Ingmar Bergman’s Views in his Films

Ingmar Bergman, having written and directed a great number of films, drew

many of their themes, sceneries and dialogues on his experiences and beliefs as a

child and an adult. His religious upbringing as well as his own philosophy and views

on the non-existence of God, the solitary nature of Life and the fearsome dominance

of Death are portrayed in a lot of his films. Notwithstanding the fictional plot

elements, one can trace Bergman’s existential and spiritual angst through those

recurring motifs, which are expressed either in artistic eloquence or in silence.

Ingmar Bergman was a “true auteur”, as David Cook argues, which means

that not only did he direct films, but he also created characters and wrote the scripts

having direct supervision over all aspects of them (647). This is important due to its

making it easier for the viewer to find similar traits between the writer and his

characters. The renowned director reproduced many of his childhood memories in

front of the camera, capturing within them a deeply religious environment and stern

discipline imposed by father figures in matters like understanding hierarchy,

obedience and faith in God. However, Bergman himself has described that from a

young age he stopped believing in God, perceiving Him, at that time, as a ruthless

made-up tyrant (The Magic Lantern 80). Later, mature thinking took the place of

teenage rebellion and the “holiness” which he was brought up to personify as God, he

attributed to Man, as stated in the documentary made by Marie Nyreröd (00:38:05-

00:38:12). Essentially, Bergman seems to have been afflicted for a while with what he

calls “God’s silence”, which became the title for his trilogy and a repeated notion in

many more films throughout his career (qtd. in Gado 266).

The early 1960’s trilogy, which consists of Through a Glass Darkly, Winter

Light and The Silence, is an example of what Bergman meant through the concept of
God’s absence. Especially in the second film, in which a priest struggles with his

somber realizations about himself and his lack of faith, and the third film, which

shows two radically different sisters in a stark, godless, incomprehensible reality, one

can trace the same kind of doubt, anguish and guilt about latent feelings with regard to

God’s non-existence. Additionally, Bergman in his interview to Marie Nyreröd

identifies with one of the characters in his film Private Confessions named Jacob, who

insists that the “holiness of Man” rather than “[a] Father in the sky” or “[a] God with

hands and with a heart and vigilant eyes”, brings sincerity to the surface and guides

people on how to act righteously.