Trespassing Bergman

The home that belonged to Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) on the Swedish island of Fårö was turned into a museum after his death. Bergman, who watched three films a day, owned 1,711 video tapes: from Die Hard and Emmanuelle to Haneke’s La pianiste. A number of filmmakers whose films he owned, speak about the impact the director had on them. Some travel to Fårö, to see for themselves how isolated Bergman’s house was. ‘If cinema is religion, then this is Mecca or the Vatican,’ says Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárittu respectfully as he arrives on Fårö in the middle of the night. The films discussed run from Summer with Monika (1953) to Fanny and Alexander (1982). The directors interviewed include Woody Allen, who thinks Bergman is the best filmmaker ever, Michael Haneke, Claire Denis, Ang Lee and Lars von Trier, who has a love-hate relationship with the maestro, all of whose films he has watched.