Ingmar Bergman Quotes

I make all my decisions on intuition. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
Ingmar Bergman
All of us collect fortunes when we are children. A fortune of colors of lights and darkness of movement of tensions. Some of us have the fantastic chance to go back to his fortune when grown up.
Ingmar Bergman
No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does straight to our emotions deep into the twilight room of the soul.
Ingmar Bergman
Death: When next we meet, the hour will strike for you and your friends.Antonius Block: And will you reveal your secrets?Death: I have no secrets.Antonius Block: So do you know nothing?Death: I am unknowing.
Ingmar Bergman
Minus: Papa, I'm scared. When I was hugging Karin in the boat, reality burst open. Do you understand?David: I do.Minus: Reality burst open, and I tumbled out. It's like a dream. Anything can happen. Anything.David: I know.Minus: I can't live in this new world.David: Yes, you can. But you must have something to hold on to.Minus: What would that be? A god? Give me proof of God. You can't.David: Yes, I can. But you have to listen carefully.Minus: Yes, I need to listen.David: I can only give you a hint of my own hope. It is to know that love exists as something real in the human world.Minus: A special kind of love, I suppose?David: All kinds, Minus. The highest and the lowest, the most absurd and the most sublime. All kinds of love.Minus: And the longing for love?David: Longing and denial. Trust and distrust.Minus: Then love is the proof?David: I don't know if love is proof of God's existence, or if love is God himself.Minus: To you, love and God are the same thing.David: That thought helps me in my emptiness and despair.Minus: Tell me more, Papa.David: Suddenly the emptiness turns into abundance, and despair into life. It's like a reprieve, Minus, from a death sentence.Minus: Papa... If it is as you say, then Karin is surrounded by God, since we love her.David: Yes.Minus: Can that help her?David: I believe so.Minus: ... Papa, would you mind if I go for a run?David: Off you go. I'll make dinner. See you in an hour.Minus: ... Papa spoke to me.
Ingmar Bergman
One will probably have to manage alone as best one can. (Karin Bergman)
Ingmar Bergman
I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being - not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don’t have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn’t play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn’t watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you’re forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you’re genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand why you don’t speak, why you don’t move, why you’ve created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire. You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you’ve left your other parts one by one.
Ingmar Bergman
Here, in my solitude, I have the feeling that I contain too much humanity.
Ingmar Bergman
Today the individual has become the highest form, and the greatest bane, of artistic creation. The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny each other's existence. We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal.
Ingmar Bergman
One has to manage alone as best one can. (Karin Bergman)
Ingmar Bergman
Jöns: But feel, to the very end, the triumph of being alive!
Ingmar Bergman
I make all my decisions on intuition. But then, I must know why I made that decision. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
Ingmar Bergman
Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.
Ingmar Bergman
I'm planning, you see, to try to confine myself to the truth. That's hard for an old, inveterate fantasy martyr and liar who has never hesitated to give truth the form he felt the occasion demanded.
Ingmar Bergman