(brays)
♪♪ (women vocalizing)
BERGMAN: April, 1928.
My God, help Dad.
Dear God, you can do anything.
So please make Dad well.
Make me calm.
God, I beg you, help me. And make Dad well.
God in heaven,
amen.
DIARY
In ten minutes, it will be 11:30 PM.
All the candles are burning.
Everything is so beautiful.
I feel sad.
I want to write everything down that happened to me in 1929.
I didn't do well at school.
Failed three subjects.
Dad fell sick.
I traveled alone to my aunt in Germany.
And Dad died.
My friend Maude died. Grandpa died.
Uncle Amandus, Aunt Jenny and a cousin died in an accident.
That's all I remember.
All I wish for now is a happier new year.
What will the new year bring?
MAN: New York...
(man speaking foreign language)
BERGMAN: I am Ingrid.
This is my story.
Looking back on my life, who will I see?
What will be left?
I've always saved everything.
Filled all kinds of boxes and suitcases.
So I'll always have my memories with me.
Well, I started off in Sweden.
Then I came to America.
My American period was ten years in Hollywood.
Then I went to Italy — eight years in Italy.
Then I went to Paris and lived there for 20 years.
And now I live in London. It's interesting because...
- But do you feel without roots? - Yes.
- Because of... Do you? - Yeah, I don't want any roots.
- Why? - (chuckles)
I want to be free. (laughing)
- You don't think they're necessary? - No.
BERGMAN: Only a few members of my family knew I was leaving.
My friend Mollie and darling Petter waved me off from Bromma.
I flew to London, then sailed to the Hollywood dream factory.
I signed up for five years with Selznick International Pictures,
United Artists, Hollywood.
Darling Mollie,
you were so sweet, waving like two mice at Bromma.
Thank you for coming, Mollie.
You helped us ease the pain of saying good-bye.
This trip is an incredible experience.
From Bromma to Hollywood.
Look after Pia and Petter.
Last night, a man at the table said to me,
"You'll never be an actress. You're too tall."
I said to myself,
"He knows nothing about me."
MAN: Spring has arrived in Råsunda, at the Swedish cinema studios...
BERGMAN: Today I was a film extra.
It felt wonderful passing those gates.
It felt like walking on holy ground.
Everyone was talking about theater and films.
It was my first time, but I hope I'll get to do it many more times.
WOMAN: Do you have the photo?
She's sticking out of the line
And that always touched me. You could already see
that this is a child that, you know, lost all her family.
But you can see already that —
(sighs) Life is great. It's full of adventure.
MAN: You went to theater school. How did you end up in cinema?
BERGMAN: At the end of my first year at theater school,
during the summer holidays, I recited poems to Karin Swanström,
and she hired me for the film Munkbrogreven.
I suppose you'll be back late?
No, just going out for some fresh air. Why?
Take the front door key.
So you don't wake up The Beast if you come back late.
Thanks. Evening.
Good night.
BERGMAN: I left that splendid theater school to enter the world of film.
I should feel grateful to have been on stage so young.
But I love the freedom I feel in front of the camera.
I hope I've not made a mistake, and that one day I'll be a great actress.
Can I say that you look pretty this evening?
Am I not pretty every evening?
Sure. But there is something extraordinary tonight.
BERGMAN: There's a rumor I'm the biggest talent around.
My classmates have no work, and the studios are fighting for me.
It scares me to think about it.
I hope I don't disappoint them.
I've made ten films in five years.
Major roles — Intermezzo, Swedenhielms and Dollar.
I hope I've not become vain.
I'm lucky to have Petter.
What would I be without him?
My sweet darling, my everything on earth, my one and only love.
Only five hours before I see you, and 11 days until our wedding.
How will I cope?
If only I could kiss you, really kiss you, time and time again.
Say you'll never leave me.
I'll never leave you.
BERGMAN: I never had the intention of staying in Sweden.
That I knew since the beginning.
It was too far away and too small a country.
I wanted to go to big places, and I had in mind...
I knew I was going to go out —
I wanted desperately to get out in the world.
- You look nice. - Easy for her. She's doing well.
What did you say?
- You've got a good position. - Say that again. I have what?
Are you gonna worry us too?
What do you mean? I'm sick of my work. Every day, eight hours of drawing...
BERGMAN: It was just a question of to go to a new country
and work in a strange language.
A language that was not mine.
That was the little bridge that would bring me over.
BERGMAN: Lots of people were scared.
Not just in the studio, everywhere.
My German colleagues were worried about what was going on in the country.
Petter met me after the shoot. We set off on a trip around Europe.
I always have my camera with me.
I love to film.
I got that from Dad.
He filmed me. Now I film the world.
Sometimes Petter films, but it's mostly me.
September 22, 1938.
Petter and I have had a little girl.
We want to call her Pia —
Petter, Ingrid, Aron.
The heart of the film world had contacted me a couple of times,
but this time I accepted.
David O. Selznick, the producer of Gone with the Wind,
wants me to be in a new version of my big success Intermezzo.
Selznick's agent here, Kay Brown,
found a diva who'd just given birth.
She said they'd wait however long it took, as long as I still want to go to America.
You bet I do.
America. At last.
I was driven to Selznick's house. Here I'm to stay.
His wife, Irene, greeted me.
Then David Selznick arrived.
He sat, looked at me, praised my English, then left.
The Selznicks threw a party. I was guest of honor.
I sat there alone, in my old pink dress with puffed sleeves.
It is very elegant.
I watched people arriving.
Clark Gable, Joan Bennett, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper.
I was so happy I couldn't speak.
To think that I, a girl from Stockholm,
was here, surrounded by film stars.
MAN: Selznick, 13.
MAN #2: Quiet, please.
I have hopes of winning a scholarship.
I see.
They have difficult examinations.
I have taken mine. (chuckles) Just today.
- Today? - Yeah
Well, this is a great occasion. What are we drinking this for?
Waiter, bring champagne. The best vintage of the best brand in your cellar.
- Champagne? - Of course.
To drink to your future as an artist. You're quite right.
You don't want to be anybody's shadow.
- But I didn't say that. - I know you didn't. I'm saying it for you.
You must set the world on fire.
Ah, you are laughing at me.
