Like the crusader knight in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957), we all eventually lose our chess game with Death. And that includes Bergman himself, who passed away only last year, leaving an immense cinematic void as he did so. He bequeathed us 62 films, a good proportion of which are among the greatest and most enigmatic art works of the 20th century. We will, quite simply, never see their like again.
Taschen’s immense book, The Ingmar Bergman Archives, feels, then, like something of a final eulogy to the man and his art. If so, what an elegant and loving one it is. Each of Bergman’s films receives due attention, with essays, still photographs and new material from the director’s own archives. The package is rounded off with a DVD of the director’s home movies and a still from his masterwork, Fanny and Alexander (1982).
Perhaps the only thing that can do justice to Bergman’s remarkable life and career is the cinematic work itself.
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