April, 1928.
My God, help Dad.
Dear God, you can do anything.
So please make Dad well.
Make me calm.
God, I beg you, help me.
And make Dad well.
God in heaven,
amen.
DIARY
In ten minutes, it will be 11:30 PM.
All the candles are burning.
Everything is so beautiful.
I feel sad.
I want to write everything down
that happened to me in 1929.
I didn't do well at school.
Failed three subjects.
Dad fell sick.
I traveled alone to my aunt in Germany.
And Dad died.
My friend Maude died. Grandpa died.
Uncle Amandus, Aunt Jenny
and a cousin died in an accident.
That's all I remember.
All I wish for now is a happier new year.
What will the new year bring?
New York...
I am Ingrid.
This is my story.
Looking back on my life, who will I see?
What will be left?
I've always saved everything.
Filled all kinds of boxes and suitcases.
So I'll always have my memories with me.
Well, I started off in Sweden.
Then I came to America.
My American period
was ten years in Hollywood.
Then I went to Italy
eight years in Italy.
Then I went to Paris
and lived there for 20 years.
And now I live in London.
It's interesting because...
- But do you feel without roots?
- Yes.
- Because of... Do you?
- Yeah, I don't want any roots.
Why?
I want to be free.
- You don't think they're necessary?
- No.
Only a few members of my family
knew I was leaving.
My friend Mollie and darling Petter
waved me off from Bromma.
I flew to London, then sailed
to the Hollywood dream factory.
I signed up for five years
with Selznick International Pictures,
United Artists, Hollywood.
Darling Mollie,
you were so sweet,
waving like two mice at Bromma.
Thank you for coming, Mollie.
You helped us ease the pain
of saying good-bye.
This trip is an incredible experience.
From Bromma to Hollywood.
Look after Pia and Petter.
Last night, a man at the table said to me,
"You'll never be an actress.
You're too tall."
I said to myself,
"He knows nothing about me."
Spring has arrived in Rsunda,
at the Swedish cinema studios...
Today I was a film extra.
It felt wonderful passing those gates.
It felt like walking on holy ground.
Everyone was talking about
theater and films.
It was my first time, but I hope
I'll get to do it many more times.
Do you have the photo?
She's sticking out of the line
And that always touched me.
You could already see
that this is a child that, you know,
lost all her family.
But you can see already that
Life is great.
It's full of adventure.
You went to theater school.
How did you end up in cinema?
At the end of my first year
at theater school,
during the summer holidays,
I recited poems to Karin Swanstrm,
and she hired me
for the film Munkbrogreven.
I suppose you'll be back late?
No, just going out
for some fresh air. Why?
Take the front door key.
So you don't wake up The Beast
if you come back late.
Thanks. Evening.
Good night.
I left that splendid
theater school to enter the world of film.
I should feel grateful
to have been on stage so young.
But I love the freedom I feel
in front of the camera.
I hope I've not made a mistake,
and that one day I'll be a great actress.
Can I say that
you look pretty this evening?
Am I not pretty every evening?
Sure. But there is
something extraordinary tonight.
There's a rumor
I'm the biggest talent around.
My classmates have no work,
and the studios are fighting for me.
It scares me to think about it.
I hope I don't disappoint them.
I've made ten films in five years.
Major roles
Intermezzo, Swedenhielms and Dollar.
I hope I've not become vain.
I'm lucky to have Petter.
What would I be without him?
My sweet darling, my everything on earth,
my one and only love.
Only five hours before I see you,
and 11 days until our wedding.
How will I cope?
If only I could kiss you, really kiss you,
time and time again.
Say you'll never leave me.
I'll never leave you.
I never had the intention
of staying in Sweden.
That I knew since the beginning.
It was too far away
and too small a country.
I wanted to go to big places,
and I had in mind...
I knew I was going to go out
I wanted desperately
to get out in the world.
- You look nice.
- Easy for her. She's doing well.
What did you say?
- You've got a good position.
- Say that again. I have what?
Are you gonna worry us too?
What do you mean? I'm sick of my work.
Every day, eight hours of drawing...
It was just a question
of to go to a new country
and work in a strange language.
A language that was not mine.
That was the little bridge
that would bring me over.
Lots of people were scared.
Not just in the studio, everywhere.
My German colleagues were worried
about what was going on in the country.
Petter met me after the shoot.
We set off on a trip around Europe.
I always have my camera with me.
I love to film.
I got that from Dad.
He filmed me. Now I film the world.
Sometimes Petter films,
but it's mostly me.
September 22, 1938.
Petter and I have had a little girl.
We want to call her Pia
Petter, Ingrid, Aron.
The heart of the film world
had contacted me a couple of times,
but this time I accepted.
David O. Selznick, the producer of
Gone with the Wind,
wants me to be in a new version
of my big success Intermezzo.
Selznick's agent here, Kay Brown,
found a diva who'd just given birth.
She said they'd wait however long it took,
as long as I still want to go to America.
You bet I do.
America. At last.
I was driven to Selznick's house.
Here I'm to stay.
His wife, Irene, greeted me.
Then David Selznick arrived.
He sat, looked at me,
praised my English, then left.
The Selznicks threw a party.
I was guest of honor.
I sat there alone, in my old pink dress
with puffed sleeves.
It is very elegant.
I watched people arriving.
Clark Gable, Joan Bennett,
Cary Grant, Gary Cooper.
I was so happy I couldn't speak.
To think that I, a girl from Stockholm,
was here, surrounded by film stars.
Selznick, 13.
Quiet, please.
I have hopes of winning a scholarship.
I see.
They have difficult examinations.
I have taken mine. Just today.
- Today?
- Yeah
Well, this is a great occasion.
What are we drinking this for?
Waiter, bring champagne. The best vintage
of the best brand in your cellar.
- Champagne?
- Of course.
To drink to your future as an artist.
You're quite right.
You don't want to be anybody's shadow.
- But I didn't say that.
- I know you didn't. I'm saying it for you.
You must set the world on fire.
Ah, you are laughing at me.
