Ingmar Bergman, the biographical legend and the intermedialities of memory

Abstract

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) wrote his autobiography The Magic Lantern (Laterna magica, 1987) 5 years after he had finished his film career with Fanny and Alexander, his last feature made for the cinema screen. This arguably marked the second stage of his strictly literary career, the first being his plays for the stage in the 1940s.The Magic Lantern is of interest from an intermedial perspective in its forthright theatricalization or cinematization of the written text and the self-conscious performativity of its authorial voice. Of particular interest is the way the narrator turns into a kind of distanciated autobiographical witness, which in turn reminds the reader of the inherent narrative split in the autobiographical genre between the enunciating subject speaking from the present, and the described subject, the younger self in the past. In doing so the narrator seems to turn language itself into a performative venue: the medium of words becomes a theatrical stage or a cinematically charged mise-en-scène for memory as such.This is of course not only stylistically elegant, for what can be more natural than a film- and theater director who, as the very title of the autobiography announces, turns memories into cinematic and theatrical performances? But even more interesting is the extent to which Bergman in doing so seems to conjur forth his biographical legend, reminding the reader of who is in charge of text: the narrator becomes the director of the text, so to speak, lighting and setting the stage.Besides this artful approach, Bergman also clearly fictionalized his life in other ways, which is corroborated by the private note books and original manuscripts that the writer of this paper has gained access to.