Liv Ullmann discusses her long personal and professional relationship with Ingmar Bergman in intimate documentary
LIV AND INGMAR: PAINFULLY CONNECTED (Dheerai Alkolkar, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
December 13-19
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.livandingmar.com
Two-time Oscar-nominated Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann intimately and poetically discusses her five-decade-long personal and professional relationship with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman in Dheerai Alkolkar’s beautifully rendered Liv & Ingmar. Ullmann returns to Bergman’s house on Faro Island as she openly and honestly shares details of their long involvement, which began in 1965 when they were filming Persona; Ullmann was twenty-five, Bergman forty-six. Each was married and ended up leaving their spouse for what became a tumultuous five-year affair, after which they remained friends and colleagues, ultimately making twelve films together between 1966 and 2004. Alkolkar and cinematographer Hallvard Bræin zoom in on Ullmann’s expressive face as her memories go from love, loneliness, rage, and pain to longing and friendship. Alkolkar intersperses related film clips, behind-the-scenes footage, home movies, and snapshots as Ullmann walks along the beach and reads from her 1977 memoir, Changing; the film also features Samuel Fröler in voice-over reading from Bergman’s letters and autobiography, The Magic Lantern. Among the works featured prominently are Shame and Scenes from a Marriage, which eerily evoke Ullmann and Bergman’s real-life relationship. Liv & Ullmann serves as a lovely coda to this lasting partnership, which continues in its own unique way even after Bergman’s death in 2007 at the age of eighty-nine. In conjunction with the theatrical release of the film at Lincoln Center, the Film Society will also be screening nine works starring Ullmann and directed by Bergman: Shame, The Passion of Anna, Cries and Whispers, Face to Face, Scenes from a Marriage, Saraband, Hour of the Wolf, Persona, and Autumn Sonata.