Shouldn't one laugh
at the sight of bright, young confidence?
Oh, here comes the champagne.
And I'm not used to it.
Cut.
Dear Mollie,
I've met two fantastic women
who will help me in Hollywood.
Ruth Roberts, a voice coach, is going to
teach me to speak perfect English.
And Irene Selznick,
who's helping me understand this strange
but incredibly exciting environment.
Kiss Pia for me. I miss her so much.
I'm coming home after the shoot.
I had the fortune
of meeting Ruth the first day on the set.
And she was an absolute excellent teacher
for the English language.
And then, being of Swedish descent,
understood maybe my character
and knew how to show me America,
how to teach me, not only the language,
but maybe the feeling
and the thoughts, and, you know...
I am so grateful to her,
because she has shaped me
to what I am today very much.
A great deal of her is in me.
From Sweden, you took, uh
Your first husband went with you to
From Intermezzo, I went back to Sweden
to do the picture I had signed up to do.
And then the war started
and Selznick asked me to rush over.
I took my little girl with me.
He stayed on in case he had to
maybe go in to the war, be needed.
And then as Sweden didn't
get into the war, he came over later.
I am so happy
we're all together again.
All together in America.
I didn't go to Hollywood
with my mother.
I stayed with my father
in Rochester, New York.
He was going to medical school
while my mother was making movies
in Hollywood.
And she would occasionally come to visit,
which must have taken
a long time on the train.
Uh, however she came.
And I do remember she came,
but she came for visits.
I go to Rochester
at the end of every shoot,
and my husband comes here
when he's on holiday.
Pia lives with both of us.
Sometimes with me, sometimes with him,
but I stayed nearly a year in Rochester.
I was there last winter.
January 11, 1941.
I would've given anything to do
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Will I ever get a better part
than the little whore Ivy Peterson?
Or a better director than Victor Fleming?
I've never been so happy.
I feel like I'm flying.
Do you want to look at my side?
Well, don't you want me to?
You aren't half a fast one, aren't you?
I live a solitary life
when I'm working. I live at the studio.
I haven't had a day off in 14 weeks.
I don't have time to go home to Rochester.
Pia is very happy with her dad.
It's another six weeks
before the end of the shoot.
I won't have seen Pia for six months.
But one can't have everything.
Then we moved to Benedict Canyon.
And that was the first sort of home
that I remember.
And, uh, we had dogs.
I played with dogs a lot.
Dear Ruth,
I'm very busy, as usual.
A home, a husband, children
It should be enough for any woman.
I thought I'd get a new role soon
after Jekyll and Hyde.
But I've had nothing in four months.
It's two months too long.
I think about every day that's wasted.
Only half of me is alive.
The other half is packed away
in a suitcase, suffocating.
What should I do?
Hollywood, July 5, 1942.
My dearest Mollie,
At last I'm working again.
I'm working on a film called Casablanca.
An exciting film.
Humphrey Bogart is the male lead,
if you know who he is.
He's interesting,
not the typical "glamour boy."
A lot of men have gone off to war.
It's difficult for producers to find
actors, cameramen and directors.
How can this madness continue like this?
My German's a little rusty.
It's the Gestapo.
They say they expect
to be in Paris tomorrow.
They're telling us how to act
when they come marching in.
With the whole world crumbling,
we pick this time to fall in love.
Yeah, it's pretty bad timing.
Where were you, say, ten years ago?
Ten years ago.
Let's see.
I was having a brace put on my teeth.
Where were you?
Looking for a job.
Things are good for me, Mollie.
I'm so happy.
They write and say such lovely things
about me, I could cry for joy.
I've everything I always wanted. It's
incredible when your dreams come true.
From Jennifer Jones,
previous year's winner,
to Ingrid Bergman,
for her performance in MGM's Gaslight.
Congratulations, Ingrid.
Your artistry has won our votes,
and your graciousness has won our hearts.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for my Oscar,
and I hope that in the future
I'll be worthy of it.
June 14, 1945.
I'm going on a big adventure.
I'm off to Europe.
I'll travel around, entertaining American
troops in France, Italy and Germany.
While the allies
are deciding the fate of Germany,
the great shattered city of Berlin
is slowly coming back to life.
The people of the capital move about
the ruined streets in growing numbers.
Marketplaces, once packed with food,
now have only the rations
of dehydrated potatoes.
Two and a half pounds to last ten days.
People are
strolling again down the Champs-lyses
to the Place de la Concorde.
The French are free in a free Paris.
Beautiful Ingrid Bergman
snaps time between pictures,
to show up in person
in Berlin and elsewhere.
When Ingrid Bergman comes to Berlin,
she performs only for the Americans.
Germans are not admitted.
Dear Ruth,
I've met someone who means a lot to me.
He's Robert Capa,
a famous war photographer.
We traveled from Paris to Berlin together.
I've fallen in love.
Write to me that you'll be kind
and heartbreakingly beautiful,
and that you'll chill a bottle
of champagne for March 15.
Don't sign hundreds of contracts
that will make you less of a person
and more of an institution.
You must be careful.
Success is more dangerous
and corrupting than misfortune.
I've just called you,
my darling Swedish girl in Hollywood.
I love you truly.
Arrivals at Heathrow.
Film star Ingrid Bergman and director
Alfred Hitchcock come in from Hollywood.
Path's reporter and Hitch swap jobs.
Our reporter directs
and Hitchcock puts the questions.
- This is your first time in England?
- No. No.
You will be happy to know
I spent my honeymoon in England.
Tell me, I think that the diet in England
is gonna do you a lot of good.
- Doesn't do me any good, I might tell you.
- No?
- It's gonna be good for you?
- I don't worry about it.
But I worry about you a bit.
Well, thank you very much,
and please don't worry.
The Swedish-born
actress wearing no makeup,
yet looking lovelier than Hollywood
Monday morning. Everyone's tired.
November, 1945.
Mollie, my friend.
We're hard at work
on Hitchcock's Notorious
He's so talented.