(laughs)
Shouldn't one laugh at the sight of bright, young confidence?
Oh, here comes the champagne.
And I'm not used to it.
MAN #2: Cut.
BERGMAN: Dear Mollie,
I've met two fantastic women who will help me in Hollywood.
Ruth Roberts, a voice coach, is going to teach me to speak perfect English.
And Irene Selznick,
who's helping me understand this strange but incredibly exciting environment.
Kiss Pia for me. I miss her so much.
I'm coming home after the shoot.
BERGMAN: I had the fortune of meeting Ruth the first day on the set.
And she was an absolute excellent teacher for the English language.
And then, being of Swedish descent, understood maybe my character
and knew how to show me America,
how to teach me, not only the language,
but maybe the feeling and the thoughts, and, you know...
I am so grateful to her, because she has shaped me — (chuckles)
to what I am today very much.
A great deal of her is in me.
From Sweden, you took, uh — Your first husband went with you to —
From Intermezzo, I went back to Sweden to do the picture I had signed up to do.
And then the war started and Selznick asked me to rush over.
I took my little girl with me.
He stayed on in case he had to maybe go in to the war, be needed.
And then as Sweden didn't get into the war, he came over later.
BERGMAN: I am so happy we're all together again.
All together in America.
WOMAN: I didn't go to Hollywood with my mother.
I stayed with my father in Rochester, New York.
He was going to medical school
while my mother was making movies in Hollywood.
And she would occasionally come to visit,
which must have taken a long time on the train.
Uh, however she came.
And I do remember she came, but she came for visits.
BERGMAN: I go to Rochester at the end of every shoot,
and my husband comes here when he's on holiday.
Pia lives with both of us. Sometimes with me, sometimes with him,
but I stayed nearly a year in Rochester.
I was there last winter.
January 11, 1941.
I would've given anything to do Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Will I ever get a better part than the little whore Ivy Peterson?
Or a better director than Victor Fleming?
I've never been so happy.
I feel like I'm flying.
Do you want to look at my side?
Well, don't you want me to?
You aren't half a fast one, aren't you?
BERGMAN: I live a solitary life when I'm working. I live at the studio.
I haven't had a day off in 14 weeks.
I don't have time to go home to Rochester.
Pia is very happy with her dad.
It's another six weeks before the end of the shoot.
I won't have seen Pia for six months.
But one can't have everything.
PIA: Then we moved to Benedict Canyon.
And that was the first sort of home that I remember.
And, uh, we had dogs.
I played with dogs a lot.
BERGMAN: Dear Ruth,
I'm very busy, as usual.
A home, a husband, children — It should be enough for any woman.
I thought I'd get a new role soon after Jekyll and Hyde.
But I've had nothing in four months. It's two months too long.
I think about every day that's wasted.
Only half of me is alive.
The other half is packed away in a suitcase, suffocating.
What should I do?
Hollywood, July 5, 1942.
My dearest Mollie,
At last I'm working again.
I'm working on a film called Casablanca.
An exciting film.
Humphrey Bogart is the male lead, if you know who he is.
He's interesting, not the typical "glamour boy."
A lot of men have gone off to war.
It's difficult for producers to find actors, cameramen and directors.
How can this madness continue like this?
My German's a little rusty.
It's the Gestapo.
They say they expect to be in Paris tomorrow.
They're telling us how to act when they come marching in.
(scoffs) With the whole world crumbling, we pick this time to fall in love.
Yeah, it's pretty bad timing.
Where were you, say, ten years ago?
Ten years ago.
(chuckles) Let's see.
I was having a brace put on my teeth.
Where were you?
Looking for a job.
BERGMAN: Things are good for me, Mollie. I'm so happy.
They write and say such lovely things about me, I could cry for joy.
I've everything I always wanted. It's incredible when your dreams come true.
MALE ANNOUNCER: From Jennifer Jones, previous year's winner,
to Ingrid Bergman, for her performance in MGM's Gaslight.
Congratulations, Ingrid.
Your artistry has won our votes, and your graciousness has won our hearts.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for my Oscar,
and I hope that in the future I'll be worthy of it.
(audience applauding)
BERGMAN: June 14, 1945.
I'm going on a big adventure.
I'm off to Europe.
I'll travel around, entertaining American troops in France, Italy and Germany.
MALE ANNOUNCER: While the allies are deciding the fate of Germany,
the great shattered city of Berlin is slowly coming back to life.
The people of the capital move about the ruined streets in growing numbers.
Marketplaces, once packed with food,
now have only the rations of dehydrated potatoes.
Two and a half pounds to last ten days.
MAN (speaking French): People are strolling again down the Champs-Élysées
to the Place de la Concorde.
The French are free in a free Paris.
MALE ANNOUNCER: Beautiful Ingrid Bergman snaps time between pictures,
to show up in person in Berlin and elsewhere.
MAN: When Ingrid Bergman comes to Berlin, she performs only for the Americans.
Germans are not admitted.
BERGMAN: Dear Ruth, I've met someone who means a lot to me.
He's Robert Capa, a famous war photographer.
We traveled from Paris to Berlin together.
I've fallen in love.
Write to me that you'll be kind and heartbreakingly beautiful,
and that you'll chill a bottle of champagne for March 15.
Don't sign hundreds of contracts that will make you less of a person
and more of an institution.
You must be careful.
Success is more dangerous and corrupting than misfortune.
I've just called you, my darling Swedish girl in Hollywood.
I love you truly.
MALE ANNOUNCER: Arrivals at Heathrow.
Film star Ingrid Bergman and director Alfred Hitchcock come in from Hollywood.
Pathé's reporter and Hitch swap jobs.
Our reporter directs and Hitchcock puts the questions.
- This is your first time in England? - No. No.
You will be happy to know I spent my honeymoon in England.
Tell me, I think that the diet in England is gonna do you a lot of good.
- Doesn't do me any good, I might tell you. - No?
- It's gonna be good for you? - I don't worry about it.
But I worry about you a bit.
Well, thank you very much, and please don't worry.
MALE ANNOUNCER: The Swedish-born actress wearing no makeup,
yet looking lovelier than Hollywood —
BERGMAN: Monday morning. Everyone's tired.
