Ingmar Bergman 100 -- July 14, 2018

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Director Ingmar Bergman was born 100 years ago today, on 14-July-1918. Back in the 1970's, when I went to a lot of foreign films and revivals at the Lumiere, the Bridge, the Surf, the Golden Gateway, the Parkside, and many other houses in and around San Francisco, I didn't see many films by Ingmar Bergman. Perhaps I had bad timing, or perhaps Bergman was considered old fashioned.

Thinking about the Bergman movies that I have seen, Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Autumn Sonata, Fanny and Alexander, Smiles of a Summer Night and others, I can't say that I have always enjoyed them, in the sense that they gave me pleasure, but I have always learned things about people and cinema. The happiest moment I can remember was in The Magic Flute, with the throwaway shot of the dragon walking down the hall backstage.