Every day with him is pure happiness.
He brings out the best in me,
things I never imagined I possessed.
He mixes serious with humor,
comedy with drama.
I thought Cary Grant
would be conceited and stuck-up,
but he's one of the nicest costars
I've ever worked with.
There's one more drink left apiece.
Shame about the ice.
- What is?
- Gone
- Who's gone?
- The ice
Why do you like that song?
Because it's a lot of hooey.
He taught her how to be... to lighten up.
Because, as Hitchcock would say,
Ingrid took films
more seriously than life.
So I think that was true.
So I think he had that influence.
Dear Ruth,
Petter knows what's going on
between me and Capa.
I haven't denied it.
Bob sometimes comes to Hollywood for work.
We meet,
but I know he'll never tie himself down.
He's always off somewhere.
His Hungarian influence
has been good for me.
I feel it has changed me inside.
We're drinking
our last bottles of champagne.
I'm breaking off
a precious part of my life.
But one learns.
We're performing the operation so well,
both patients will live
happily ever after.
She loved photographers
and camera people.
Even Capa.
That was how she experienced love.
She was madly in love with Victor Fleming.
That was a huge, passionate love affair.
And that whole thing went through the lens
and the making of the movie.
Movie was over? That's it. Good-bye.
And then I think she learned
from her father
This is my own theory.
That he would take photographs of her.
And the beloved father
she'd already lost the mother
The beloved father's on
the other side of the camera,
saying,
"Smile. Look at me. Tilt your head."
Love would be coming
right through that lens,
and she would look into that lens
at her dear, dear father.
And she would flirt with him,
and she would play with him,
and she would pose with him.
She was completely comfortable
with the camera lens.
She already knew how to pose.
My father poor fellow.
He was a brain surgeon.
He would
I mean, it was a different, uh, world.
And I suppose it was no accident that when
he married again, he married a doctor.
And they could speak the same language.
Hollywood's latest
supercolossal movie opens in New York.
Film fans jam the streets
for a glimpse of star Ingrid Bergman,
scheduled to attend the benefit premiere.
Next, Ms. Bergman,
with the film's director, Victor Fleming.
Broadway gives Hollywood's
most ballyhooed new picture
a real Hollywood welcome.
I was tiny
when I first read Joan of Arc.
Then I started collecting books,
medals, statuettes.
I went to France
to see the places she had been.
I think it was because of her youth and...
her courage.
The way she obeyed those voices.
It's very moving.
I have always been puzzled
by this interest that my mother had
in Joan of Arc.
Because it started very young.
She did it in the theater in New York.
She of course made a film of it.
It was something within the story,
I think, of a young girl
who hears a voice that says
she's going to do remarkable things.
That she's going to go into the world
and be amazing.
I don't think it actually had a religious
significance, or something like that.
I think it was more
a poor peasant girl who has a calling
to be heroic.
It's like a bird of passage
has always lived inside me.
Since I was tiny, I've longed
for something new and different.
I have seen so much,
yet it is never enough.
I've tried to put up with daily sadness
and be happy.
I never understood the kind of happiness
I was longing for.
When Petter and I were apart,
during his studies,
I wanted a house with a pool
and all those things the stars have.
We finally got a house.
We fixed it up the way we wanted.
But then that bird of passage
started to flex its wings again.
Francesco! Francesco!
Francesco!
Mama! Mama!
I saw Rome, Open City
in Hollywood.
I liked it very much. It stayed with me.
But I didn't know how
to contact Rossellini.
I thought it might be a fluke.
It's possible to do a great,
magnificent film, followed by a flop.
So I waited until one day, in New York,
I saw another of Rossellini's films.
It had the same effect.
I realized he truly was a great artist.
So I wrote the letter
saying I wanted to work with him.
Dear Mr. Rossellini,
I saw your films Open City and Paisan
and enjoyed them so much.
If you ever need a Swedish actress
who speaks very good English,
a little German, who can make herself
understood in French
and can only say "ti amo" in Italian,
then I'll come and make a film with you.
Ingrid Bergman.
It was a combination of passion,
that I fell in love with a man
that was so different from any other man
that I had ever known.
And it was my boredom in Hollywood.
The more I worked there, the more I wanted
to break out and do something different.
I wanted to do something
that they didn't expect me to do.
I wanted to leave Hollywood,
because I felt that there was
another way of making movies,
and I was just dying to try my wings.
Could I also
come into that type of picture?
Could I become as real as that?
INGRID BERGMAN
SHOOTS ON TOP OF A VOLCANO
April, 1949.
We're filming on a tiny volcanic island
called Stromboli,
far away from the newshounds
and paparazzi.
It's so beautiful here.
So peaceful.
If Hollywood could see me.
The whole island is involved in the shoot,
as extras or actors,
others help the film crew.
When we were on our way
to Stromboli We were driving down.
He stopped at the beach in Salerno
and said, "Sit here a minute in the car.
I'll go down and pick up
a leading man for you."
He went down on the beach
and he watched all the fishermen.
And then he couldn't decide between
two of them, so he took both of them.
And they thought that they were
going to be be carrying things,
you know, just work in the crew.
Then he said,
"I've picked out two boys for you.
Now we'll study them
when we get to Stromboli
and see which one is the more intelligent.
It was awfully hard to find one
that was taller than you."
Mmm.
In my days
in those days, it was a shock
to leave a husband and a child,
and fall in love with a man,
and openly show the world
that she had fallen in love
and not deny the baby to be born.
I was a danger for American womanhood.
Even my voice over the radio
was supposed to be dangerous.
Of course I was hurt.
But I didn't think what I had done
was so much other people's business.
I thought that you should look upon
an actress as an actress.
What she does on the screen
or on the stage, that's what you pay for.
And that's what you get. If you don't like
the performance, you can walk out.
But to criticize people's private life
I thought was wrong.
To such an extent that even a senator
in Washington gets up on the floor.
Out of Ingrid Bergman's ashes
will grow a better Hollywood.
I was stunned.
I was told she wasn't coming home.
