Ingmar Bergman RIP

The legendary Swedish director of 'Wild Strawberries', 'The Seventh Seal' and 'Scenes from a Marriage' has died at the age of 89

Legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman died at his home in Faro, Sweden this morning. He was 89. One of the towering figures of modern cinema, his films often wrestled with the existential, dealing with themes of religion, art, the meaning of life and the fear of death. He was nominated for nine Oscars, while his films won the best foreign film award three times.

Bergman was born in 1918, and caught the acting bug when he visited the theatre at the age of ten. He trained as an actor at the University of Stockholm before turning to directing, eventually becoming director of the Helsingborg City Theatre in 1944.

That same year he sold his first film script, 'Frenzy', and two years later he made his directorial film debut with 'Crisis'. Over the next 60 years he directed over 40 films, including timeless classics like 'Fanny and Alexander', 'Cries and Whispers', 'The Virgin Spring' and 'Wild Strawberries'.

However, his best-known work is undoubtedly ‘The Seventh Seal’, a religious allegory that followed the journey of crusaders returning to a Sweden plagued by the Black Death. The recently re-released 1957 film made an international star of Max Von Sydow and featured the famous (and much parodied) scene in which his knight takes part in a game of chess with Death.

Bergman was married five times, and his films often explored the tensions between married couples, including ‘Scenes from a Marriage’ in 1973 and its belated sequel ‘Saraband’ in 2003, which was also his last film.

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