Ingmar Bergman

Latest Articles

Review: Happy, Happy

A familiar tale of adultery
First time filmmaker Anne Sewitsky finds a compassionate way to tell a familiar tale of adultery, and she's helped immeasurably by a first-rate acting ensemble, especially the two superlative actresses, whom you could imagine cast in films of the late Ingmar Bergman.
By GERALD PEARY | September 20, 2011

Stockholm syndrome

Stieg Larsson’s Girl is stinging Swedish noir
With its low crime rate and socialized everything, Sweden doesn’t seem very noirish compared with, say, LA. Then again, much of the country spends the entire winter without sunlight.
By PETER KEOUGH | May 26, 2010

The rules of his game

'Celebrating Chekhov' at the Museum of Fine Arts
Given that every theater season seems to bring a new production of a Chekhov play, it's surprising that so few movies have been made of his dramas, or of his short stories. Or maybe not so surprising: Chekhov is perilously difficult for filmmakers.
By STEVE VINEBERG | January 20, 2010

Review: Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America

Imagine if Ingmar Bergman had made The Blair Witch Project
Tony Stone’s “love letter to the Vikings’ discovery of the New World, pagan iconography, brute manliness, and simpler times” is set in the simpler (?) time of 1007 AD.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | November 04, 2009

Annie in Wonderland

St. Vincent gives an otherworldly performance on Actor
There wasn't much to know about St. Vincent when I first happened upon her in concert, in the middle of July 2007.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | October 21, 2009

Wish-fulfillment for a burning world

The 2008 heroic holiday DVD and Blu-ray gift guide
From the shining big-screen debut of Iron Man to the large amounts of green produced by the Incredible Hulk, this was the year the public couldn't get enough of their favorite heroes.
By BRETT MICHEL | December 11, 2008

RI International Film Fest marks 25 years

Reel life
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this time around, from August 5-10, the Rhode Island International Film Festival started out in 1983 as Flickers, a Newport film club.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | July 30, 2008

Night music

The Pops aces Sondheim
Classic musicals make substantial enterprises —this is now the best thing the Pops does.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 01, 2008

The Summer with Monika

Sensual rebellion
Harriet Andersson is the title character in this 1953 film, a teenager who combines a scruffy working-class sensuality with a slightly preposterous romanticism derived from Hollywood movies.
By STEVE VINEBERG | January 16, 2008

The Ingmar imbroglio

Plus the Manhattan Short Film Fest
There hasn’t been such a stir among film critics for years.
By GERALD PEARY | September 26, 2007

Michelangelo Antonioni

1912 – 2007
It seems inherently wrong to be writing an obituary for Michelangelo Antonioni, who died July 30 in Rome, just a day after we lost Ingmar Bergman.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | August 08, 2007

Ingmar Bergman

1918–2007
Ingmar Bergman, who died Sunday, was one of the last of the great world filmmakers who came to fame around the mid century and changed the face of movies.
By STEVE VINEBERG | July 31, 2007

Perversion, introversion

Slavoj Zizek at Harvard, Bergman on Fårö
Slavoj Zizek, the fuzzy-bearded Slovenian philosopher, seems a fun guy.
By GERALD PEARY | April 03, 2007

What? Institutional? Us?

Fluxus gets the Harvard treatment
George Maciunas was the sort of artist who composed musical scores that called for hammering nails into all the keys of a piano.
By GREG COOK | March 20, 2007

The Stones

An essay on the older
This article originally appeared in the August 26, 1994 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
By CAMILLE PAGLIA | November 16, 2006

Aging warnings

It's not just you who's getting old
Each night smiles three times, the aged and jaded Madame Armfelt (Maggie Mark) tells her young granddaughter Fredrika (Hannah Forsley): first for the young, who know nothing; second for the fools, who know too little; and finally for the old, who know too much.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | September 20, 2006