I was stunned. I couldn't understand
why she thought the life she had there
was so terrible
that she would leave me to live there,
and leave my father.
I thought he was very wonderful.
So I was stunned.
Darling,
I wish I could fly home on a big bird
instead of writing.
Instead I'll talk to your photo here
in front of me.
My dear Pia,
our life is going to change.
It's hard to tell you this
because our life together was wonderful.
Never forget that I love Daddy
and I love you.
We belong together.
That will never change.
But sometimes we want to live
with someone else.
It ends with a separation. Or a divorce.
It happens often. But it's painful.
Write to me, and I'll write back.
I hope time will pass quickly
and we'll see each other soon.
Mama.
Petter.
Would you send me a few of my things?
My parents' portraits...
I miss them terribly.
I love the one of Pia too.
One day,
I'll ask you for all my treasures.
I've lots of room. But that can wait.
The only problem will be our 16 mm film.
Maybe you'll lend it to me, so I can see
what I looked like in my youth?
Okay. This is take one
with the whole
Rossellini children.
Okay? Are you ready?
For me, if I had to define
One word to define Mama?
I would say charm.
She was the most charming person
I've ever...
Warm and funny and...
Mmm.
I also felt that when she entered a room
she lit up the room.
- But she was humble too.
- Yeah.
This kind of quiet courage
that she had all her life.
Making all these difficult choices.
Changing life all the time.
From Sweden to America. Then to Italy.
Then to France. Then to England.
I mean, changing everything.
Every time starting again
a new life, new friends, new families.
- You have to have some courage to do that.
- A lot of energy too.
Energy, yes.
boom, boom, boom.
And you had to run after her.
I know.
She was perseverant
and very sure of her career.
- She was not a secure person.
- No, no.
I think she actually, as a lot of actors,
she was very shy.
And so when she could be someone else,
it was a relief to her.
- That's what she liked about acting.
- Absolutely.
That she knew where the story was going.
She knew what to say
because she had the text.
And she could overcome
this incredible feeling of shyness.
I wonder if her throwing herself
in life like that and living life so fully
is because she saw these two parents
that didn't have a chance to
Her father, yes, but her mother really
didn't have a chance to live, literally.
She just had a child and she died.
It could be that on
an unconscious level, to say,
"I will live every moment of my life
as intensely as I can."
I'll always keep this diary
and hide it away.
I'm 14 years old,
two months and three days.
I was born on August 29, 1915.
My parents were Friedel Adler
and Justus Bergman.
They baptized me Ingrid.
I was spirited, boisterous,
stubborn and wild.
My mother died in 1918, of jaundice.
I have no recollection of her.
Only photos.
My father died 12 years after my mother,
on July 29, 1929, of cancer.
I'm head of my school's theater club.
I like dancing and being popular.
Yes, I was a very sad child,
and very lonely.
And I think that is how I saved myself
was to invent the characters
that I could talk to,
because I was terribly shy in school
and shy with anybody.
And if I had all these
imaginary characters around me,
I could talk to them, and they answered
back just what I wanted them to say.
And that is how I became an actress,
not knowing what I was doing was acting.
I was so happy to have
gotten out of reality
and come into my world of imagination.
There it is.
That's the house.
Slow down. We can't go in.
So we'll have to look at it from out here.
Let's stop here, on the right.
Ingrid was like a big sister to me.
I was her little sister.
That was how we felt to each other.
She took me under her wing straightaway.
I think it was because
she left Pia in America.
She liked talking to someone
the same age as Pia.
Then of course I grew up, became an adult,
and we became good friends
with each other.
We had a very strong friendship.
One day, my mother said to me,
"You should go to Fregene
because Ingrid Bergman's there."
A cousin of mine had a villa there.
My uncle Roberto and Ingrid
were hiding in that villa
as there were too many paparazzi
in the hotels.
I was in the garden,
waiting for them to call me.
I was looking for pine kernels, you know.
I was sitting on the ground.
Suddenly, I saw two feet.
Her feet.
I went...
It was her. She was smiling at me.
That's how we met.
It made her laugh
that the first thing I met was her feet.
When was your last time
in front of a camera?
It was for Stromboli
- You said you'd never do another film.
I said that because
it was a terrible time.
But... all wounds heal.
I understand.
I want to work again.
I'd rather be lost with them
than to be saved alone.
Did I find the reality in the
movies in Italy that I was looking for?
Yes.
- I did. I certainly did.
But I had then been trained
for ten years in America,
and so many years in Sweden
of working in a different way.
And having a script and a dialogue
and rehearsing time and all that.
I was very upset by many things I had
to do that were all improvisations.
And just make the dialogue up yourself.
Well, I couldn't.
And he said,
"Well, you do this dialogue every day."
I mean, there was
a cocktail party in Europe '51,
and he said, "Make up the conversation,
the way you talk when people come
into the home and have drinks.
Why should I sit and write that down?"
But I couldn't.
You know, I didn't know what to say.
I realized that I was not that type
of an actress that could do that.
Here we are.
I mean, these pictures
were not at all bad pictures.
It was just that people didn't like them.
I didn't think Stromboli
was a bad movie at all.
I thought it was a very touching movie.
I thought it was a wonderful story.
But people were so taken
by the private scandal
that they were against it
from the beginning.
Mama took always a lot
of photographs and films.
She was photographed by her dad,
so I think
It was more than home movies.
He was creating a continuity,
creating a sense of family
and a celebration.
And it was always
with this eye of humor and warmth.
She lost her father and mother so early
that these photographs became
particularly important for her,
in the sense that
they symbolized her roots.
I have hours of film.
Sometimes it's boring.
All parents film their children for
three hours doing the same thing.
But her films are funny and very touching.
Her father gave her
the importance of memories.
The fact she didn't have
a brother or sister was sad for her.
Then she lost her father,
who she loved dearly, so soon, so young.
He must have been fantastic,
as he adored her.
He was very affectionate, present,
and he adored her.
That was very important for Mama.
The Swedish-Italian children
of Joan of Arc are here.
