The films of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman are renowned for their largely spare and stark aesthetic, an existential framework, and plots driven by a fascination with death and the moral torments of the human soul. Birgitta Steene offers here in Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide an essential and unparalleled resource on the life and work of Bergman. Plumbing the depths of these trademark Bergman themes, Steene traces as well the indelible mark he left on world cinema through his other cinematographic work and writings.

Over the decades, Bergman's stature and image have evolved in fascinating ways—an iconoclast of the 1950s, a bourgeois traditionalist of the 1960s, and an icon in the 1980s. This exhaustive compendium considers each phase of his career, exploring his deep and vast oeuvre in all its controversy and complexity, and analyzes his intriguing and unique motifs such as his efforts to expose dead conventions and his portrayals of Woman as the archetype of humanity. As well as providing a detailed account of Bergman's life and chronicling his career as a filmmaker and theater director, including his work for television, Steene offers transcripts of some of the numerous interviews and conversations she conducted with Bergman. Writings by and about Bergman and a detailed chronological survey of his film and theatrical work completes this eminently readable and thoroughly researched volume. A wide-ranging and groundbreaking work of film history, Ingmar Bergman is the definitive reference for scholars of the Scandinavian master.

Birgitta Steene is professor emerita in cinema studies and Scandinavian literature at the University of Washington and the recipient of the Honoris causa doctorate from the University of Uppsala for her research on Strindberg and Bergman. She is former president of the International Association of Scandinavian Studies and the current editor of Strindbergiana yearbook.

 

— Lloyd Michaels, Allegheny College

— Thomas Bredsdorff, Politiken

— Laura Kern, Film Comment