Interview with Stig Björkman on Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words

Before his latest work premiered at Cannes in 2015, Stig Björkman (b. 1938) had already directed more than a dozen films. He is well known for his behind-the-scenes looks at noted filmmakers, such as Ingmar Bergman in Images from the Playground (2002) and … But Film Is My Mistress (2010) and the Danish director and leader of the Dogme movement Lars von Trier in Tranceformer: A Portrait of Lars von Trier (1997). Björkman is also the author of film criticism, including book-length interviews with von Trier, Ingmar Bergman, Woody Allen, and Joyce Carol Oates. He served as editor of the important Swedish film journal Chaplin from 1964 to 1972. As both a writer and a filmmaker, he brings a deep knowledge of world cinema and an expertise in Swedish film to his latest project.

The editors of The Moving Image caught up with Björkman at the Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, Italy, after the screening of Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (original title: Jag är Ingrid [I am Ingrid]). Neither a biopic nor a traditional celebrity documentary, the film presents the life of the actor through the perspective of the vast archive of paper documents and films she left behind, most of which now reside at the Cinema Archives, Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut. This edited interview took place on July 16, 2015.

the moving image (tmi):

One of the things that's striking about your career is your interest in directors, such as Ingmar Bergman and Lars von Trier. Did something in particular inspire you to make a film about Ingrid Bergman? Was it her centenary? Her significance in Sweden? What led you to the project?

stig björkman (sb):

It was just by pure chance. I was at the Berlinale for a big Ingmar Bergman retrospective. At the same time, Isabella Rossellini was there as chairman of the jury. Harriet Andersson and I were having dinner when Isabella, the daughter of Ingrid and Roberto Rossellini, showed up with two friends and joined us. She sat down next to me, and we talked late into the evening, when suddenly she turns to me and says, "Shall we make a film about Mama?" Just like that. It was the first time I'd met her, and what could I say? So I said yes. That's how it started. Before that time, I had no thought about making a film about Ingrid Bergman.

tmi:

Did Isabella Rossellini mention the archival material then? When did that come into the discussion?

sb:

Maybe then. But later she mentioned it during some e-mail correspondence after Berlin. Then I met Isabella in Paris in the summer, when she was staying with her brother Roberto [Rossellini Jr.], and I talked with both of them. I also went to New York and met with Pia Lindström, the oldest daughter of Ingrid Bergman, and Isabella's twin sister, Ingrid Rossellini. And they all gave me permission to study the personal archives at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. I remember I went there in the winter, in December, and I was very unlucky. There was a tremendous snowfall, and the university's electricity went out, so I had no choice but to return to New York. But in the spring, I went back. After that, I returned six times, maybe seven. I did thorough research there. Joan Miller, the head archivist, and all the staff were very helpful. It was very pleasant research. Each time I would stay a couple of days in the little town. Since all the Bergman and Rossellini children had given me permission to study and later on to use all the material there, that helped.

So much of the material in the archive is in Swedish because it contains all her diaries, her old schoolbooks. There are letters, of course, mostly in Swedish, especially the early ones. Only a few of them have been translated, some just partly. Some of them have notations: "This letter is about …" and so on. And of course, I...