Bergman and FranceJuly 14, is just one of many things Bergman and France have in common. Bergman has often said that his stay in Paris in 1949 had a decisive significance for his private as well as his artistic life."Not until 1949, when I first went abroad. I was in Paris a couple of months and was always running to the Cinémathèque in the Avenue de Messine. That was when I seriously began to study cinema. I'd never seen any old films before, only our Swedish silents." - Ingmar Bergman |
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The fascination of the French for Ingmar Bergman is well known. From his breakthrough in Smiles of a Summer Night in Cannes in 1956 and the Bergman retrospective at the Paris Cinémathèque two years later (when Godard and Rohmer among others declared the film modernist Bergman a genius) the love relationship has remained intact, without any interruption and with ongoing interest and sincerity. When Bergman died in 2007 the French were among the chief mourners. Almost all the large daily papers adorned their front pages with Bergman's face, and a tremendous amount of coverage was devoted to his work.
It is hardly a coincidence that Bergman's popularity has special importance in France. The relationship has an old lineage. Bergman's great film models were the French Carné and Clair, and Méliès (alongside Sjöström of course). And if Bergman in turn inspired the French New Wave, French film today to a large extent has taken the legacy of Bergman further with headstrong directors such as Patrice Chéreau, Arnaud Desplechin and Benoît Jacquot in the forefront.
Ingmar Bergman and France have more than the celebration of July 14 in common. Bergman, who would have turned ninety years old in two weeks, has on several occasions maintained that his trip to Paris in 1949 had a decisive effect on the rest of his life, both artistically and privately. The trip was the basis of several forthcoming screenplays, with Scenes from a Marriage, and later, Faithless as the most obvious examples. Earlier that year he had experienced the delightful fruits of life during an inspirational trip together with Birger Malmsten in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. But it was Paris that gave Bergman his greatest impressions. Here he wrote a play that has never been produced, "Joakim Naken", which includes the novel The Tale of the Eiffel Tower.
To Paris came the otherwise stay-at-home Bergman for a number of different occasions: for a guest production of The Legend in 1959, for meetings with French art practitioners as well as Jeanne Moreau, for the first stop during his country exile in 1976 and when decorated in the Legion of Honour in 1985. For the latter occasion François Mitterrand dispensed with formalities and immediately appointed Bergman to commander, not knight or officer. In light of this vital connection - Bergman’s attraction to French art and cultural life, the French attraction to Bergman – it would seem that the mutual day of celebration is more than coincidental.
In the following quotations Bergman himself attests to the experiences he had during his first trip to the French capital:
"The rose colour country wine and the mild Beaujolais makes a person strong and ambitious, creates fire in the bosom and a soft weakness in the lover, the desire to be lustful at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and a nap until 7, when it is time to prepare for the pleasures of dinner; the fresh vegetables, the red juicy meat and the happy insensible conversations with friends". (Bergman on Bergman)
"Paris was an indescribable experience. I saw the permanent impressionist exhibition. We had a five-minute walk to the Grand Opera, Opéra Comique and Comédie Française. We went to the concert house on Champs Elysées. On Saturdays they had dress rehearsals. It was the first time I heard Ravel’s Bolero in the original version. At Barrault's theatre they played Kafka and Hamlet. Louis Jouvet had his own theatre, but above all it was the Comédie Française. I hadn’t understood Molière before. Thought Molière was boring and Racine even more so. Then I got to see them in great fresh performances, and in particular The Misanthrope made an enormous impression on me". (from Bergman's diary in the Ingmar Bergman Foundation archives)
To Paris came the otherwise stay-at-home Bergman for a number of different occasions: for a guest production of The Legend in 1959, for meetings with French art practitioners as well as Jeanne Moreau, for the first stop during his country exile in 1976 and when decorated in the Legion of Honour in 1985. For the latter occasion François Mitterrand dispensed with formalities and immediately appointed Bergman to commander, not knight or officer. In light of this vital connection - Bergman's attraction to French art and cultural life, the French attraction to Bergman – it would seem that the mutual day of celebration is more than coincidental.