Roberto Rossellini has come
with Ingrid Bergman to Stockholm
where she will play Joan of Arc.
The play is on tour
and they're arriving from Barcelona.
The Rossellini children aren't
very interested in their mother's stake.
They prefer Swedish wooden horses.
For me was mostly a torture to
see her on screen, instead of a pleasure.
And I'll tell you why.
Because, especially on stage,
when she was working on the theater.
Um, she was, before going on stage,
she was suffering so much.
She was so nervous, sweating,
that for a child, you feel that.
And I was really kind of panicking,
saying what is she doing.
And then, for an example, uh,
the first time I see her on stage,
it was during, uh
when she was doing Joan of Arc.
And so, as I tell you, in the beginning,
so nervous before going on stage.
Then you go on stage,
a very boring play for a child.
And at the end,
they burn your mother on stage,
with all the public enthusiastic of that.
It was kind of a shock for me. I screamed.
During my 16 years abroad,
I never stopped hoping I'd return
to the stage in Sweden.
THE FALL OF A STAR
That hope evaporated.
APPEARING FOR MONEY
BLAZING SPEECH BY INGRID BERGMAN
Of course an actress
must put up with criticism.
I'm not saying the contrary.
Is it because I came back
after all those years?
I have known success, fame...
I have won awards,
not for my character,
not as a human,
not because I'm a nice Swedish person.
I don't think the awards
I won were for that,
but for the films I made
in America and Italy.
No man is a prophet in his own country.
I've come back to Sweden.
It's not the first time someone returns
and discovers that criticism in
their own country is harsher than abroad.
Dearest Ruth,
It's so beautiful here.
Lots and lots of snow.
Once they got used to it,
the children loved it.
I have found all my friends.
Fiorella, Roberto's niece,
is here with us.
I like her so much. She's like Pia to me.
Roberto isn't here much in Stockholm.
He's planning to shoot in Spain
and then in France.
I'd love to work in France.
I hope someone will ask me one day.
I've recently had four offers
from America.
A film by Billy Wilder with Gary Cooper.
I'd love to accept,
but... not in Hollywood.
Elena and Her Men... It's Ingrid Bergman.
It is Ingrid Bergman acting in a
different way than we're used to seeing.
I wanted to film her in a comedy.
I felt she needed it.
I thought it was the right time
in her career for her to play comedy.
Jean and I became
very great friends,
and I always wanted
to make a movie for him.
And he said,
"No, you're too big of a star," he said.
So he said, "But one day you will
come down, and I'll be there with a net."
After the movies with Roberto
all those movies that in those days
were not successful and didn't work out,
um, our relationship was
naturally strained through that,
and other people came in
and wanted to work with me.
And Roberto wouldn't let me work
for anybody else.
But then Jean Renoir,
whom he had great respect for, came,
my net, and he said,
"Could I make a picture with Ingrid?"
He wanted a tragic love story.
One day he said, "I want you to
have fun and make people laugh"
And he created Elena
Jean likes to laugh.
Yes, yes!
So do you!
- Yes, I do.
Was it easy
to work with him as director?
Yes, it's easy,
because he loves his actors so much,
and he's so enthusiastic and present.
When he watches us play a scene,
he plays it out too.
He's really with us.
Tonight the drinks are on the house!
It's not very strong. I'm used to vodka.
It's much stronger!
- What does vodka smell of?
- Nothing!
I prefer red wine! You can drink more!
I think Renoir, um,
taught her about film in general.
About the role of films in society.
Does film have a social responsibility?
Does it have an impact in our society?
Is it there only to distract?
Or even that is a very big social impact.
And I think she never thought about it.
She'd always liked just simply acting,
being someone else.
So she didn't feel this shyness.
So I think it was with Renoir that she
started to think in a different dimension.
And Renoir opened the door
to understand my father's film,
or other directors more of that tradition.
Um, of course she was very close
to my father.
But I don't think at the end liked so much
to work with him
because Father never worked
with other actors.
So it was very difficult
to work with father, of course.
Papa went to India in 1956,
so he wasn't around.
So we all went to Paris with Mama.
We lived in an enormous suite
in the famous Raphael hotel.
Everything was perfect, very luxurious.
The hotel's concierge looked after me.
It was probably unusual,
not quite the norm, but still...
It was fun. It was a good time.
You don't complain
when you're living in luxury.
Dear Mollie,
I'm acting on stage here in Paris.
It's a funny play.
Roberto is still filming in India.
My friend Kay Brown has decided
to find me a role in an American film.
She has sent me the play Anastasia.
The director Anatole Litvak
wants to make it into a film.
Roberto wasn't pleased.
He made a terrible scene and threatened
to drive his Ferrari into a tree.
But I've made up my mind.
I must do the kind of films
I feel comfortable with.
Once the cameraman's in position,
the stars, Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner,
receive final instructions
from the director, Anatole Litvak.
My director, Anatole Litvak.
He wanted me for the part.
And then came the big struggle
with an American company
who were terribly worried.
And Litvak just said, "If I don't get her,
I won't do the picture."
Good evening, ladies and
gentlemen, The Ed Sullivan Show.
Named America's number one
TV variety show,
starring the nationally
syndicated columnist
at the New York Daily News, Ed Sullivan.
I know that she's a controversial figure.
So it's entirely up to you.
If you want her on our show,
drop me a note and let me know.
And if you don't,
if you think it shouldn't be done,
you also let me know that too.
Because I say, it is your decision.
And I'd like to get your verdict on it.
I think, as a lot of you think,
that this woman has had
seven and a half years.
You know, she's had seven and a half
years of time for penance.
Others might not think so,
but whatever you think
The envelope, please.
The winner, Ingrid Bergman, in Anastasia.
Feeling it.
Well, it's a privilege
to have been asked to be here
in case Ingrid won this award.
And now that she has, it's
a privilege to try to thank you for her.
But alas, I have no way of knowing
the exact depth and degree of her emotion
when she finally hears the news
that she's received it.
