Here’s why we’ll always have Ingrid Bergman
Despite a relatively short stay in Hollywood — only 10 years — Ingrid Bergman quickly became, and remains, the definition of a movie star. In that decade after arriving from her native Sweden, she bewitched audiences with appearances in “Casablanca,” “Gaslight,” “Notorious” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Both her extraordinary beauty and her acting style seemed totally unaffected.
Her rise and fall — and she fell hard — are recounted in an entertaining and admiring documentary, “Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words,” which makes generous use of Bergman’s journals ( she kept a diary throughout her life), letters and home movies. Swedish actress Alicia Vikander gives voice to Bergman’s writings. The result is close to mandatory viewing for aficionados of one of the great periods of American film.
Director Stig Björkman gives due consideration to Bergman’s younger days in Sweden. Using still photos, film clips and the ever- present diary entries, Björkman introduces us to a girl who had a natural affinity to try to embody or imitate the things she saw in the world around her. She adored her father, but both parents had died before she became a teenager. She was a tall, gorgeous young woman who would go on to study theater in Stockholm and soon make the transition to movies.
In 1936 she landed a lifechanging role in the Swedish film “Intermezzo.” That movie came to the attention of producer David O. Selznick, who was impressed enough to bring her to Southern California for an American remake with Leslie Howard. Accompanying her were her husband and first daughter.
Unlike her studio- groomed public image, she was quite ambitious, and ( at least after she arrived in Tinseltown) apparently had a relaxed interpretation of her wedding vows. She had several affairs, but it wasn’t until she abandoned her husband and child in 1949 for Italian director Roberto Rossellini that the press and movie fans turned on her. She was even denounced on the floor of the U. S. Senate.
She married Rossellini and made films with him in Europe, including “Stromboli,” but the glory years were mostly over. Friends and colleagues, such as Cary Grant, publicly defended her, and she gave a few more highly praised performances, including her work in “Murder on the Orient Express” ( for which she won her third Oscar) and in Ingmar Bergman’s “Autumn Sonata.” She died in 1982 after a long battle with cancer.
The film was made with the cooperation of her family, and two of her daughters — actress Isabella Rossellini and TV journalist Pia Lindstrom ( who incidentally began her career at San Francisco’s KGO) — appear onscreen to share many memories. They are warm and affectionate, though it’s made clear that Bergman was not the world’s most hands- on mom.
One of the most intriguing sequences has Sigourney Weaver and Liv Ullmann recounting their work with Bergman in stage productions, an important but lesser known facet of her career.
Devotees of classic Hollywood will miss this movie at their peril.