On Sky Arte and on demand it is also worth recovering two other titles: one dedicated to Frank Capra and the other to Alfred Hitchcock
Look for, on Sky Arte and On demand, where it arrives for the first time, a precious documentary on Ingmar Bergman directed by colleague and friend Margarethe Von Trotta, «Searching for Ingmar Bergman» that we could call in search of the lost Bergman. The famous Swedish director, born on 14 July in Uppsala and died on 30 July 2007, a few hours before Antonioni, on “his” island of Faro, in the Swedish archipelago where he had taken refuge both for his misanthropic nature and because he had had a unfair treatment by the Swedish Ministry of Finance regarding taxes.
Film buffs or not, enjoy this document, full of unpublished scenes, of personal observations, of magical moments of the author of masterpieces such as “Fanny and Alexander”, “The place of strawberries” and “The seventh seal”, and it is precisely on Von Sidow’s chess game with death that the film of the 2007 begins. There is talk of Bergman at 360 degrees, of art as life therapy, of his many wives and girlfriends (the situation seen by a woman), of that extended family that at his funeral filled the small chapel on the island. Von Trotta was very flattered that the Swedish director had included his “Years of Lead” among the films of her life, just as for her “The Seventh Seal”, seen in Paris, had been the contact with a different way of making cinema.
Presented in Cannes, the documentary, shot for the centenary of the birth of the great and visionary author, is really very interesting for the shooting of the films in which it is seen Bergman all’opera sul set, especially with children (“Fanny and Alexander”). “In me there are many women” said Ingmar and now another woman and also a director tries to interpret him, as a friend, giving ample space to interviews with people close to the director, from his beloved first actress Liv Ulmann, who will direct his once a very “Bergmanian” film, to Bunuel’s screenwriter Jean Claude Carrière, speaking of his genius but also of the passing of time and the approach of death. Among the interviewees there was also one of his sons and the director Olivier Assayas who affirms how the cinema of this unique author is born precisely from his generous and ingenious unconscious.
Very set on her island (where another film called “Bergman’s Island” was shot last year), von Trotta’s film unveils incredible sources of inspiration (“Dallas”), tells of the rivalry of the old Ingmar with the young Bo Widerberg, which even led to the clash between two schools of cinema and cinematographic thought. And then of course the power and love for the stage: Bergman would have been, if he had lived a century earlier, a playwright like his beloved Strindberg and many of the scripts of his films, including “Scenes from a Wedding”, have moved with success on stage: “The theater is like my wife, while the cinema has been my lover” says the author who also admits his moments of doubt and despair, when the breaks on the set were longer than expected and the the author stood alone in silence in the dark until the goblin of inspiration reappeared. Where is an artistic legacy like Bergman’s to be found today?
The same reasoning, on other latitudes, could be done for two other good documentariesalways on Sky arte, always on two fantastic characters of real cinema and not of today’s cinema hostage to special effects: one is dedicated to the great Italian American Frank Capra, who was able to climb the American social ladder as an immigrant to win 3 Oscars and achieve global successes with famous actors such as “It Happened One Night” with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, convinced that it would be a fiasco. Director of 36 films, author of wonderful social comedies of the new deal, also an uncritical admirer of that spirit of the American frontier that has now disappeared, Capra, who appeared on the cover of “Time” in ’38 second only to Walt Disney, is above all known for his Christmas film par excellence “It’s a Wonderful Life” with James Stewart, who didn’t get much fanfare when he appeared but then became an undisputed classic, with one of the most overwhelming happy endings in the history of cinema.
The third documentary is dedicated to the great Alfred Hitchcock, discovered as an author from the French nouvelle vague of Truffaut and Chabrol, author of memorable hits such as “The woman who lived twice” (his absolute masterpiece), “Psycho” (his most famous and Freudian title), “The man who knew too much ”, remade twice in the course of a brilliant career with which he came into contact with Hollywood stars, from Grace Kelly to Stewart and Grant, the good Americans. And then the family, his beloved wife Alma who assisted him in writing and on the set, the daughter who was also an actress for him (“Crime by crime”) and the many blondes courted, desired, sometimes mythologized with some exaggeration by Me too as told by Tippi Hedren, obviously blonde star of “Gli ucccelli” and then of “Marnie”.
July 27, 2022 (change July 27, 2022 | 08:29)
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