November, 1945.
Mollie, my friend.
We're hard at work on Hitchcock's Notorious
He's so talented. Every day with him is pure happiness.
He brings out the best in me, things I never imagined I possessed.
He mixes serious with humor, comedy with drama.
I thought Cary Grant would be conceited and stuck-up,
but he's one of the nicest costars I've ever worked with.
There's one more drink left apiece.
Shame about the ice.
- What is? - Gone
- Who's gone? - The ice
Why do you like that song?
(laughing)
Because it's a lot of hooey.
He taught her how to be... to lighten up.
Because, as Hitchcock would say,
Ingrid took films more seriously than life. (laughs)
So I think that was true.
So I think he had that influence.
BERGMAN: Dear Ruth,
Petter knows what's going on between me and Capa.
I haven't denied it.
Bob sometimes comes to Hollywood for work.
We meet, but I know he'll never tie himself down.
He's always off somewhere.
His Hungarian influence has been good for me.
I feel it has changed me inside.
We're drinking our last bottles of champagne.
I'm breaking off a precious part of my life.
But one learns.
We're performing the operation so well,
both patients will live happily ever after.
PIA: She loved photographers and camera people.
Even Capa. That was how she experienced love.
She was madly in love with Victor Fleming.
That was a huge, passionate love affair.
And that whole thing went through the lens and the making of the movie.
Movie was over? That's it. Good-bye.
And then I think she learned from her father —
This is my own theory.
That he would take photographs of her.
And the beloved father — she'd already lost the mother —
The beloved father's on the other side of the camera,
saying, "Smile. Look at me. Tilt your head."
Love would be coming right through that lens,
and she would look into that lens at her dear, dear father.
And she would flirt with him,
and she would play with him,
and she would pose with him.
She was completely comfortable with the camera lens.
She already knew how to pose.
My father — poor fellow. He was a brain surgeon.
(laughing)
He would — I mean, it was a different, uh, world.
And I suppose it was no accident that when he married again, he married a doctor.
And they could speak the same language.
MALE ANNOUNCER: Hollywood's latest supercolossal movie opens in New York.
Film fans jam the streets for a glimpse of star Ingrid Bergman,
scheduled to attend the benefit premiere.
Next, Ms. Bergman, with the film's director, Victor Fleming.
Broadway gives Hollywood's most ballyhooed new picture
a real Hollywood welcome.
BERGMAN: I was tiny when I first read Joan of Arc.
Then I started collecting books, medals, statuettes.
I went to France to see the places she had been.
I think it was because of her youth and...
her courage.
The way she obeyed those voices. It's very moving.
I have always been puzzled
by this interest that my mother had in Joan of Arc.
Because it started very young.
She did it in the theater in New York.
She of course made a film of it.
It was something within the story,
I think, of a young girl who hears a voice that says
she's going to do remarkable things.
That she's going to go into the world and be amazing.
I don't think it actually had a religious significance, or something like that.
I think it was more
a poor peasant girl who has a calling
to be heroic.
(no audible dialogue)
BERGMAN: It's like a bird of passage has always lived inside me.
Since I was tiny, I've longed for something new and different.
I have seen so much, yet it is never enough.
I've tried to put up with daily sadness and be happy.
I never understood the kind of happiness I was longing for.
When Petter and I were apart, during his studies,
I wanted a house with a pool and all those things the stars have.
We finally got a house. We fixed it up the way we wanted.
But then that bird of passage started to flex its wings again.
Francesco! Francesco!
Francesco!
(shouting)
(gunfire)
Mama! Mama!
(shouting, crying)
BERGMAN: I saw Rome, Open City in Hollywood.
I liked it very much. It stayed with me.
But I didn't know how to contact Rossellini.
I thought it might be a fluke.
It's possible to do a great, magnificent film, followed by a flop.
So I waited until one day, in New York,
I saw another of Rossellini's films.
It had the same effect. I realized he truly was a great artist.
So I wrote the letter saying I wanted to work with him.
BERGMAN: Dear Mr. Rossellini,
I saw your films Open City and Paisan and enjoyed them so much.
If you ever need a Swedish actress who speaks very good English,
a little German, who can make herself understood in French
and can only say "ti amo" in Italian,
then I'll come and make a film with you.
Ingrid Bergman.
BERGMAN: It was a combination of passion, that I fell in love with a man
that was so different from any other man that I had ever known.
And it was my boredom in Hollywood.
The more I worked there, the more I wanted to break out and do something different.
I wanted to do something that they didn't expect me to do.
I wanted to leave Hollywood,
because I felt that there was another way of making movies,
and I was just dying to try my wings.
Could I also come into that type of picture?
Could I become as real as that?
(no audible dialogue)
INGRID BERGMAN SHOOTS ON TOP OF A VOLCANO
BERGMAN: April, 1949.
We're filming on a tiny volcanic island called Stromboli,
far away from the newshounds and paparazzi.
It's so beautiful here.
So peaceful.
If Hollywood could see me.
The whole island is involved in the shoot,
as extras or actors, others help the film crew.
BERGMAN: When we were on our way to Stromboli — We were driving down.
He stopped at the beach in Salerno and said, "Sit here a minute in the car.
I'll go down and pick up a leading man for you."
He went down on the beach and he watched all the fishermen.
And then he couldn't decide between two of them, so he took both of them.
And they thought that they were going to be be carrying things,
you know, just work in the crew.
Then he said, "I've picked out two boys for you.
Now we'll study them when we get to Stromboli
and see which one is the more intelligent.
It was awfully hard to find one that was taller than you."
(no audible dialogue)
(groans)
Mmm.
BERGMAN: In my days — in those days, it was a shock
to leave a husband and a child, and fall in love with a man,
and openly show the world that she had fallen in love
and not deny the baby to be born.
I was a danger for American womanhood.
Even my voice over the radio was supposed to be dangerous.
Of course I was hurt.
But I didn't think what I had done was so much other people's business.
I thought that you should look upon an actress as an actress.
What she does on the screen or on the stage, that's what you pay for.
And that's what you get. If you don't like the performance, you can walk out.
But to criticize people's private life I thought was wrong.
To such an extent that even a senator in Washington gets up on the floor.