So dear Ingrid, if you can hear me now,
or if you see this televised film,
I want you to know that each of
the other nominees
and all the people with whom
you worked on Anastasia,
and dear Hitch and Leo McCarey,
and every one of us here tonight
and in New York
send you our congratulations, our love,
our admiration
and every affectionate thought.
Thank you.
How do you feel, Ms. Bergman,
about winning your second Academy Award?
I am happy, happy, happy.
Who wouldn't be?
And it was such an unusually
pleasant picture to work on.
Everybody was so helpful,
and in every way,
it couldn't have been better
So I'm very grateful.
How are the children feeling about this?
Oh, they were very exited about it.
I don't think they understand
what it is all about,
but I couldn't help but mention yesterday
that I was hoping to get a statue.
So they came rushing in this morning,
asking me if I had received the statue.
They think it's a big one
we can put in the garden.
When the moment came,
when I had to face America again,
to arrive alone and say, "Here I am.
And you can throw your stones,
or you can accept me again."
I was very, very nervous
because I knew I was going to meet the
American audiences, the American press.
Now to New York,
where Ingrid Bergman is seen
paying her first visit
to the United States since 1949.
During her stay, she was presented with
the New York Film Critics Award
for the best film actress of 1956.
Do you approach this trip with any fear
or trepidation
as for your reception here in New York?
No, I didn't. I looked at it as pure fun.
I thought it would be wonderful,
because all my life I've done things,
things on a moment's notice like that,
and that's what makes it
interesting and exiting.
Looking back on it,
do you have any regrets
about anything that you've done
the last few years, Ms. Bergman?
No, I have no regrets at all.
I regret the things I didn't do,
not what I did.
I have done what I felt like.
I have never...
I was given courage,
and I was given a sense of adventure.
And that has carried me along.
And what else but a sense of humor
and a little bit of common sense.
It's been a very rich life.
She had no regrets.
I don't think she ever did it, saying,
"I don't care about them."
She cared about Hollywood. She loved
her friends. She loved her daughter.
She even respected her other husband.
But there was a sense of adventure,
and life was there to be lived in full.
And I don't think she could stop herself.
I was under my father's custody
until I was 18.
And my father took me to Europe
to see my mother.
Uh, she did not come
to the United States to see me.
But he took me to see her in London.
We met in sort of neutral territory,
not in Italy.
When I was 18, I went to visit my mother
for the first time and stayed with her.
Irene, darling,
Pia has come to Paris,
at last, after five years.
Pia's plane was surrounded
by journalists and paparazzi.
But we had a moment to ourselves
in the plane.
We were so happy to be together again.
She's 18 and visiting Rome
for the first time.
Since she was ten, she hasn't seen her
mother for more than two weeks running.
The three Rossellini children
are in Santa Marinella.
Roberto Rossellini is filming in India.
The tabloids there are very busy with him.
Ingrid looks very happy.
She's a good mother, a loving wife,
devoted to her family.
The youngsters
dance on the terrace.
I pretend I'm old and lie down.
Not because I feel old,
but it's part of the game.
Anyway, I'm so happy.
I prefer to be alone.
It's turned out better than we hoped for.
Pia likes it here.
She's so open. She likes everything.
She's kind to the younger ones.
The first day, she said she wouldn't
come back next summer.
But the second day, she said, "Why stay
in America when it's so wonderful here?"
We try to make each day like a party.
I can't tell you how happy I am.
The proceedings between
Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini...
Dear Ruth, I experienced
such happiness with Roberto,
but such misery too.
I tried so hard to live with him.
But I know my life has changed.
He has left me.
He's going to have a baby
with a woman in India.
I feel strangely relieved.
Imagine a child going through
his parents' divorce
but amplified by dozens of photographers.
It was difficult, very hard.
I have photos of us children
taken by the paparazzi, besieging the car,
and we're clearly terrified.
Lars is such
a fantastic man, Ruthie.
I'm so happy.
This time
I think I've found the right one.
Third time lucky.
Isn't it funny that he's Swedish?
We're so alike.
I feel full of hope.
I think my youngest children
will accept him.
Pia will be more upset and surprised.
Why didn't you want
to live with any of us?
She didn't live with her children
with Roberto Rossellini.
She left them in Italy and moved to France
to live with a theater producer.
She'd rather live with a producer
than her children.
Uh, I guess we weren't that much fun.
What can I say?
So I'm sorry.
Children don't like to hear that.
But, you know, the reality is
Oh, here comes my dog.
Uh... No, the reality is that sometimes
children are not that interesting.
Not to all parents anyway.
I change everything in my life.
It takes time to adapt to change.
I've been very busy this winter,
moving and adapting
to my new home and my new life.
Will you be staying at home?
No. I'm at home now
because it's a lot of fun.
I think that next winter,
I'll be in a film or on stage.
I don't have any projects.
We had the villa at Santa Marinella,
which was like paradise for us.
I was practically born there.
I grew up in that house.
When our parents split up,
Papa couldn't keep the villa,
so it was sold.
For us, it was horrible.
We felt like Adam and Eve
chased from paradise.
Leaving Santa Marinella
was as brutal as that.
Then a miracle. They do exist.
Mama met Lars,
who had an island in Sweden.
That island was marvelous.
We were so happy there.
I absolutely loved it there,
and my mother loved it too.
Sometimes we need
a bit of stability in life.
Everything changes in life
we grow old, divorce, change jobs.
And we need a place where we can say,
"This is something
that will never change."
Dannholmen.
Lars's island. So secluded.
In summer, everything's so clear,
it glitters.
The sea, the rocks, the sky.
When I first came here,
we sat in front of the house, and I said,
"I love your island."
Lars replied,
"Good. Let's get married then."
At a certain point in our life,
we didn't live with either of our parents.
Nor my mother, nor my father,
because they remarried
and set up other houses.
So they created a children's home,
which was to me a lot of fun
because the living room was transformed
into an enormous playroom.
We had, instead of a sofa, Ping-Pong
and things to punch, and things to
you know, bars, so we could dance.
