IFC Center Brings Back Bergman

When Ingmar Bergman died last year at 89, a universe of cineastes mourned the passing of their favorite auteur. Between 1946 and 1982, the Swedish director made more than 50 films, guiding his followers through some of the darkest journeys in film history. Today he remains a staple on the art-house and repertory circuits, but to those who weren’t born when he made his final feature film, 1982’s “Fanny and Alexander,” Bergman is a curiously shadowed figure.Partially in a bid to make the artist’s astonishing catalog available to younger viewers, IFC Center has programmed an exhaustive five-month marathon of Bergman’s greatest accomplishments titled Ingmar Bergman: “Film Is the Great Adventure.” From now through the holiday season, the venue will revisit one Bergman film a week, building up to a rare, climactic screening of the 312-minute director’s cut of “Fanny and Alexander.”This coming weekend, IFC Center will screen what may be Bergman’s greatest triumph, 1957’s “The Seventh Seal,” about a chess game with Death.“I remember back when Lincoln Center did a Bergman festival in, I believe, 1994, they played everything over a month and a half and I found myself just watching dozens and dozens of his films,” IFC Center’s vice president and general manager, John Vanco, said. “And when you throw yourself into his work like that, it does affect you in a profound way. The way you stumble out of the theater and shade your eyes from the sun. His world is not like our world. It’s transformative, and I would really like to think that by stretching out our series over a couple months, it gives people an opportunity to dig in to the many different ways he used such issues as faith and art and relationships and betrayal. Rather than focus on only a few films, you can watch Bergman grow.”The Weekend Classics series has already touched on a number of Bergman’s most prominent films, such as 1957’s “Wild Strawberries” and 1960’s “Virgin Spring.” But in the coming weeks, the program will grow a little less predictable.“There are a lot of people who feel that they’ve ‘done Bergman,’ that they’ve seen the big ones, and that’s enough,” Mr. Vanco said. “But there’s a lot more here than some realize. It was ‘Smiles of a Summer Night’ that won him prizes around the world and gave Berman his big rubber stamp of approval as an intellectual art-house favorite. But it’s his pre-1955 output that has gone underappreciated and might surprise even some longtime Bergman fans.”Appropriately, the “Film Is the Great Adventure” program jumps back and forth across that 1955 threshold. Next week’s selection, 1954’s “A Lesson in Love,” is notable for its standout performance by Harriet Anderson (a Bergman regular), though the Bergman-esque themes of deceit and reconciliation are omnipresent. On August 29, Mr. Bergman’s breakthrough film, 1955’s “Smiles of a Summer Night,” will take center stage. Further highlights include “The Devil’s Eye” (September 5) and “Rite” (September 19).Since IFC Center opened it doors in 2005, the theater has regularly programmed special weekend series with the goal of spotlighting forgotten classics and lesser-known works by prominent international filmmakers. From the minimalist, moderate social dramas of Japan’s Yasujiro Ozu to the sweeping action spectacles of Akira Kurosawa, the venue has attracted a community of regulars who prefer to see the great movies of yore on the big screen rather than on DVD — recalling a time when seeing a new film in its premiere theatrical run was one’s only chance to experience it. But, Mr. Vanco said, there is something intimate and vulnerable about Bergman’s work — his treatment of humanity, community, and communication — that makes it a particularly electric communal experience.“He’s a towering figure, and I think Criterion’s actually done an amazing job of selecting and enhancing his work [on DVD],” Mr. Vanco said. “But there’s something indescribable about seeing Bergman’s work on the screen, with complete strangers. Of course, we’re big fans of the communal experience in general, but something about his films is so intimate, and so unsettling in their relationship issues and the way people treat each other, that the experience becomes uncomfortable in a special, energized way. It’s far different from sitting at home and watching the film on a television — a much different contrast when you have this utterly naked, bloody intimacy on the screen and you’re seeing it with people you’ve never met before.”ssnyder@nysun.comIngmar Bergman: “Film Is the Great Adventure” continues through December at IFC Center (323 Sixth Ave. at West 3rd Street, 212-924-7771).

IFC Center Brings Back Bergman

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