I have always had the ability to attach my demons to my chariot. Ingmar Bergman More Quotes by Ingmar Bergman More Quotes From Ingmar Bergman Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream. Ingmar Bergman reflection dream directors The older I become, the more I think about my mother. Ingmar Bergman mother-son mom mother I supply my own angels and demons. I exist on a stony beach, which lowers itself in waves toward a protective ocean. A dog barks; a child cries; the day sinks and becomes night. You can never scare me. No human being will be able to scare me ever again. I have a prayer that I repeat to myself in absolute stillness: May a wind come to stir up the ocean and the stifling twilight. May a bird come from water out there and explode the silence with its call. Ingmar Bergman prayer dog beach For me, in those days, the great question was: Does God exist? Or doesn't God exist? Can we, by an attitude of faith, attain to a sense of community and a better world? Or, if God doesn't exist, what do we do then? What does our world look like then? In none of this was there the least political colour. Ingmar Bergman our-world community attitude Today we say all art is political. But I'd say all art has to do with ethics. Which after all really comes to the same thing. It's a matter of attitudes. Ingmar Bergman political attitude art I was a very unpleasant young man. If I met the young Ingmar today I'd say, 'You're very talented and I'll try to help you, but I don't want anything else to do with you. Ingmar Bergman trying character men A film causes me so many worries and such a lot of reactions that I have to love it in order to get over it and past it. Ingmar Bergman worry order past The theater is like a faithful wife. The film is the great adventure - the costly, exacting mistress. Ingmar Bergman faithful wife adventure I liked Truffaut a lot, I've felt a lot of admiration for his way to address the audience, and his storytelling.... La nuit américaine is adorable, and another film I like to see is L'enfant sauvage, with its fine humanism. Ingmar Bergman addresses adorable way I want knowledge. Not belief. Not surmise. But knowledge. I want God to put out His hand, show His face, speak to me. Ingmar Bergman faces want hands I am conscious about myself and everything, and then suddenly, or slowly, my conscious fades out. Switches off. And it's not existing, and that's a marvelous feeling. That from existing, I am not existing. And at that moment, nothing can happen to me. Ingmar Bergman moments conscious feelings Either I did away with that fear through writing, or in the course of writing, I discovered it was no longer so intrusive or threating. The bottom line is, it's gone. Ingmar Bergman lines gone writing People ask what are my intentions with my films - my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer. Ingmar Bergman answers giving people Artistic license sneered through the thin fabric. Ingmar Bergman fabric artistic license Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased making films, and Steven Soderbergh - they all have something to say, they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another great couple of examples of the strength of American cinema is American Beauty and Magnolia. Ingmar Bergman couple attitude directors I think I'm Swedish because I like to live here on this island. You can't imagine the loneliness and isolation in this country. In that way, I'm very Swedish - I don't dislike to be alone. Ingmar Bergman loneliness country thinking I think I have made just one picture that I really like. Ingmar Bergman just-one made thinking I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon's head, an angel, a devil - or perhaps a saint - out of stone. Ingmar Bergman dragons angel artist When you die, you are extinguished. From being you will be transformed to non-being. A god does not necessarily dwell among our capricious atoms. Ingmar Bergman capricious atoms doe The film medium is some sort of magic. I think also it's a magic that every frame comes and stands still for a fraction of a second and then it darkens. A half part of the time when you see a picture you sit in complete darkness. Isn't that fascinating? That is magic. Ingmar Bergman magic darkness thinking
