directed the play. But lightning had struck, I knew that I had to go back to that building on Götaplatsen, that I would have to live my life there. They must have an office, and I could almost type. People like me could sit in the box office and sell tickets.

I wanted in, and 1 made it three years later when they accepted me as a first-year drama student. 1 had a special dispensation because I was too young. By then, I knew who Bergman was — and Anders Ek and Ulla Jacobsson and Sven Milliander and Torsten Hammaren.

And Gertrud Fridh! Because of her, I went and saw The Land of Desire, but I didn’t think much of it. So later, when a friend invited me to see Bergman’s latest film, The Devil’s Wanton, 1 went reluctantly. I thought Bergman should stick to the theater full-time, Swedish movies were bad. To me, the only films that existed were French, with Carné leading the way,

I came out of that movie house reeling like a drunkard, drugged, speechless, with the film rushing through my bloodstream, pumping and thudding. I can still hear the strange tone in Doris Svedlund’s voice when she says, “Thomas — my Thomas …” I can hear her voice and see her eyes, and I have never dared see the film again, I prefer to remember my feelings. I don’t want them corrected by a person who is mature, reflective, analytical, that is, the person I am today.

And I become furious when Ingmar tells me that it was a really bad film! “You can’t judge that. You gave it to me almost forty years ago. It shocked me. And no authority, not even you, Ingmar, should try to persuade me that anything was wrong with the way I felt.”

My first encounter (although I call it my third) with Bergman was in a long corridor at the Malmö Municipal Theater. I was newly hired, had just arrived, and was thrown headfirst onto the stage for a reading. It was the female leading role in The Hour of Foolishness by a dramatist whose name escapes me. A week’s rehearsal, but I had made it!

Ingmar walked toward me in the corridor, smiled in a friendly, appreciative way, and said, “You did that role well, damned well — welcome to our theater.”

In any event, that was the beginning of several fantastic years in Malmö, where I worked from 1954 to 1959. Ingmar put on thirteen major productions during those five years — one more brilliant than the other, according to the critics. From The Merry Widow and the folk musical Värmlanningarna to Don Juan and Peer Gynt to Le Misanthrope, Hjalmar Bergman’s Sagan and Urfaust. I had parts in most of them.

The theater was considered the best in the country. Many outstanding performers had been lured south: Âke Fridell, Toivo Pawlo, Gunnar Björnstrand, Gertrud Fridh, Harriet and Bibi Ander sson. Later came Ingrid Thulin and Frank Sundström. Some of us became friends for life and are still working together.

In the summers, Ingmar made films like The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and The Virgin Spring. Indeed, I don’t think I have ever met anyone who has even come close to Ingmar’s capacity for work. When did he have time to write his screenplays?

Max von Sydow came down from Helsing-borg and joined the ensemble, and of course Ingmar became inordinately fond of this tall, friendly, balky, shy superactor. We had played an unhappy loving couple in Ostrovsky’s The Poor Bride. We acted well together and liked each other very much; now we would enjoy the thrill of playing the loving couple in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt.

But it turned out that we were equally shy in the scenes where we were supposed to embrace. I had a new romance, and he was standing and watching in the wings; that made me none the bolder. Anyway, in the play, Solveig is the shy one and Peer the enterprising one.

The premiere was approaching, and our arms had moved no higher than shoulder level. It was unnerving for us to keep on waiting for Ing-mar’s outburst, because I knew it was coming and that the longer he postponed it, the more dreadful the thunderbolts would be.

“Gunnel and Max, STOP RIGHT THERE!” Here it was. Lots of witnesses on the stage; this play is crawling with actors, all of them undoubtedly superb at playing love scenes. And Bibi had been given the part of one of the dairy maids at the Norwegian mountain chalet. I was going to be replaced, I was sure.

Ingmar marched through the auditorium. It took time. Those 1,800 seats would soon be filled with a cheering audience. Someone else would get to stand there and hug Max.

After an eternity, Ingmar struggled up to the stage. By then I had finished preparing a vigorous speech defending the innocent, inexperienced farm girl, Solveig, who had never been to the movies and seen any Bergman films and therefore could not know how to handle her beloved Peer Gynt.

I didn’t get to use my speech, because Ingmar just stood there looking at us warmly, mildly, and for a long time. Then he said, in the most beautiful silky-smooth voice, “Come now. Now let’s take it easily and methodically. Gunnel and Max, the two of you should never be closer to each other than one meter. No, actually, two meters. This isn’t any damned TV play. Solveig is burning like a torch and Peer has never seen anything like this broad. He doesn’t dare approach her, does he, Max? Besides, he’s been screwing dairy maids for three days and nights. He doesn’t dare get close to this kind of love.”

Well, after that we stood there burning — two meters apart — for five hours a night and sixty performances in a row.

We worked like mad and enjoyed ourselves enormously. There was no time for private life. Well, once a week we had no performance, because on Tuesdays the symphony orchestra gave concerts on the main stage. That was when a movie-crazed gang of actors gathered at Ingmar’s apartment in Erikslust, where he had a film projector.

We saw The Testament of Dr. Mahuse and The Blue Angel again and again, and we devoured early Rossellini, Bunuel, and Fellini. We were in love with Gösta Ekman, Fred Astaire, and Thor Modéen. We saw feature films and shorts; even commercials were welcome.

We discussed content and form, learned a lot about acting, and Ingmar shared his experience, eagerly and generously.