I liked to dance.
Um, but some of my brothers and sister
would have rather lived in a more
traditional home, with a living room
Don't touch that. Don't make it.
Don't mess it up.
But have Mama and Father every day.
We didn't have Mama and Father
every day starting at age six.
Mama lived in Paris. We lived in Rome.
She came when she could.
We saw Dad for Sunday lunch,
even if he wasn't always exactly present.
- No, he wasn't...
- But he called...
True.
His phone calls went like this
"Hi, are you okay?"
"Good. Pass Isa."
"Hi, are you okay? Good."
His phone calls were like that.
Several times a day.
Mama came whenever she could.
We went to Paris for holidays.
Sometimes she came.
I missed her a lot.
I was very attached to my mother.
I adored her.
I used to cry when she left,
and I wouldn't eat for several days.
When I became a mother,
I realized that children
physically need their mother there.
Absence is too hard.
My favorite moments were like a reward
from time to time,
all three of us slept with her.
To me, it was the best thing
that could happen in the world.
My career
has always been important.
When they were little,
I took them with me.
But it was difficult
when they started school.
I do regret it,
but I don't think my Italian children
suffered because of it.
We were always so happy
when we met up again.
They liked the idea
of coming to meet their mother.
I went back to Italy every month
when I wasn't working.
But when I was on stage,
I was away for seven months
one month for rehearsals
and six for performances.
But they came to see me
whenever it was possible.
I often told myself
there was a positive side.
I was like a friend to my children,
more than a mother saying,
"Brush your teeth.
Go to bed. There's school tomorrow."
I think I was more of...
a friend than a mother.
I always felt that Mama could
only be 100% happy if she acted.
So for me it was important that
she went to work and stayed with us.
Because otherwise we had a mama that
was trying to be happy with the family,
but she was a little bit bored
with the family.
I think for my other siblings sometimes,
that part was more painful.
They wanted to come first.
But for me, I just thought, "I know why
she hasn't I'm gonna do the same.
I'm gonna have as much fun as her."
Dear Mollie,
I'm in Rome to see the children.
I'm faced with the worst imaginable thing.
Isabella has scoliosis.
I can't understand it.
She looks so healthy.
It's as though my heart is paralyzed.
I was the luckiest of all
because I was sick when I was a girl.
Mama stopped working
for two years to be with me.
So I think I benefited
from my back operation
because I never felt neglected.
When there was an emergency,
Mama stopped working to be with me.
Will you please tell me
what this is all about?
I've quit my job.
Or rather I've traded it in for Paris.
- You quit your job?
- Yep.
- Why?
- They were gonna send me to New York.
Oh, but, Philip.
No buts, not from you.
Let's have a pact, all right?
No, Philip, you can't do this.
I won't let you do it.
It's done.
Sorry.
Slippery.
Swing it.
That's it.
I would like to see what I can do now
at my age that is interesting.
It isn't only what do you look like.
It is also what you feel like.
I feel like continuing
what I am doing in my age.
I think she loved movies very, very much.
But at a certain age,
they don't write so many scripts
for women who are 45 or 50.
You go to the theater if you have
the capability of doing that.
So she did the movies she could
and the ones she wanted to do.
Uh, but then the theater took over.
And then Lars, of course,
was a theatrical producer.
So she did a month in the country
and various plays that I saw in London.
AFTER A 21 YEAR ABSENCE, NEW YORK
WELCOMES BACK INGRID BERGMAN
I was in my early 20s.
It was my first paying job in New York
that I got through a little notice
in the actors' newspaper Backstage,
and it turned out be this
Somerset Maugham play, The Constant Wife,
starring Ingrid Bergman
and directed by Sir John Gielgud.
My whole life, I have never forgotten
how completely down to earth,
and warm and engaged she was.
You know, when I think that I could have
worked with some monster, you know,
from show business,
and it would have really put me off
the whole business.
And to work with Ms. Bergman,
who was always so gracious and so kind.
For many years I'd been a tall,
very clumsy person,
and it was very meaningful to me
to see someone
who so was in their beautiful, strong body
as a woman.
And not hunching or, you know.
And just proud of who she was,
and so centered.
I think she felt very comfortable
with this nucleus of people she had,
that she'd had in London.
And I think it's one of the reasons
she wanted
to continue doing the play, uh,
with Sir John.
To continue having that experience
of being on stage and working,
yet very protected, I feel.
I think she had a core of friends,
you know, like Ruth Roberts,
who was a dialect coach in English.
I remember Ruth. I remember Kay Brown,
Mother's agent from the beginning.
It was the woman that selected her.
Irene Selznick, David Selznick's wife.
Those are really Mama's best friends,
and they were people
that bridged family and work.
She talked a lot about her children.
- She talked about you and your back
- I had a back operation.
She talked about your other sister
and your older sister, uh,
and her son.
That was her family. That was her closest.
And I believe maybe in some way
she talked more about you
than maybe you always felt.
I was surprised, because after
both Mama and Irene Selznick died, um,
we went and read the correspondence
because they saved all their letters
to see if there was something interesting,
maybe a book or something
about two women that counted so much.
We looked at the letter,
and it was only about children.
Yeah.
- It was very touching.
These were two women
that were so interested in their work.
And that surprised me.
I thought that the letter would give us
an incredible insight
into the world of Hollywood, of film,
of creating theater.
Nothing. Just always children.
I have wanted so long
to do something for Ingmar Bergman.
And then I saw him again
at the film festival in Cannes.
I was on the jury.
And he came down
with his picture Cries and Whispers,
and I decided that
I would remind him
and put a little letter in his pocket.
We're going to have to talk to them.
Is that okay?
And being directed
by such an artist as he is,
and it was just like
a little family working together.
And he works very close to his actors,
and though he knows what he wants and how,
he is so open to suggestions
and so willing to follow
the instinctive reaction
that his actors have.
And he builds on that, you see.
He would never say,
"That's not your business
to discuss this with me."
No, he will take more and more out of you,
and then help you to develop
what he wants you to develop.
