I AM INGRID

Last year I wrote about a new film about Ingrid Bergman, and I am glad to say I have now seen it.

If you  are an INGRID BERGMAN fan, run,skip or jump to the nearest cinema showing the new Swedish documentary ,INGRID BERGMAN, IN HER OWN WORDS. ( Original Swedish title is I AM INGRID)

The two  hour film is also out on DVD.

i saw it in a packed cinema ( well, a 70 seater!)

This is not a career retrospective. There are brief clips from Casablanca, Notorious,Anastasia and a few others, but this is Ingrid’s personal story. It is directed by Stig Bjorkman and has some subtitling but has many interviews in English. Ingrid herself was proficient in at least 4 languages.

Ingrid was the daughter of a photographer, Justus Bergman, who filmed her as a child . To see the footage is amazing. She inherited this love of photography and throughout her life was constantly filming her family and friends. And from an early age, became very comfortable in front of a camera.

She also was a diarist and letter writer, and actress Alicia Vikander reads from them. It becomes clear that Ingrid had to act. Too long in one place , even with her children, was too much for her.

Her four children made it clear there would never be a ‘Mommie Dearest’ but also indicated how many times they didn’t have their mother with them and that it did hurt.

There are also TV interview clips and of course the media coverage of Ingrid leaving her husband and eldest daughter,Pia, in America when she went to Italy to film with Roberto Rossellini .

And then her triumphant return to the U.S. And Cary Grant accepting Ingrid’s Oscar for ANASTASIA.

This enthralling  film is a fascinating insight into this great actress who had lost both her parents by the time she was 13, and whose subsequent choices in life were defined by her need to be acting.

 

Ingrid’s film test in Hollywood, after she had been given a contract by David O. Selznick.

 

Ingrid Bergman, Photographer Unknown. Courtesy: RialtPictures/Mantaray Film/Wesleyan Cinema Archives

With Roberto and twins Isabella and Ingrid.

 

Camera in hand.

 

With Charles Boyer in her Oscar winning GASLIGHT .