Word: bergman
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...Bergman drew on his youthful experiences for the film's biggest scene, a parade down a re-created Berlin street of 1923 -jokingly called the Bergmanstrasse. The day began dreadfully because the sun was shining for the first time in nearly a week, casting dark shadows over the mock buildings. "We are merely facing a catastrophe," the director said through clenched teeth. Some 450 extras clogged the streets, many crammed uncomfortably aboard antique buses...
...afternoon, the Bavarian sky finally clouded and the light seemed right. Because it was so late, two scenes were shot simultaneously, Nykvist filming from one end of the street and Bergman from the other. "We don't have to even talk any more on the set," Bergman says of Nykvist, who has worked with him on 18 films. "We instinctively know what we want." Nykvist is hard of hearing in his left ear and Bergman in his right. "When we talk," says the jolly Nykvist, "we look like a pair of geese doing a mating dance...
...Finally Bergman's crowd scene got into motion. Using dusk light for dawn, he shot tired Berliners plodding to work at the first light of morning-normality amid pending catastrophe -while buses, trolleys, cars and carts clattered around the curving street. At the other end of the set, Nykvist shot Carradine pushing through the crowds to arrive at Manuela's cabaret at twilight. The realism was enhanced by a cold rain that began to splash on cars and pedestrians. Soon the street lights were turned on and the final take of the parade...
...Bergman arched the fatigue out of his shoulders and watched the street quickly clear of frozen extras and old cars. He never goes out during filming. He is a television addict who keeps logs on programs (his favorite is the latest Upstairs, Downstairs). "At the end of a shooting day," he says, "I'm often so tired you could put me into a black box. And yet, going home to my family seems a kind of intrusion. I have an urge to stay right here at the studio, sleep on a cot and stay with the project...
...does not in fact do that. He even entertains his cast and crew with movie screenings. Liv Ullmann laughs as she recalls how much Bergman enjoyed Jaws: "We teased him, telling him how a young director like Steven Spielberg worked so hard on the open seas trying to get a mechanical fish to work, while he, ever the lazy director, liked to sit in a room with two women and watch them...