So it's a very close relationship
that you have with him.
When the daughter
is through a whole night
telling the mother,
"You have ruined my life.
Look at me. I can't do anything
because you were never here."
And I hate her and I hate her,
and I told her.
It was a three-page monologue.
And in the end,
the camera is on her and she says,
"Please, I am sorry.
Hold around me. Please love me."
And Ingrid said, "I'm not gonna say that.
I want to slap her in the face
and leave the room."
And it became a catastrophe.
And Ingmar was furious.
And she wouldn't say it.
And they screamed and they screamed.
And so they went out in the corridor,
and we knew the movie's over.
It's not going to be.
She wasn't gonna do it.
And we heard screaming and screaming,
and then it became quiet.
Door opens. In comes the genius, Ingmar,
and the actress.
And of course he won.
But I have feelings too.
Well, I argued in the beginning
like I do with everybody.
I am difficult. I argue about the scenes,
the dialogues, the setups.
I don't argue for my sake.
It isn't that I try to improve my part.
I try to improve the movie, the situation,
for everybody.
I want it to be the best possible.
But I sometimes am very clumsy,
and I don't use any diplomatic way
of telling something.
I'm very open and frank
and put my foot in it.
If she wants to sulk...
If the girl wants to sulk,
even though she's asked her...
She told me,
because she thought she was angelic
She always said,
"I'm available. I work so hard."
And she always said,
"I'm the easiest person to work with."
And then, after working on Autumn Sonata,
seeing the documentary
- Yeah.
- She came home and she said,
"I am really difficult. I never realized."
- Exactly
- I don't think she realized
that her honesty sometimes
could be cutting.
When my daughter plays
the piano, I have a close-up.
The mother is watching her daughter.
And I had nothing to do
but watch her play.
Then Ingmar came up after a while
I'd done a couple of takes
and said, "What are you thinking of?"
So I said, "Well, I'm thinking
that my poor daughter,
she never really
could play the piano, could she?
And a little mistake there.
But she's cute as she's sitting,
but, oh, that was not good."
And he said, "You're thinking all wrong.
She is not even listening
to her daughter playing.
She knows that the daughter
is not a pianist.
She's watching the girl,
and she remembers when she was
a little girl that ran across the lawn,
and how happy the mother was
when she stretched out her arms,
and the little girl ran into her arms."
And it gave me a completely
new way of thinking.
That is what a good director can do.
He gives you the thought
so then you can project that.
My little Eva.
- That's all you have to say?
- No. I'm just very touched.
- Did you love it?
- I love you.
I don't understand.
Play another piece. It's pleasant.
- Did I make a mistake?
- No, not at all.
You try naturally,
being an actress
actors don't have the same worry.
But actresses, of course,
like to look beautiful
and young as long as possible.
But it is very difficult.
You can do it a little more on the stage,
where you're not so close to the audience.
You can fake ten, 15 years.
But on the screen you see the age.
And it takes courage
to take all the makeup off
and really show what you are in real life.
He gave me courage. I said to him,
"Oh, my God,
when my fans see me like this,
I'll lose them all."
And he said, "Don't worry.
I'll get you new ones."
She saved everything.
She kept things. She held onto things.
She kept her
Well, look. Here's her passport
from when she's a little girl.
Who has their passport from this age?
But she did.
She has her diaries. She had letters.
She saved things.
She saved her school papers.
She saved her children's school papers.
And when you think about her moving from
country to country to country,
because she did do that.
She immigrated and re-immigrated
and re-immigrated.
And she lived in different places,
but she saved it all.
She packed it up and took it with her
and held onto it.
This is her family life.
Being able to hold these things together
and have them
is her equivalent, as she was maturing,
of going home to visit her parents.
She couldn't go home to visit her parents,
but she could go to her trunks
to visit her things
that reminded her of her years with them,
or of her life.
She always said to me,
"I wanna die with my boots on."
And for her being active
it wasn't just being a mom.
That was just natural biological behavior.
But choices. It was acting.
The relationship with my mother was always
very intimate, and yet...
it's almost contradictory,
it was almost a friendship.
When she was very ill and in pain,
I wanted to distract and amuse her
but I didn't know how to.
What I did,
but also because it interested me,
was to get her to tell me
episodes of her life.
We spent nights
telling stories and anecdotes,
laughing together
about certain situations.
It did her good.
On one hand
because it helped her forget her illness,
and at the end she was in a lot of pain,
but also because it was a way
of telling people around her
her life story.
She always said,
"I don't regret anything."
As her daughter, it hurt.
She didn't regret anything,
but we missed her so much.
It's difficult.
Put yourself in my shoes, as her daughter.
Later on, I understood
that she thought everyone
should be fulfilled,
by following their hearts, their passions,
by being oneself.
I think that is what she meant.
You know, people have said,
"Do you think there will ever be
a Mommie Dearest book about your mother?"
And I said, "None of us
None of us would dream of doing that."
She was just too much fun to be with.
She played. She was a player.
And she played it
with real life sometimes.
She went where the wind took her,
but she was so amusing to be with.
That the only thing
that any of her children feel
is we wish we had more of her.
We just wish she'd been around more.
What I missed was not a lot of mothering
or something, or making cookies.
I just missed her presence.
And because she was
so delightfully open and amusing,
I craved my whole life
to have more of her.
My voice is daylight
And all that live there
My voice is colors
I sing the words about us
And the violet misty sunset
I sing the straight line
I sing refractions
And what your head is thinking
And all the feelings in between
They have each other to cling
I sing the shadows
And all that live there
I sing the openings
I sing the movie 'bout us
And the violet misty sunset
I sing the heart's will
I sing the columns there
I sing the breakers
I sing the steps that we take
And the air between them
I sing the surface
And all the furrows there
I sing the body's desire
Expectations of fire
While heaven roars above us
Eternal is eternity
I sing for our love to be
A beginning without end
My voice is daylight
And all that live there
I sing the openings
I sing the movie 'bout us
And the violet misty sunset