19- Wild Strawberries . Director: Ingmar Bergman. Cast:Victor Sjöström,Ingrid Thulin,Bibi Andersson,Gunnar Björnstrand and Jullan Kindahl."I actually wrote it with Victor Sjöström in mind. He was my icon, someone I admired more than anyone else. This film The Phantom Chariot that he made—I think it's the most remarkable film I've ever experienced. I didn't dare call him myself, so the manager of Svensk Filmindustri had to do it. And he said he'd have a look at the script. And then he sent for me, and I went to see him in his apartment. A big, dark apartment with a housekeeper...who could have been written for a Bergman movie. So he explained—he was 78 years old at the time—that he found it interesting and would love to talk to me about it, but I was never to think that he could play the part. He was too tired and didn't have the strength for it. But how we—I didn't give up. No matter how we approached this question, he said he would think about it. He wouldn't reject it out of hand. If Victor didn't—And I agreed with the production supervisors that if Victor didn't agree to do it, there would be no one else. I had written the story with Victor in mind. Then he called me early the next morning and said, 'Yes, I've decided to do it on one condition.' 'What is that?' 'It's got nothing to do with finances, because you don't deal with that. But I want my shot of whiskey every afternoon at 5:00. So you must make sure we finish in time for me to get home and have my drink at 5:00.' This I promised him. But it's no longer my film. It is, and forever will be, Victor's film. And as such, I think it's great."
-Ingmar Bergman----------
"Ingrid Thulin is a magnificent instrument. What was crucial [for her role in Wild Strawberries] was that she should be a person of firm, strong character, and who knew how to express it—Ingrid emanates something substantial; and I suppose that was what I wanted. Not [just] anyone would have done to play against so overwhelming a personality as Victor [Sjöström]."
-Ingmar Bergman----------"I don't go much to the movies, I don't follow it much. I make films with such passion that I am not able to be a spectator. However, I have seen some films—the author of today's films that I admire the most and find most congenial and that I feel as a brother is Bergman. I have seen only two films, Wild Strawberries and The Silence, but they were enough to make me love him as a brother, a milk brother."
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Federico Fellini---------"His [Victor Sjöström's] heart wasn't very strong during the production. He was often tired and had difficulty remembering his lines. That made him angry and irritable with himself. A reaction that I believe stemmed from wounded pride and the insistence on an actor's discipline that he had retained from his time as a director. Ingmar worked with Sjöström out of love, admiration and an endless tact and understanding. He and I together arrived at a tacit agreement: it was I who would be blamed when we had to retake a scene because Victor forgot his lines. I don't know if we really succeeded in deceiving him, but this strategy certainly worked, particularly where Ingmar's and Victor's relations were concerned, but also where I was involved. This tacit understanding formed a bond between two generations of players, a mutual respect, tolerance, and friendship that I hope in some way relieved the loneliness that enveloped Victor—which was entirely in line with the film."
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Ingrid Thulin--------"Sjöström was wonderful to work with because he was very real. He was a very modern actor. I never heard of any real difficulties between him and Bergman, but there was a little struggle, because Ingmar, I think, had his own father a little bit in mind. He wished that this father would suddenly look inside himself and be able to expose old age when it is bitter and lonely, yet end in a sort of, not forgiveness, but some understanding and reunion with himself. And I felt that he sometimes worried that Victor wanted to play for sympathy more than understanding. He didn't want him to be sentimental—and I don't think he is in the film."
-Bibi Andersson-------"I had created a figure(Isak Borg) who, on the outside, looked like my father but was me, through and through. I was then thirty-seven, cut off from all human relations. It was I who had done the cutting off, presumably an act of self-affirmation. I was a loner, a failure, I mean a complete failure. Though successful. And clever. And orderly. And disciplined. I was looking for my father and my mother, but I could not find them. In the final scene of Wild Strawberries there is a strong element of nostalgia and desire: Sara takes Isak Borg by the hand and leads him to a sunlit clearing in the forest. On the other side he can see his parents. They wave to him. One thread goes through the story in multiple variations: shortcomings, poverty, emptiness, and the absence of grace. I didn't know then, and even today I don't know fully, how through Wild Strawberries I was pleading with my parents: see me, understand me, and—if possible—forgive me."
-Ingmar Bergman------"Only three filmmakers have changed drastically what movies are and can do: D.W. Griffith, Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman. Even as their kind of movie has gone out of style, their place in film history remains secure; and if we haven't seen their films, our education can never be complete."
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Leonard Maltin-
Chales Chaplin and Ingmar Bergman
