God and the Devil: The Life and Work of Ingmar Bergman (Faber) by Peter Cowie

If they were ever to create a Mount Rushmore for movie directors, Ingmar Bergman would be among the first to be immortalised in stone. The influential Swedish film-maker directed more than 60 films and documentaries throughout his long career, including such stone-cold classics as The Seventh Seal (1958), Persona (1966) and Fanny and Alexander (1983). In addition to his movies, he gave the world the adjective “Bergmanesque” meaning “a specific worldview – a bleak psychological chronicle of people living in a world that God has abandoned.”

Not surprisingly, Bergman has been the subject of many biographies to date, including his own compelling 1987 autobiography, The Magic Lantern. Peter Cowie’s handsome, well-researched tome is a welcome addition to this canon.

Film historian Cowie is an accomplished biographer (his study of Louise Brooks takes pride of place on my coffee table) who tackled the Swedish auteur in a previous 1982 biography and was also a good friend of Bergman’s. He first interviewed the director in 1969 and they remained in contact for almost three decades. When it comes to the theme of this latest biography, the clue is in the title, as Cowie chronicles Bergman’s life and work as he wrestled with themes of love, sex and death.

While some directors keep their personal lives and films at arm’s length, most of the major characters and events in Bergman’s life are recorded on screen. Both God and the devil are in the details as Cowie presents a man who was born into a long line of Lutheran pastors, almost died at birth, and subsequently felt surrounded by the spectre of death. The Swede’s famously sombre worldview wasn’t helped by the fact that when his father was assigned the chaplaincy of the Royal Hospital, Ingmar’s best friend was the gardener whose task was to take the corpses to the mortuary.

A solitary child who loved magic lanterns shows, Bergman’s life found purpose and meaning at the age of 10. That Christmas, his elder brother Dag found a movie projector waiting for him under the tree. Ingmar swapped him 100 lead soldiers for it and began making short films.

The rest is history.