Martin Scorcese On Ingmar Bergman

Every time a Bergman film came out, which was very frequent, you knew that there was another level you had to reach to with him, where he was gonna take you. He may leave you behind a little, a lot maybe, but you knew that there's something special that you were gonna see and it was going to provoke you creatively, especially if you're deciding to start to make your own pictures. The major influence, I would say, was that the inspiration of a Bergman, the opening of the mind, if at all possible, making you feel that anything can be done storytelling, visually, and with dialogue, looking right at the camera, speaking, all of the sort of thing. This was the key element, I mean, for me, Bergman, but primarily what was most inspiring all along was the, of course, the constant debate about the spiritual debate, the transcendent debate. That's what really started the compulsion to see the Bergman pictures, even though I didn't understand a lot what was happening. Each one of the films was like a little, like a conversation with himself. It's almost as if he didn't care to see the pictures. I mean, you know, of course you did. People, of course, he was sure he cared. People saw the films, but at a certain point, he just made them. One continuous conversation with himself and the people around him and we still grappled with those ideas, but they were all there. That's why his pictures are not going to be out of, out of, out of fashion.