Out of Ingrid Bergman's ashes will grow a better Hollywood.
I was stunned. I was told she wasn't coming home.
I was stunned. I couldn't understand
why she thought the life she had there was so terrible
that she would leave me to live there, and leave my father.
I thought he was very wonderful.
So I was stunned.
BERGMAN: Darling,
I wish I could fly home on a big bird instead of writing.
Instead I'll talk to your photo here in front of me.
My dear Pia,
our life is going to change.
It's hard to tell you this because our life together was wonderful.
Never forget that I love Daddy and I love you.
We belong together. That will never change.
But sometimes we want to live with someone else.
It ends with a separation. Or a divorce.
It happens often. But it's painful.
Write to me, and I'll write back.
I hope time will pass quickly and we'll see each other soon.
Mama.
Petter.
Would you send me a few of my things?
My parents' portraits... I miss them terribly.
I love the one of Pia too.
One day, I'll ask you for all my treasures.
I've lots of room. But that can wait.
The only problem will be our 16 mm film.
Maybe you'll lend it to me, so I can see what I looked like in my youth?
(no audible dialogue)
(chattering)
MAN: Okay. This is take one with the whole —
Rossellini children.
Okay? Are you ready?
For me, if I had to define —
One word to define Mama? I would say charm.
She was the most charming person I've ever...
Warm and funny and...
Mmm.
I also felt that when she entered a room she lit up the room.
- But she was humble too. - Yeah.
This kind of quiet courage that she had all her life.
Making all these difficult choices. Changing life all the time.
From Sweden to America. Then to Italy. Then to France. Then to England.
I mean, changing everything.
Every time starting again — a new life, new friends, new families.
- You have to have some courage to do that. - A lot of energy too.
- Energy, yes. - (laughing)
Yeah, when she walked: boom, boom, boom. And you had to run after her.
I know.
She was perseverant and very sure of her career.
- She was not a secure person. - No, no.
I think she actually, as a lot of actors, she was very shy.
And so when she could be someone else, it was a relief to her.
- That's what she liked about acting. - Absolutely.
That she knew where the story was going.
She knew what to say because she had the text.
And she could overcome this incredible feeling of shyness.
I wonder if her throwing herself in life like that and living life so fully
is because she saw these two parents that didn't have a chance to —
Her father, yes, but her mother really didn't have a chance to live, literally.
She just had a child and she died.
It could be that on an unconscious level, to say,
"I will live every moment of my life as intensely as I can."
BERGMAN: I'll always keep this diary and hide it away.
I'm 14 years old, two months and three days.
I was born on August 29, 1915.
My parents were Friedel Adler and Justus Bergman.
They baptized me Ingrid.
I was spirited, boisterous, stubborn and wild.
My mother died in 1918, of jaundice.
I have no recollection of her. Only photos.
My father died 12 years after my mother, on July 29, 1929, of cancer.
I'm head of my school's theater club.
I like dancing and being popular.
Yes, I was a very sad child, and very lonely.
And I think that is how I saved myself
was to invent the characters that I could talk to,
because I was terribly shy in school and shy with anybody.
And if I had all these imaginary characters around me,
I could talk to them, and they answered back just what I wanted them to say.
And that is how I became an actress, not knowing what I was doing was acting.
I was so happy to have gotten out of reality
and come into my world of imagination.
There it is.
That's the house.
Slow down. We can't go in.
So we'll have to look at it from out here.
Let's stop here, on the right.
Ingrid was like a big sister to me.
I was her little sister.
That was how we felt to each other.
She took me under her wing straightaway.
I think it was because she left Pia in America.
She liked talking to someone the same age as Pia.
Then of course I grew up, became an adult,
and we became good friends with each other.
We had a very strong friendship.
(no audible dialogue)
One day, my mother said to me,
"You should go to Fregene because Ingrid Bergman's there."
A cousin of mine had a villa there.
My uncle Roberto and Ingrid were hiding in that villa
as there were too many paparazzi in the hotels.
I was in the garden, waiting for them to call me.
I was looking for pine kernels, you know.
I was sitting on the ground.
Suddenly, I saw two feet.
Her feet.
I went...
It was her. She was smiling at me.
That's how we met.
It made her laugh that the first thing I met was her feet.
MAN: When was your last time in front of a camera?
- BERGMAN: It was for Stromboli - You said you'd never do another film.
BERGMAN: I said that because it was a terrible time.
But... all wounds heal.
MAN: I understand.
BERGMAN: I want to work again.
I'd rather be lost with them than to be saved alone.
BERGMAN: Did I find the reality in the movies in Italy that I was looking for?
- MAN: Yes. - I did. I certainly did.
But I had then been trained for ten years in America,
and so many years in Sweden of working in a different way.
And having a script and a dialogue
and rehearsing time and all that.
I was very upset by many things I had to do that were all improvisations.
And just make the dialogue up yourself. Well, I couldn't.
And he said, "Well, you do this dialogue every day."
I mean, there was a cocktail party in Europe '51,
and he said, "Make up the conversation,
the way you talk when people come into the home and have drinks.
Why should I sit and write that down?"
But I couldn't. You know, I didn't know what to say.
I realized that I was not that type of an actress that could do that.
MAN: Here we are.
BERGMAN: I mean, these pictures were not at all bad pictures.
It was just that people didn't like them.
I didn't think Stromboli was a bad movie at all.
I thought it was a very touching movie. I thought it was a wonderful story.
But people were so taken by the private scandal
that they were against it from the beginning.
(no audible dialogue)
Mama took always a lot of photographs and films.
She was photographed by her dad, so I think —
It was more than home movies. He was creating a continuity,
creating a sense of family and a celebration.
And it was always with this eye of humor and warmth.
She lost her father and mother so early
that these photographs became particularly important for her,
in the sense that they symbolized her roots.
I have hours of film. Sometimes it's boring.
All parents film their children for three hours doing the same thing.
But her films are funny and very touching.
Her father gave her the importance of memories.
The fact she didn't have a brother or sister was sad for her.
Then she lost her father, who she loved dearly, so soon, so young.
He must have been fantastic, as he adored her.
He was very affectionate, present, and he adored her.
That was very important for Mama.
