Since I have not been able to take Fellini off my mind, I went ahead and immersed myself in a little more of the wine that I drank - a few more directors, so to say.
Woody Allen - I am yet to see his movies but I already have high regard for the man.
http://www.openculture.com/2012/02/how_woody_allen_discovered_ingmar_bergman_and_how_you_can_too.html
Allen holds a surprisingly plausible claim to the title of Bergman’s number-one fan, or at least his most prominent one. How to square his dedication to these solemn Swedish meditations on mortality, emotional isolation, and the impossibility of faith with his creation of beloved light comedies like Bananas, Sleeper, and Annie Hall? But watch Allen’s filmography in full, especially pictures like Love and Death, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Shadows and Fog, and the answer comes into view. Mortality, emotional isolation, the impossibility of faith — Bergman’s preoccupations are Allen’s, but Allen grapples with the unanswerable questions by making jokes about them. What Allen describes as a “thematic connection” to Bergman ultimately becomes a much more complicated entanglement: his hiring of Bergman’s cinematographer Sven Nykvist to shoot Another Woman, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Celebrity, for instance, suggests something beyond simple influence.
In conversation with Kermode, Allen remembers joining the vanguard of New York Bergman enthusiasm after seeing Summer with Monika and The Naked Night, films that, to his mind, displayed an obviously higher level of craft than anything else playing in town. The days when discovering Bergman really meant discovering Bergman have long passed, but it will never be too late to feel the same excitement Allen did about Bergman’s ability to express internal conflicts — “inner states of anxiety,” Allen calls them — so richly and dramatically on film. The Woody Allen-approved points of entry for the Bergman novice: The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and Cries and Whispers “for sure.” And maybe The Magician. H/T @opedr
Woody Allen - I am yet to see his movies but I already have high regard for the man.
http://www.openculture.com/2012/02/how_woody_allen_discovered_ingmar_bergman_and_how_you_can_too.html
Allen holds a surprisingly plausible claim to the title of Bergman’s number-one fan, or at least his most prominent one. How to square his dedication to these solemn Swedish meditations on mortality, emotional isolation, and the impossibility of faith with his creation of beloved light comedies like Bananas, Sleeper, and Annie Hall? But watch Allen’s filmography in full, especially pictures like Love and Death, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Shadows and Fog, and the answer comes into view. Mortality, emotional isolation, the impossibility of faith — Bergman’s preoccupations are Allen’s, but Allen grapples with the unanswerable questions by making jokes about them. What Allen describes as a “thematic connection” to Bergman ultimately becomes a much more complicated entanglement: his hiring of Bergman’s cinematographer Sven Nykvist to shoot Another Woman, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Celebrity, for instance, suggests something beyond simple influence.
In conversation with Kermode, Allen remembers joining the vanguard of New York Bergman enthusiasm after seeing Summer with Monika and The Naked Night, films that, to his mind, displayed an obviously higher level of craft than anything else playing in town. The days when discovering Bergman really meant discovering Bergman have long passed, but it will never be too late to feel the same excitement Allen did about Bergman’s ability to express internal conflicts — “inner states of anxiety,” Allen calls them — so richly and dramatically on film. The Woody Allen-approved points of entry for the Bergman novice: The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and Cries and Whispers “for sure.” And maybe The Magician. H/T @opedr
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