Twenty years later, I was going to direct my first film, Summer Paradise. Ingmar was the producer, and it was a week before shooting. We were going to have a final production meeting up at the Film Institute, and twenty film workers and I sat there and waited for him.

But Ingmar didn’t show up. I began to worry, because he is pedantically punctual. Katinka, the production manager, arrived with a strange look on her face. She began to read a letter out loud; it wasn’t very long: “Dear friends and colleagues. It is terribly sad to have to inform you …” I don’t remember how it was phrased. It was such an enormous shock.

Ingmar had left Sweden. He had left from Stockholm the day before. His destination was Munich. He was going to settle in Germany. It was awful Ingmar, who suffered mightily even when he had to spend only a few hours in Copenhagen …

Eight years would pass before he was back in Stockholm.

In the old days, Ingmar’s temper was more volcanic. He used to refer to anyone who didn’t throw furniture around as “inhibited.” In his eyes,1 was inhibited, and I was happy to let him think so. In fact, I felt it was nice to avoid having my own fits of rage. I preferred conserving my energy for other things. I understood his tantrums, and they didn’t scare me. If you relaxed, they dissipated very quickly, He has too much sense of humor to sulk for long.

Well, once he became terribly angry at me. God knows if he has ever really forgiven me.

It was during the filming of The Silence. There were complicated, atrociously difficult love scenes (love again!) in the hotel-room bed. Birger Malmsten and I were completely exhausted. But it had apparently worked well. Ingmar was cheery and jolly and was organizing the next scene.

I staggered out toward the studio door to ask for a glass of water. Rulle, the doorman, had heard our furious arguments and said appreciatively “She’s a good screamer, that lady in there, what’s her name? Siw Malmkvist?”‘

Anyway, in I went again, ready for the next scene. The floodlights had been moved in seconds. Ingmar met me near the lights and gave me a peculiar look.

“What’s that you’re wearing?”

“A slip.”

“Did you intend to wear it in bed?”

“Don’t you like it, Ingmar?”

“No! You’re supposed to be naked. In the script, it says Anna is supposed to be NAKED.”

That ice-cold look, those penetrating dark eyes. Marik Vos and Sven Nykvist had vanished behind a cabinet. They didn’t like it when a hurricane was brewing.

I was trembling badly, hoping it didn’t show. Ingmar’s outburst didn’t materialize. But it will be a long time before I forget the glowing rage in his eyes and the contempt in his voice:

“So what do we do now?!”

“You’ll have to find a stand-in, Ingmar.”

Why he didn’t kill me, I’ll never know….

A little later, as I lay there in the bed with my slip on, I heard Ingmar whisper loudly to our makeup man, “What is so f—ing important about those hellish goddamned cursed globs of fat?!” I looked down at my breasts, which were rather small, and felt foolish.

Well, why was it so important? A couple of years later I felt I had been unforgivably stupid and prudish. But at the time, I had only one thought in my head: “It’s OK to turn my soul inside out, but I want to keep my clothes on.”

After that I wasn’t in any more films until Scenes from a Marriage. But perhaps there were other reasons.

I remember one incident while we were shooting The Virgin Spring. We were somewhere deep in the darkest forests of Dalarna province. We were in a hurry, as usual with Ingmar. The last week of exteriors. Would the weather hold? Would the money last? Would we get those sheep in place for the closing sequence of the film?

Everything was meticulously organized. The snow machine with the soap flakes was in place, and the flock of sheep was being held together by a giant lasso that would be pulled away when Ingmar said, “Camera, action!” Then the sun appeared. That was not supposed to happen. So the scene was postponed until the following day, which would have to be the very last.

That evening I started having awful stomach pains, which I blamed on nerves, or perhaps that chicken we ate for lunch. I managed to find a heating pad to put on my stomach, but I rapidly got worse. They tell me that when several people were trying to carry me to the ambulance, I clung to the bedstead.

I woke up at a hospital in Falun as they were preparing me for surgery. Dazed and furious, I sat up and shouted, “Why?”

“Lie down. Burst appendix. We’re in a hurry.”

I passed out again — I don’t know if it was because of fear or pain, but I remember that I first had time to say, “I won’t agree to this. Have you asked Ingmar Bergman?” And the hospital staff laughed.

We laughed at that story for a long time, but I felt vaguely ashamed. Was this an expression of belief in authority which I had been unaware of and that slipped out at a moment when my self-censorship was not functioning?

Or was it a reflection of a sense of duty deep inside me: Work comes first and is most important; private pains, mental or physical, have to wait; stay within budget; don’t postpone the premiere; do your job; be prepared.

Oh, Ingmar, how sad, hopeless, impossible, and CRAZY that you won’t be making any more films. It’s unthinkable, inconceivable.

You have to help us persuade the politicians that serious Swedish cinema is vital, that the Film Institute has to have movie houses all over Sweden, that the people of this country have to be able to see other Swedes up on the silver screen. As you know, we’re drowning in pop and Musak and American action movies!

Translated by Victor Kayfetz

Notes

¹ Karl-Oskar and Kristina are the main characters in Vilhelm Moberg’s novels The Emigrants (1949) and Unto a Good Land (1956), which were filmed by Jan Troell in 1969/70 and released in the United States as The Emigrants and The New Land. Ed.

² Her name is Anna Bonacci. Ed.

³ ‘A Swedish revue star and popular singer. Ed.