MAN: The Swedish-Italian children of Joan of Arc are here.
Roberto Rossellini has come with Ingrid Bergman to Stockholm
where she will play Joan of Arc.
The play is on tour and they're arriving from Barcelona.
The Rossellini children aren't very interested in their mother's stake.
They prefer Swedish wooden horses.
ROBERTO: For me was mostly a torture to see her on screen, instead of a pleasure.
And I'll tell you why. Because, especially on stage,
when she was working on the theater.
Um, she was, before going on stage, she was suffering so much.
She was so nervous, sweating, that for a child, you feel that.
And I was really kind of panicking, saying what is she doing.
And then, for an example, uh,
the first time I see her on stage, it was during, uh —
when she was doing Joan of Arc.
And so, as I tell you, in the beginning, so nervous before going on stage.
Then you go on stage, a very boring play for a child.
And at the end, they burn your mother on stage,
with all the public enthusiastic of that.
It was kind of a shock for me. I screamed.
(shouts)
BERGMAN: During my 16 years abroad,
I never stopped hoping I'd return to the stage in Sweden.
THE FALL OF A STAR
That hope evaporated.
APPEARING FOR MONEY
BLAZING SPEECH BY INGRID BERGMAN
BERGMAN: Of course an actress must put up with criticism.
I'm not saying the contrary.
Is it because I came back after all those years?
I have known success, fame... I have won awards,
not for my character,
not as a human, not because I'm a nice Swedish person.
I don't think the awards I won were for that,
but for the films I made in America and Italy.
No man is a prophet in his own country. I've come back to Sweden.
It's not the first time someone returns
and discovers that criticism in their own country is harsher than abroad.
BERGMAN: Dearest Ruth,
It's so beautiful here.
Lots and lots of snow.
Once they got used to it, the children loved it.
I have found all my friends.
Fiorella, Roberto's niece, is here with us.
I like her so much. She's like Pia to me.
Roberto isn't here much in Stockholm.
He's planning to shoot in Spain and then in France.
I'd love to work in France.
I hope someone will ask me one day.
I've recently had four offers from America.
A film by Billy Wilder with Gary Cooper.
I'd love to accept, but... not in Hollywood.
Elena and Her Men... It's Ingrid Bergman.
It is Ingrid Bergman acting in a different way than we're used to seeing.
I wanted to film her in a comedy.
I felt she needed it. I thought it was the right time
in her career for her to play comedy.
BERGMAN: Jean and I became very great friends,
and I always wanted to make a movie for him.
And he said, "No, you're too big of a star," he said.
So he said, "But one day you will come down, and I'll be there with a net."
After the movies with Roberto —
all those movies that in those days were not successful and didn't work out,
um, our relationship was naturally strained through that,
and other people came in and wanted to work with me.
And Roberto wouldn't let me work for anybody else.
But then Jean Renoir, whom he had great respect for, came,
my net, and he said, "Could I make a picture with Ingrid?"
He wanted a tragic love story.
One day he said, "I want you to have fun and make people laugh"
And he created Elena
MAN: Jean likes to laugh.
Yes, yes!
- MAN #2: So do you! - Yes, I do.
MAN: Was it easy to work with him as director?
Yes, it's easy, because he loves his actors so much,
and he's so enthusiastic and present.
When he watches us play a scene, he plays it out too.
He's really with us.
Tonight the drinks are on the house!
(French)
It's not very strong. I'm used to vodka. It's much stronger!
- What does vodka smell of? - Nothing!
I prefer red wine! You can drink more!
I think Renoir, um,
taught her about film in general.
About the role of films in society.
Does film have a social responsibility?
Does it have an impact in our society?
Is it there only to distract? Or even that is a very big social impact.
And I think she never thought about it.
She'd always liked just simply acting, being someone else.
So she didn't feel this shyness.
So I think it was with Renoir that she started to think in a different dimension.
And Renoir opened the door to understand my father's film,
or other directors more of that tradition.
Um, of course she was very close to my father.
But I don't think at the end liked so much to work with him
because Father never worked with other actors.
So it was very difficult to work with father, of course.
ROBERTO: Papa went to India in 1956, so he wasn't around.
So we all went to Paris with Mama.
We lived in an enormous suite in the famous Raphael hotel.
Everything was perfect, very luxurious.
The hotel's concierge looked after me.
It was probably unusual, not quite the norm, but still...
It was fun. It was a good time.
You don't complain when you're living in luxury.
BERGMAN: Dear Mollie,
I'm acting on stage here in Paris.
It's a funny play.
Roberto is still filming in India.
My friend Kay Brown has decided to find me a role in an American film.
She has sent me the play Anastasia.
The director Anatole Litvak wants to make it into a film.
Roberto wasn't pleased.
He made a terrible scene and threatened to drive his Ferrari into a tree.
But I've made up my mind.
I must do the kind of films I feel comfortable with.
MAN: Once the cameraman's in position, the stars, Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner,
receive final instructions from the director, Anatole Litvak.
BERGMAN: My director, Anatole Litvak.
He wanted me for the part.
And then came the big struggle with an American company
who were terribly worried.
And Litvak just said, "If I don't get her, I won't do the picture."
ANNOUNCER: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, The Ed Sullivan Show.
Named America's number one TV variety show,
starring the nationally syndicated columnist
at the New York Daily News, Ed Sullivan.
I know that she's a controversial figure.
So it's entirely up to you. If you want her on our show,
drop me a note and let me know.
And if you don't, if you think it shouldn't be done,
you also let me know that too.
Because I say, it is your decision.
And I'd like to get your verdict on it.
I think, as a lot of you think,
that this woman has had seven and a half years.
You know, she's had seven and a half years of time for penance.
Others might not think so, but whatever you think—
(applause)
The envelope, please.
The winner, Ingrid Bergman, in Anastasia.
Feeling it.
Well, it's a privilege to have been asked to be here
in case Ingrid won this award.
And now that she has, it's a privilege to try to thank you for her.
But alas, I have no way of knowing
the exact depth and degree of her emotion
when she finally hears the news that she's received it.
