Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala, Sweden to a Lutheran minister of Danish descent, Erik Bergman (later chaplain to the King of Sweden), and his wife, Karin (née Åkerblom). He grew up surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. His father was a rather conservative parish minister and strict family father: Ingmar was locked up in dark closets for infractions such as wetting the bed. "While father preached away in the pulpit and the congregation prayed, sang or listened," Ingmar writes in his biography Laterna Magica,
"I devoted my interest to the church’s mysterious world of low arches, thick walls, the smell of eternity, the colored sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls. There was everything that one’s imagination could desire — angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans."
He performed two five-month stretches of mandatory military service and studied Art and Literature at Stockholm University College (the later Stockholm University), but without graduating. Instead, he developed an interest in theatre and later in cinema (though he had become a "genuine movie addict"[7] by the early 1930s).
Although he grew up in a devout Lutheran household, Bergman stated that he lost his faith at age eight but came to terms with this fact only when making Winter Light.[8]
From the early sixties, Bergman lived much of his life on the island of Fårö, Gotland, Sweden, where he made a number of his movies. Bergman moved to Munich for a while following a protracted battle with the Swedish government over alleged tax evasion, and did not return to make another movie in Sweden until 1982, when he directed Fanny and Alexander. Bergman said this would be his last movie, and that he would go on to direct theater. Since that time he did make a number of movies for television, but later retired to Fårö, stating in 2004 that he would never again leave the island.
Ingmar Bergman died at his home on Fårö, in the early morning of 30 July 2007, aged 89,[9][10] the same day that another great movie director, Michelangelo Antonioni, died.
The first four marriages ended in divorce. The last ended when his wife Ingrid died of stomach cancer in 1995, aged 65. Aside from his marriages, Bergman had romantic relationships with actresses Harriet Andersson (1952–55), Bibi Andersson (1955–59), and Liv Ullmann (1965–70). He was the father of writer Linn Ullmann with Liv Ullmann. In all, Bergman had nine children, one of whom died before him.
↑"Ingmar Bergman, Famed Director, Dies at 89". New York Times. 30 July 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-21. Ingmar Bergman, the "poet with the camera" who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died today on the small island of Faro where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said. Bergman was 89.
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