What's In A Title? The Films of Ingmar Bergman Quiz

Answer: Summer Interlude

Bergman remembered the filming of "Summer Interlude" as "one of my happy experiences." The film was to a certain extent auto-biographical as Bergman had had a lonely yet "fantastic life of laziness and self-indulgence" holiday experience which was interrupted by a brief "timid love" episode when he was 16, but the dramatic events (which I won't reveal) were made up.

"Summer Interlude" is the earliest of Bergman's films that I've seen, and most Bergman scholars tend to take it as when he really hit his stride. It features many key Bergman tropes, such as the setting (an island), the season (summer), youthful love, and the theatre. Mirrors are also used in many Bergman films, and "Summer Interlude" features one of his most famous mirror scenes in which Marie is shown taking off her make-up and talking to her ballet-master. Apart from the obvious (albeit very interesting) reference to self-awareness and self-scrutiny, in this scene there is a wonderful playfulness to Bergman's switching between who is seen talking through a mirror reflection.

About the red herrings (all 1951): "A Place in the Sun", which was based on the Theodore Dreiser novel "An American Tragedy", was a huge success, "The Lavender Hill Mob" is a classic Ealing comedy. "A Streetcar Named Desire" is Elia Kazan's wonderful film version Tennessee Williams's play of the same name.

Answer: The Seventh Seal

The title comes from the "Book of Revelation" in the New Testament, and the film quotes it several times. It apparently refers to God's silence, which is one of Bergman's major themes.

"The Seventh Seal" was the first Bergman film I ever saw, and it remains my favourite. It's also one of his most well-known films, which is funny when you realize how hard it was to get to make. In fact, if it hadn't been for the commercial success of the relatively light-weight "Smiles of a Summer Night" (1955), nobody would have let Bergman make his morbid, yet darkly funny, tale set in plague-ridden medieval Sweden. It had previously been rejected by all and sundry.

Bergman was incredibly fond of "The Seventh Seal", and he said it "is one of the few films really close to my heart. Actually, I don't know why. It's certainly far from perfect." One of the reasons for its continuing repute is how pertinently it deals with the theme of human existence and the rather grim brutal truth that "one could be transformed from being to not-being."

About the red herrings (all 1957): "Ducking the Devil" is a Warner Brothers cartoon "starring" Daffy Duck and the Tasmanian Devil, "The Incredible Shrinking Man" is based on a Richard Matheson novel, and "From Hell It Came" is a pretty dreadful sci-fi horror flick.

Answer: Wild Strawberries

The title "Wild Strawberries" stems from a scene in the film where Isak recalls an amorous escapade from his youth whilst sat in a wild strawberry patch. "Wild Strawberries" is one of Bergman's most highly-revered films thanks to its emotional depth.

The main role, that of Professor Isak Borg was played by Swedish veteran actor Victor Sjöström, who had made his name in the silent era, most notably in "The Phantom Carriage" (1921). When talking about Sjöström's performance in "Wild Strawberries", Bergman said "Victor Sjöström took my text, made it his own, invested it with his own experiences: his pain, his misanthropy, his brutality, sorrow, fear, loneliness, coldness, warmth, harshness, and ennui." The awkward interaction between his character and Marianne (played by Ingrid Thulin) is painfully familiar to watch for anyone who has had to deal with such crabby old men and/or emotionally remote young women.

About the red herrings (all 1957): "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" is a surprisingly good horror film starring Michael Landon. "Legend of the Lost" starred everyone's favourite cowboy John Wayne in a non-cowboy role, and Italian diva Sophia Loren, whilst "A Farewell To Arms" is based on Ernest Hemmingway's novel.

Answer: The Magician

"The Magician" featured almost the whole spectrum of Bergman regulars in key roles. The magician himself was played by the indomitable Max von Sydow, who reached a tally of eleven Bergman films. The grand finale of "The Magician" is one of his finest moments in a fabulous career as he wreaks havoc with the logical man of reason Dr. Vergerus, who is played by another Bergman regular, Gunnar Björnstrand. Ingrid Thulin's here too as the magician's wife, although she is dressed as a boy for most of the film.

At the time of filming, Bergman was married to Bibi Andersson, who plays the part of Sara in the film, and Bergman said the film reflected their busy life in the theatre in Malmö, above all the fact that they had very little contact with the city's natives and remained outsiders stuck in their arty clique.

About the red herrings (all 1958): "Attack of the Puppet People" is an American horror film that I admit I haven't seen, but I'd like to. "Gigi" was a hugely successful musical film (haven't seen it, don't want to), and "Vertigo" is considered to be Hitchcock's masterpiece by many.

Answer: The Virgin Spring

The title refers to a spring that the girl's corpse is laid upon. When the parents find her corpse, her father makes a pledge to build a church where his daughter died, and they clean her muddied body in the spring water.