So dear Ingrid, if you can hear me now,
or if you see this televised film,
I want you to know that each of the other nominees
and all the people with whom you worked on Anastasia,
and dear Hitch and Leo McCarey,
and every one of us here tonight and in New York
send you our congratulations, our love,
our admiration and every affectionate thought.
- (applause) - Thank you.
How do you feel, Ms. Bergman, about winning your second Academy Award?
I am happy, happy, happy.
Who wouldn't be?
And it was such an unusually pleasant picture to work on.
Everybody was so helpful, and in every way,
it couldn't have been better
So I'm very grateful.
How are the children feeling about this?
Oh, they were very exited about it.
I don't think they understand what it is all about,
but I couldn't help but mention yesterday that I was hoping to get a statue.
So they came rushing in this morning, asking me if I had received the statue.
They think it's a big one we can put in the garden.
BERGMAN: When the moment came, when I had to face America again,
to arrive alone and say, "Here I am.
And you can throw your stones, or you can accept me again."
I was very, very nervous
because I knew I was going to meet the American audiences, the American press.
MAN: Now to New York, where Ingrid Bergman is seen
paying her first visit to the United States since 1949.
During her stay, she was presented with the New York Film Critics Award
for the best film actress of 1956.
Do you approach this trip with any fear or trepidation
as for your reception here in New York?
No, I didn't. I looked at it as pure fun.
I thought it would be wonderful, because all my life I've done things,
things on a moment's notice like that,
and that's what makes it interesting and exiting.
Looking back on it, do you have any regrets
about anything that you've done the last few years, Ms. Bergman?
No, I have no regrets at all.
I regret the things I didn't do, not what I did.
I have done what I felt like. I have never...
I was given courage, and I was given a sense of adventure.
And that has carried me along.
And what else but a sense of humor and a little bit of common sense.
It's been a very rich life.
ISABELLA: She had no regrets.
I don't think she ever did it, saying, "I don't care about them."
She cared about Hollywood. She loved her friends. She loved her daughter.
She even respected her other husband.
But there was a sense of adventure,
and life was there to be lived in full.
And I don't think she could stop herself.
I was under my father's custody until I was 18.
And my father took me to Europe to see my mother.
Uh, she did not come to the United States to see me.
But he took me to see her in London.
We met in sort of neutral territory, not in Italy.
When I was 18, I went to visit my mother for the first time and stayed with her.
BERGMAN: Irene, darling,
Pia has come to Paris, at last, after five years.
Pia's plane was surrounded by journalists and paparazzi.
But we had a moment to ourselves in the plane.
We were so happy to be together again.
MAN: She's 18 and visiting Rome for the first time.
Since she was ten, she hasn't seen her mother for more than two weeks running.
The three Rossellini children are in Santa Marinella.
Roberto Rossellini is filming in India.
The tabloids there are very busy with him.
Ingrid looks very happy.
She's a good mother, a loving wife, devoted to her family.
BERGMAN: The youngsters dance on the terrace.
I pretend I'm old and lie down.
Not because I feel old, but it's part of the game.
Anyway, I'm so happy. I prefer to be alone.
It's turned out better than we hoped for.
Pia likes it here. She's so open. She likes everything.
She's kind to the younger ones.
The first day, she said she wouldn't come back next summer.
But the second day, she said, "Why stay in America when it's so wonderful here?"
We try to make each day like a party.
I can't tell you how happy I am.
MAN: The proceedings between Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini...
BERGMAN: Dear Ruth, I experienced such happiness with Roberto,
but such misery too.
I tried so hard to live with him.
But I know my life has changed.
He has left me.
He's going to have a baby with a woman in India.
I feel strangely relieved.
Imagine a child going through his parents' divorce
but amplified by dozens of photographers.
It was difficult, very hard.
I have photos of us children
taken by the paparazzi, besieging the car,
and we're clearly terrified.
BERGMAN: Lars is such a fantastic man, Ruthie.
I'm so happy.
This time I think I've found the right one.
Third time lucky. Isn't it funny that he's Swedish?
We're so alike.
I feel full of hope.
I think my youngest children will accept him.
Pia will be more upset and surprised.
Why didn't you want to live with any of us?
She didn't live with her children with Roberto Rossellini.
She left them in Italy and moved to France to live with a theater producer.
She'd rather live with a producer than her children.
Uh, I guess we weren't that much fun. What can I say?
(laughing) So I'm sorry.
Children don't like to hear that.
But, you know, the reality is —
Oh, here comes my dog.
Uh... No, the reality is that sometimes children are not that interesting.
Not to all parents anyway.
I change everything in my life.
It takes time to adapt to change.
I've been very busy this winter,
moving and adapting to my new home and my new life.
Will you be staying at home?
No. I'm at home now because it's a lot of fun.
I think that next winter, I'll be in a film or on stage.
I don't have any projects.
We had the villa at Santa Marinella, which was like paradise for us.
I was practically born there. I grew up in that house.
When our parents split up,
Papa couldn't keep the villa, so it was sold.
For us, it was horrible.
We felt like Adam and Eve chased from paradise.
Leaving Santa Marinella was as brutal as that.
Then a miracle. They do exist.
Mama met Lars, who had an island in Sweden.
That island was marvelous.
We were so happy there.
I absolutely loved it there, and my mother loved it too.
Sometimes we need a bit of stability in life.
Everything changes in life — we grow old, divorce, change jobs.
And we need a place where we can say,
"This is something that will never change."
BERGMAN: Dannholmen.
Lars's island. So secluded.
In summer, everything's so clear, it glitters.
The sea, the rocks, the sky.
When I first came here, we sat in front of the house, and I said,
"I love your island."
Lars replied, "Good. Let's get married then."
At a certain point in our life, we didn't live with either of our parents.
Nor my mother, nor my father,
because they remarried and set up other houses.
So they created a children's home, which was to me a lot of fun
because the living room was transformed into an enormous playroom.
We had, instead of a sofa, Ping-Pong and things to punch, and things to —
you know, bars, so we could dance.
I liked to dance.
Um, but some of my brothers and sister
would have rather lived in a more traditional home, with a living room —
Don't touch that. Don't make it. Don't mess it up.
But have Mama and Father every day.
We didn't have Mama and Father every day starting at age six.
Mama lived in Paris. We lived in Rome. She came when she could.
