front cover of Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
A Reference Guide
Birgitta Steene
Amsterdam University Press, 2006
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.
[more]

front cover of Strindberg on Drama and Theatre
Strindberg on Drama and Theatre
August Strindberg
Amsterdam University Press, 2008
Painter, photographer, alchemist—but ultimately, playwright, and outstanding playwright at that—the figure of August Strindberg (1849–1912) towers over late-nineteenth century drama. Strindberg’s electrifying theatrical work resonated with the public in his own lifetime, and continues to impress audiences around the globe today. A restless innovator of various dramatic forms, he served as a source of inspiration for legendary figures like Eugene O’Neill, Samuel Beckett, and Ingmar Bergman, and proved seminal to the development of modern drama as we know it. Though Strindberg’s preface to Miss Julie and his prefatory note to A Dream Play are well known, Strindberg’s frequent commentary on drama and theatre in general are less familiar, as are most of his plays. Strindberg on Drama and Theatre presents the most important of these comments, chronologically assembled and annotated, many of them published for the first time in English. An essential resource for those interested in one of our most modern playwrights, as well as a thrilling read for the dedicated theatre lover, Strindberg on Drama and Theatre provides a fascinating look at one of our most powerful dramatic voices.
 
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter