44-The Seventh Seal - Director:Ingmar Bergman. Cast: Max von Sydow,Bibi Andersson,Bengt Ekerot,Gunnar Björnstrand,Nils Poppe and Gunnel Lindblom.

"It seems to me presumptuous to try to write or say anything about Ingmar Bergman, and any account is an impertinence; these films stand alone like great beacons in film history. There is nothing one would welcome so much as their liberation from all commentaries, all the ballast of the history of their interpretation; let them shine out once more! It seems to me that there is no other contemporary director whose work is so frequently filtered through the murky windows of "opinion"; there are no other films as deserving of simply being seen without being pre-analyzed as those of Ingmar Bergman... ... "
-Wim Wenders-
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"I don't regard Bergman as a religious film-maker. I think he's an atheist and he's saying there's nothing beyond this life. But that doesn't stop him from being spiritual and humanist."
-Terence Davies-
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"The director with the greatest power in the world is Bergman, because he makes his films with few people, and he makes them with few sets. But read Bergman on Bergman and see how even he has to practically crawl to someone in Stockholm and say, 'What about this project? I want to make this project. I'll make you two comedies after I do that. Will that make it all right?

Every film is a piece of his autobiography. That's what I like about his work. It's oblique and subtle and personally seen; you can't quite put your finger on it, but it's a piece of him. He's a true artist."
-Elia Kazan-
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"I can identify with what Bergman says about life, about what he says about love. I identify more or less with his attitude toward the world...towards men and women and what we do in everyday life...forgetting about what is most important."
-Krzysztof Kieslowski-
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"Consider the cleanness of his images. Some filmmakers allow pure chance to enter into their images. The sun, passersby, a bicycle (filmmakers like Rossellini, Lelouch, and Huston) and others want to control every square inch of the screen (Eisenstein, Lang, and Hitchcock). Bergman started out like the first group and then changed camps. In his latest films you never see a chance pedestrian; your attention will never be distracted by an extra object in the setting, even a bird in the garden. There is nothing on the canvas except what Bergman (who's anti-pictorial, like all true filmmakers) wants there."
-Francois Truffaut-
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"I have always admired him, and I wish I could be a equally good filmaker as he is, but it will never happen. His love for the cinema almost gives me a guilty conscience."
-Steven Spielberg-
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Ingmar Bergman favorite films (not in order):

The Passion of Joan of Arc - Carl Theodor Dreyer
Andrei Rublev - Andrei Tarkovsky
The Phantom Carriage - Victor Sjostrom
Dark Eyes - Nikita Mikhalkov
Bang! - Jan Troell
The Emigrants - Jan Troell
Great Expectations - David Lean
Hamsun - Jan Troell
Mr. Hulot's Holiday - Jacques Tati
The Phantom of Moulin Rouge - Rene Clair
Sunrise - F.W. Murnau
Tabu - F.W. Murnau
Tous les matins du monde -- Alain Corneau

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"There's an enigmatic relationship between Max and myself. He has meant a tremendous amount to me....As an actor, Max is sound through and through. Robust. Technically durable. If I'd had a psychopath to present these deeply psychopathic roles, it would have been unbearable. It's a question of acting the part of a broken man, not of being him. The sort of exhibitionism in this respect which is all the rage just now will pass over, I think. By and by people will regain their feeling for the subtle detachment which often exists between Max and my madmen."
-Ingmar Bergman-
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"I don't think they (Bergman's roles) were written for me as a personality. Many of his characters through the years have been related: there are those who want to believe but cannot, and there are those who believe like children and it's no problem for them at all, and there are those who do not want to believe, and there are the strains between these various characters and their conflicts, which are all probably conflicts within Ingmar himself."
-Max von Sydow-
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"I admire people like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, who seem to be so very real—I don't know how they do it. When I was young I admired Leslie Howard enormously, in films like The Scarlet Pimpernel, Gone With the Wind, and Pygmalion. Also Gary Cooper; perhaps he was not a great actor, but he had a great presence."
-Max von Sydow-
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"You have to get more involved in a Bergman film than you do in others, because it deals with much deeper and more philosophic questions than the average movie. He also establishes a much closer relationship with his actors and technicians than would ever be possible on larger productions."
-Max von Sydow-