THE SCREEN: I Am A Conjurer

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Fortunately, Bergman is prolific. He gets most of his ideas for movies while making movies. He sees the idea suddenly, "a brightly colored thread sticking out of the dark sack of the unconscious," and "this thread I wind up carefully." When not in a mood for dictating, he sits in an easy chair and writes with a broad-nibbed pen on yellow paper. When a scenario is finished, Bergman submits it to Carl Anders Dymling, SF's courtly and cultured boss. Sometimes Bergman rewrites a script three times before both are satisfied. But once the script is set, Dymling steps aside; he refuses to set foot on the set while Bergman is shooting. Then Bergman grimly pulls on the sailor's watch cap he wears in the studio and starts to shoot his film: "A tapeworm 2,500 meters long that sucks the life and spirit out of me. It is dreadfully exacting work. When I am filming, I am ill."

Cinema Stock Company. Technically, Bergman is a master of his trade. He drifts about the studio with a faraway gaze in his eyes—"He looks like a snake charmer, a conjurer"—but he sees everything. He drives his technicians hard, demands and gets unquestioning loyalty from his actors. Most of them are prominent players on the Swedish stage; yet year after year they take parts in Bergman's pictures, even though it means giving up summer vacations, even though the parts are sometimes small and the pay unexciting.

Together, these players form a unit unique in the history of film: a cinema stock company trained by one director and dedicated to his purposes, beyond question the finest collection of cinemactors assembled under one roof. Among the principals: Gunnar Björnstrand, a skinny, thin-lipped, cold-eyed man who portrays the intellectual icicles Bergman loves to dissolve; Eva Dahlbeck, a bright-eyed, matronly blonde who is far and away the finest comedienne in the troupe; Max von Sydow, a tall, gaunt, rugged actor who generally personifies Bergman's spiritual search and sufferings; Harriet Andersson, a full-lipped Eve, the much-nibbled apple of the Bergman hero's eye; Bibi Andersson, the company's cleverest and most appealing ingénue.

Kill, If Necessary. Bergman scorns "The Method" of coddling the actor's ego; instead, he hard-boils it. Once the day's work has begun, no performer may leave the set, not even to make a phone call. Not the slightest deviation from script is permitted. Björnstrand once begged Bergman to rewrite a line. "I can't interpret it," he protested. Bergman replied coldly, "It's your job to interpret it." No stand-ins are used, even when the action is dangerous. Moreover, Bergman permits no lengthy psychoanalytic discussions of motive; usually, he feels, they "overinflate" a performance.