Film

God may have created Brigitte Bardot, but good Swedish genes created Harriet Andersson. In her first of nine films with Ingmar Bergman, Andersson caused a stir not only for her nude dip (in the U.S., the movie was retitled Monika: The Story of a Bad Girl and played the exploitation circuit) but also for her direct gaze into the camera—seven years before Jean Seberg did the same in Breathless.

Godard, in fact, loved Monika, as did Truffaut; Antoine Doinel steals a still of Andersson in The 400 Blows. As the restless Stockholm teen of the title who flees the indignities of near poverty in the city to set out on an island escape with her equally fed-up boyfriend, Harry (Ekborg), Andersson shivers with lust and impetuousness—which will soon transform into rage and bitterness as the summer idyll segues to the dreariness of adulthood and parenthood. Monika is one of Bergman’s most relaxed, carnal films; the director would later write of the shoot, “Film work is a powerfully erotic business; the proximity of actors is without reservations, the mutual exposure is total.” More pensive heroines—and films—would follow. But Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann have Harriet Andersson to thank for first perfecting that powerfully erotic business.