We saw Dad for Sunday lunch,
even if he wasn't always exactly present.
- No, he wasn't... - But he called...
True.
His phone calls went like this — "Hi, are you okay?"
"Good. Pass Isa."
"Hi, are you okay? Good."
His phone calls were like that.
Several times a day.
Mama came whenever she could.
We went to Paris for holidays. Sometimes she came.
I missed her a lot.
I was very attached to my mother. I adored her.
I used to cry when she left, and I wouldn't eat for several days.
When I became a mother, I realized that children
physically need their mother there.
Absence is too hard.
My favorite moments were like a reward —
from time to time, all three of us slept with her.
To me, it was the best thing that could happen in the world.
BERGMAN: My career has always been important.
When they were little, I took them with me.
But it was difficult when they started school.
I do regret it, but I don't think my Italian children
suffered because of it.
We were always so happy when we met up again.
They liked the idea of coming to meet their mother.
I went back to Italy every month when I wasn't working.
But when I was on stage, I was away for seven months —
one month for rehearsals and six for performances.
But they came to see me whenever it was possible.
I often told myself there was a positive side.
I was like a friend to my children,
more than a mother saying, "Brush your teeth.
Go to bed. There's school tomorrow."
I think I was more of...
a friend than a mother.
ISABELLA: I always felt that Mama could only be 100% happy if she acted.
So for me it was important that she went to work and stayed with us.
Because otherwise we had a mama that was trying to be happy with the family,
but she was a little bit bored with the family.
I think for my other siblings sometimes,
that part was more painful.
They wanted to come first.
But for me, I just thought, "I know why she hasn't — I'm gonna do the same.
I'm gonna have as much fun as her."
BERGMAN: Dear Mollie,
I'm in Rome to see the children.
I'm faced with the worst imaginable thing.
Isabella has scoliosis.
I can't understand it. She looks so healthy.
It's as though my heart is paralyzed.
ISABELLA: I was the luckiest of all because I was sick when I was a girl.
Mama stopped working for two years to be with me.
So I think I benefited from my back operation
because I never felt neglected.
When there was an emergency, Mama stopped working to be with me.
(no audible dialogue)
Will you please tell me what this is all about?
I've quit my job. Or rather I've traded it in for Paris.
- You quit your job? - Yep.
- Why? - They were gonna send me to New York.
Oh, but, Philip.
No buts, not from you. Let's have a pact, all right?
No, Philip, you can't do this. I won't let you do it.
It's done.
(laughing)
Sorry.
Slippery.
Swing it.
That's it.
(man hoots)
I would like to see what I can do now at my age that is interesting.
It isn't only what do you look like. It is also what you feel like.
I feel like continuing what I am doing in my age.
I think she loved movies very, very much.
But at a certain age,
they don't write so many scripts for women who are 45 or 50.
You go to the theater if you have the capability of doing that.
So she did the movies she could and the ones she wanted to do.
Uh, but then the theater took over.
And then Lars, of course, was a theatrical producer.
So she did a month in the country and various plays that I saw in London.
AFTER A 21 YEAR ABSENCE, NEW YORK WELCOMES BACK INGRID BERGMAN
(no audible dialogue)
I was in my early 20s. It was my first paying job in New York
that I got through a little notice in the actors' newspaper Backstage,
and it turned out be this Somerset Maugham play, The Constant Wife,
starring Ingrid Bergman and directed by Sir John Gielgud.
My whole life, I have never forgotten how completely down to earth,
and warm and engaged she was.
You know, when I think that I could have worked with some monster, you know,
from show business,
and it would have really put me off the whole business.
And to work with Ms. Bergman, who was always so gracious and so kind.
For many years I'd been a tall, very clumsy person,
and it was very meaningful to me to see someone
who so was in their beautiful, strong body as a woman.
And not hunching or, you know.
And just proud of who she was, and so centered.
I think she felt very comfortable
with this nucleus of people she had, that she'd had in London.
And I think it's one of the reasons she wanted
to continue doing the play, uh, with Sir John.
To continue having that experience of being on stage and working,
yet very protected, I feel.
I think she had a core of friends, you know, like Ruth Roberts,
who was a dialect coach in English.
I remember Ruth. I remember Kay Brown, Mother's agent from the beginning.
It was the woman that selected her.
Irene Selznick, David Selznick's wife.
Those are really Mama's best friends,
and they were people that bridged family and work.
She talked a lot about her children.
- She talked about you and your back — - I had a back operation.
She talked about your other sister
and your older sister, uh,
and her son.
That was her family. That was her closest.
And I believe maybe in some way she talked more about you
than maybe you always felt.
I was surprised, because after both Mama and Irene Selznick died, um,
we went and read the correspondence —
because they saved all their letters — to see if there was something interesting,
maybe a book or something about two women that counted so much.
We looked at the letter, and it was only about children.
- ULLMAN: Yeah. - It was very touching.
These were two women that were so interested in their work.
And that surprised me.
I thought that the letter would give us an incredible insight
into the world of Hollywood, of film, of creating theater.
Nothing. Just always children.
BERGMAN: I have wanted so long to do something for Ingmar Bergman.
And then I saw him again at the film festival in Cannes.
I was on the jury.
And he came down with his picture Cries and Whispers,
and I decided that I would remind him — (chuckles)
and put a little letter in his pocket.
(chattering)
We're going to have to talk to them.
Is that okay?
BERGMAN: And being directed by such an artist as he is,
and it was just like a little family working together.
And he works very close to his actors,
and though he knows what he wants and how,
he is so open to suggestions and so willing to follow
the instinctive reaction that his actors have.
And he builds on that, you see.
He would never say,
"That's not your business to discuss this with me."
No, he will take more and more out of you,
and then help you to develop what he wants you to develop.
So it's a very close relationship that you have with him.
ULLMAN: When the daughter is through a whole night
telling the mother, "You have ruined my life.
Look at me. I can't do anything because you were never here."
And I hate her and I hate her, and I told her.
It was a three-page monologue.
And in the end, the camera is on her and she says,
"Please, I am sorry. Hold around me. Please love me."
And Ingrid said, "I'm not gonna say that.
I want to slap her in the face and leave the room."
