Word: bergmanic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Bergman is Teutonically punctual: he begins filming precisely at 9 and stops for lunch exactly at noon; resumes filming exactly at 1 and pauses for a 30-minute coffee break precisely at 2:30. Except for night shooting on the outdoor set, the day ends at 4:30. "I am obsessive about films," he says. "I feel a lust while I'm directing, a definite sexual feeling, but I must always struggle to keep my obsession in control...
...Ingmar Bergman looks like a Levine caricature of himself. His face is a series of exaggerated downward thrusts-from the sloping hooded lids of his gray eyes to the long beaked nose and long chin. Although usually smiling and pleasant, he demands exact preparation and painstaking orderliness. He is on a first-name basis with each member of his German crew, and they with him. Hand-picked as the best film technicians in Germany, they both fear and adore the Swedish director...
...Bergman had wanted to make his film in black and white. When the producers resisted, he and his habitual partner, Cameraman Sven Nykvist, found a compromise. Says Nykvist: "Ingmar and I agreed to shoot color in black and white." Although most of the film captures the dark, gray quality of drab Berlin, Bergman has punctuated the gloom with bright and often zany scenes. "After years of crying for him," says Liv Ullmann, who plays Manuela, the nightclub entertainer whom Carradine loves, "Ingmar has finally allowed me to sing and dance." Wearing the scantiest of costumes, Ullmann was ordered to perform...
Another sequence takes place in a nightclub lighted by naked bulbs. Here marcelled flappers dance with their tuxedoed escorts. They are the last few who have hard currency from other countries. "They drank fast, danced fast and made love fast," Bergman told the extras, "so have a merry time...
...Germans learned quickly about Bergman's need for privacy while filming. Special locks were installed on the doors to the sound stages, with keys supplied to only cast and crew. Behind locked doors, a Bergman set is a calm and quiet place of intense concentration. "On the first day of shooting," reports Carradine, "Ingmar walked me through the scene where I discover my brother's dead body. To dramatize my dazed condition, I was ordered to walk into a closet and sit down. That's when I realized I was in a Bergman picture...