Before Ingmar Became Bergman

On 2 June 2005 an exhibition devoted to Swedish film and stage director Ingmar Bergman’s unique artistic career opened in the State Hermitage’s Youth Center. The exhibition entitled is an entertaining presentation of the first steps of a young man towards universal fame and glory. It is a tribute to his boundless youthful Weltanschauung. This exhibition provides a foretaste of Bergman’s professional career in cinema, theater and literature. It tells us about the years Before Ingmar Became Bergman, while at the same time making reference to his film classics which were based on his early impressions and also to his late master works made when he was in his 80’s but remained highly active as in the past.

The exhibition covers the period between 1938 and 1946. The earliest materials date from 1938 and the exhibition ends with his first full-length art film Crisis, made in 1946. This very early period in Bergman’s career is being presented to a wide audience for the first time. The epilogue is Bergman’s latest film, Sarabanda, and his latest stage production of Ghosts by Ibsen.

Material taken from the archives of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation for display in the exhibition: includes scripts, working notes, quotations, sketches and photographs relating to his first stage productions and films: Frenzy (Hets) the first script, and Crisis (Kris) - which marked Bergman’s debut as film director; a film projector which Ingmar received as a Christmas present when he was 10 and which became his favorite toy; a short, 10-minute film which he directed entitled Karin’s Face (Karins Ansikte), which was based on photographs of his mother from family albums.

The exhibition deals with five basic themes:
Bergman’s school years, a period reflected in his first work in cinematography, namely the scenario for the film Frenzy;
the start of his career as stage director, when his experience was brought into his first plays and we often see his alter ego playing the main role;
the relations between the young Bergman and his family, which we can later trace in his family dramas and the portraits of women in his films as well as in his literary and autobiographical work;
the real landscapes and small villages of Sweden, which became part of Bergman’s biography and were shown in the “imaginary topography” of his films;
and an epilogue devoted to the aging director’s bidding farewell to the cinema and theater and touching upon an eventual and inevitable farewell to life.

On 16 and 30 June documentary films by Mary Nyrerod will be shown in the Youth Center at 18.00. In these documentaries the great producer sums up his life and work. The films also present a great deal of material from personal archives which was never seen before.

The showing of the exhibition in St Petersburg has been made possible by support from the General Consulate of Sweden, the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, and the Swedish Institute.

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At the press-conference

May Andersson, General Consul of Sweden
in St Petersburg

Katherine Farago, Guest of honor, film assistant to Ingmar Bergman
for many years

At the exhibition