Starring Best Actress Oscar nominee Ingrid Bergman as a renowned classical pianist and Liv Ullmann as her insecure, resentful daughter, Autumn Sonata will be one of the presentations at the Aero Theatre’s Ingmar Bergman film series.- Beginning in late May, the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre in Santa Monica will be presenting a six-week Ingmar Bergman film series.
- Included in the program – in new 35mm prints – are two of Bergman’s best-known efforts: Best Picture Oscar nominee Cries & Whispers, with Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin, and Autumn Sonata, with Ullmann and Best Actress nominee Ingrid Bergman.
Ingmar Bergman film series at American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre
The American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California, will be presenting an Ingmar Bergman film series between May 26–July 7.
Included in the program – in new 35mm prints – are the Academy Award-nominated family drama Cries & Whispers and the Ingrid Bergman-Liv Ullmann mother-daughter drama Autumn Sonata, which earned Bergman her seventh and final Oscar nod.
Additionally, on June 30 the American Cinematheque will host a special sneak preview of Bergman’s latest effort: Saraband, the story of a lawyer (Liv Ullmann) who feels a sudden need to contact her ex-husband (Erland Josephson) whom she has not seen in three decades. Needless to say, heavy drama ensues.
Cries & Whispers
One of Ingmar Bergman’s most admired works and one of a handful of non-English-language Best Picture Oscar nominees, Cries & Whispers / Viskningar och rop (lit., “Whispers and Cries,” 1972) will be screened on July 7.
Set in early 20th-century Sweden, this harrowing, beautifully shot psychological family drama earned cinematographer Sven Nykvist an Oscar, in addition to three nominations for Bergman himself (as producer, director, and screenwriter). Its fifth nomination was for Best Costume Design (Marik Vos-Lundh).
Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin (who has one of the film’s most – blood-red – memorable scenes), and an outstanding Harriet Andersson star as three sisters with serious physical and/or emotional ailments. Kari Sylwan is their religious housemaid.
Autumn Sonata
One of Bergman’s best-known works, Autumn Sonata (1978) will be screened on May 26.
This Anglo-Norwegian production features a gripping acting duel between veteran Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann. The former, working with the other Bergman for the first and only time, delivers a career-capping performance as a self-centered classical pianist; the latter plays her embittered daughter.
By then a three-time Oscar winner, Ingrid Bergman (Best Actress for Gaslight, 1944, and Anastasia, 1956; Best Supporting Actress for Murder on the Orient Express, 1974) lost the 1978 Best Actress statuette to Jane Fonda for Coming Home.
On the plus side, Bergman was the top choice of the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the National Board of Review.
Curiously, two-time Oscar nominee Liv Ullmann (The Emigrants, 1972; Face to Face, 1976) was bypassed by the Academy’s Actors Branch that year.
Lastly, Ingmar Bergman was an Oscar nominee in the Best Original Screenplay category. He lost to Nancy Dowd, Waldo Salt, and Robert C. Jones for Coming Home.
“Ingmar Bergman Film Series” endnotes
American Cinematheque website.
Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann Autumn Sonata image: ITC Entertainment.
“Ingmar Bergman Film Series: American Cinematheque Presenting New Prints” last updated in September 2021.