And it became a catastrophe. And Ingmar was furious.
And she wouldn't say it. And they screamed and they screamed.
And so they went out in the corridor, and we knew the movie's over.
It's not going to be. She wasn't gonna do it.
And we heard screaming and screaming, and then it became quiet.
Door opens. In comes the genius, Ingmar, and the actress.
And of course he won.
BERGMAN: But I have feelings too.
BERGMAN: Well, I argued in the beginning like I do with everybody.
I am difficult. I argue about the scenes, the dialogues, the setups.
I don't argue for my sake.
It isn't that I try to improve my part.
I try to improve the movie, the situation, for everybody.
I want it to be the best possible.
But I sometimes am very clumsy,
and I don't use any diplomatic way of telling something.
I'm very open and frank and put my foot in it. (laughs)
If she wants to sulk...
If the girl wants to sulk, even though she's asked her...
She told me, because she thought she was angelic —
She always said, "I'm available. I work so hard."
And she always said, "I'm the easiest person to work with."
And then, after working on Autumn Sonata, seeing the documentary—
- Yeah. - She came home and she said,
"I am really difficult. I never realized."
- Exactly - I don't think she realized
that her honesty sometimes could be cutting.
♪♪ (piano)
BERGMAN: When my daughter plays the piano, I have a close-up.
The mother is watching her daughter.
And I had nothing to do but watch her play.
Then Ingmar came up after a while — I'd done a couple of takes —
and said, "What are you thinking of?"
So I said, "Well, I'm thinking that my poor daughter,
she never really could play the piano, could she?
And a little mistake there.
But she's cute as she's sitting, but, oh, that was not good."
And he said, "You're thinking all wrong.
She is not even listening to her daughter playing.
She knows that the daughter is not a pianist.
She's watching the girl,
and she remembers when she was a little girl that ran across the lawn,
and how happy the mother was when she stretched out her arms,
and the little girl ran into her arms."
And it gave me a completely new way of thinking.
That is what a good director can do.
He gives you the thought so then you can project that.
My little Eva.
- That's all you have to say? - No. I'm just very touched.
- Did you love it? - I love you.
I don't understand.
Play another piece. It's pleasant.
- Did I make a mistake? - No, not at all.
(laughing, chattering)
(reciting lines in Swedish)
(chattering)
BERGMAN: You try naturally, being an actress —
actors don't have the same worry.
But actresses, of course, like to look beautiful
and young as long as possible.
But it is very difficult. You can do it a little more on the stage,
where you're not so close to the audience.
You can fake ten, 15 years.
But on the screen you see the age.
And it takes courage to take all the makeup off
and really show what you are in real life.
He gave me courage. I said to him,
"Oh, my God, when my fans see me like this,
I'll lose them all."
And he said, "Don't worry. I'll get you new ones."
WOMAN: She saved everything. She kept things. She held onto things.
She kept her —
Well, look. Here's her passport from when she's a little girl.
Who has their passport from this age? But she did.
She has her diaries. She had letters.
She saved things. She saved her school papers.
She saved her children's school papers.
And when you think about her moving from country to country to country,
because she did do that.
She immigrated and re-immigrated and re-immigrated.
And she lived in different places, but she saved it all.
She packed it up and took it with her and held onto it.
This is her family life.
Being able to hold these things together and have them
is her equivalent, as she was maturing, of going home to visit her parents.
She couldn't go home to visit her parents,
but she could go to her trunks to visit her things
that reminded her of her years with them, or of her life.
ISABELLA: She always said to me, "I wanna die with my boots on."
And for her being active — it wasn't just being a mom.
That was just natural biological behavior.
But choices. It was acting.
The relationship with my mother was always
very intimate, and yet...
it's almost contradictory, it was almost a friendship.
When she was very ill and in pain,
I wanted to distract and amuse her but I didn't know how to.
What I did, but also because it interested me,
was to get her to tell me episodes of her life.
We spent nights telling stories and anecdotes,
laughing together about certain situations.
It did her good.
On one hand because it helped her forget her illness,
and at the end she was in a lot of pain,
but also because it was a way
of telling people around her her life story.
She always said, "I don't regret anything."
As her daughter, it hurt.
She didn't regret anything, but we missed her so much.
It's difficult.
Put yourself in my shoes, as her daughter.
Later on, I understood
that she thought everyone should be fulfilled,
by following their hearts, their passions, by being oneself.
I think that is what she meant.
You know, people have said,
"Do you think there will ever be a Mommie Dearest book about your mother?"
And I said, "None of us — None of us would dream of doing that."
She was just too much fun to be with.
She played. She was a player.
And she played it with real life sometimes. (chuckling)
She went where the wind took her,
but she was so amusing to be with.
That the only thing that any of her children feel
is we wish we had more of her.
We just wish she'd been around more.
What I missed was not a lot of mothering or something, or making cookies.
I just missed her presence.
And because she was so delightfully open and amusing,
I craved my whole life to have more of her.
♪♪ (ballad intro)
(no audible dialogue)
WOMAN: ♪ My voice is daylight ♪
♪ And all that live there ♪
♪ My voice is colors ♪
♪ I sing the words about us ♪
♪ And the violet misty sunset ♪
♪ I sing the straight line ♪
♪ I sing refractions ♪
♪ And what your head is thinking ♪
♪ And all the feelings in between ♪
♪ They have each other to cling ♪
♪ I sing the shadows ♪
♪ And all that live there ♪
♪ I sing the openings ♪
♪ I sing the movie 'bout us ♪
♪ And the violet misty sunset ♪
♪ I sing the heart's will ♪
♪ I sing the columns there ♪
♪ I sing the breakers ♪
♪ I sing the steps that we take ♪
♪ And the air between them ♪
♪ I sing the surface ♪
♪ And all the furrows there ♪
♪ I sing the body's desire ♪
♪ Expectations of fire ♪
♪ While heaven roars above us ♪
♪ Eternal is eternity ♪
♪ I sing for our love to be ♪
♪ A beginning without end ♪
♪♪ (vocalizing)
♪ My voice is daylight ♪
♪ And all that live there ♪
♪ I sing the openings ♪
♪ I sing the movie 'bout us ♪
♪ And the violet misty sunset ♪♪