It has been claimed that "The Virgin Spring" is connected to Bergman's "Through A Glass Darkly", which came out a year later in 1961, and maybe even to another film as part of a trilogy, while others leave "The Virgin Spring" out of the trilogy and add another. However, Bergman himself said that the trilogy concept was "rationalization created after the fact". In fact Bergman contradicted many statements made about "The Virgin Spring" and even admitted that its religious undercurrents were to be taken with a pinch of salt.

What we can be sure of is that the film caused quite a stir. The depiction of rape is brutal and unsentimental, as is the revenge wreaked by the girl's father (and mother). There is no forgiveness, no turning the other cheek, and no trial. It seems to me that these themes are what the film is about.

The story was based on various folk tales which have been regurgitated and reinterpreted over the years, and "The Virgin Spring" spawned a homage in the shape of Wes Craven's equally disturbing "The Last House on the Left" in 1972, which in turn was remade in 2009.

About the red herrings (all 1960): "The Grass Is Greener" is a romantic comedy starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. "Last Woman on Earth" and "House of Usher" are just two of the Roger Corman films released in 1960.

Answer: Winter Light

Bergman's trusted cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who had first worked with him in 1953, was back again after revolutionising Bergman's films a few years previously, and the film has a look which somehow fits the plot. Bergman said: "Not one shot was taken in direct sunlight. We filmed only when it was overcast or foggy." It's bleak, it's cold, but there's truth in it.

In some ways, "Winter Light" is one of Bergman's most emotionally harrowing films (and that's quite something), and despite its apparent simplicity, there are several layers to the characters, and what happens to the people in the film is quite draining to witness. Oddly for a film, not only do none of the characters really invoke our sympathy, the actor who played the pastor (Gunnar Björnstrand) is said to have found it tough to remember his lines due to his character's lack of affability.

About the red herrings (all 1963): "Black Sabbath" is the Mario Bava film from which the legendary British heavy metal band took their name, "The Damned" is a Hammer Film starring Oliver Reed, and "Billy Liar" is a British kitchen sink drama classic.

Answer: The Silence

The name of the foreign city is Timoka, which Bergman had originally picked as the film title because he liked the sound of it without realising it's Estonian and means "belonging to the executioner", which fits the mood.

"The Silence" certainly lives up to its eventual title since the dialogue is sparse to say the least. The film was partly inspired by a book of short stories by Swedish writer Sigfrid Siwertz (who was heavily influenced by the philosophers Henri Bergson and Arthur Schopenhauer) called "The Circle". One of the main themes is the idea of being in a foreign city where incomprehension and lack of communication has seeped into the rooms where the sisters and young boy are living.

The open portrayal of illicit sex caused quite a furore in Sweden, but actually guaranteed its commercial success in a way that could never have been predicted for such a languid film. Interestingly, Swedish attitudes to the depiction of sex on screen are said to have opened up thanks to this film and Bergman's irreproachable reputation as a film maker.

About the red herrings (all 1963): "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" is a comedy, "Dementia 13" is a horror directed by Francis Ford Coppola, while "8½" was directed by Federico Fellini.

Answer: Persona

There are five people shown in "Persona", but the vast majority of screen time is taken up by Alma and Elisabet, who are played by Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann respectively. Furthermore, 99% of the dialogue is uttered by Alma since the words spoken by Elisabet can be counted on one hand (more or less), and even then we aren't sure she really spoke them anyway. Actually, we aren't really sure about much.

If, like throngs of critics and cineasts, you like cerebral, intense, minimalist cinema, "Persona" is right up your street. Reams and reams have been written about "Persona", and Bergman was unabashed in his pride of the film. It is certainly one of his key works, and one of the key films in cinema's bid to be considered a true art form. It is insightful into our ideas of ourselves as individuals and our ineptness at dealing with the rest of the world. Having said that, I could do without the rather clumsy, overintellectual, metafictional tricks Bergman employs in "Persona" (and a couple of other films) which date it (and them) so terribly.

About the red herrings (all 1966): "Chelsea Girls" in an avant-garde Andy Warhol film, "Masculin Féminin" was directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and "Fantastic Voyage" is a sci-fi flick starring Raquel Welch.

Answer: Hour of the Wolf

As Johan explains in the film, the hour of the wolf (roughly 3 a.m. - 4 a.m.) is "when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful."

"Hour of the Wolf" developed out of a story Bergman wrote called "The Cannibals". The story was strongly influenced by an etching by Swedish artist Johan Axel Fridell (1894 - 1935) which was a scene influenced in turn by Charles Dickens. Bergman described the scene as "a group of grotesque cannibals ready to assault a little girl. A frail old man attempts to protect her. A real cannibal, dressed in a clown's outfit, is waiting in the shadow for the candle to burn down. Everywhere in the increasing darkness, one glimpses frightening figures."

Horror is one of the themes which thread through many of Bergman's films, but "Hour of the Wolf" is arguably his only blatant horror film. Like all sophisticated horror films, what we are afraid of isn't fully shown, fully explained, or even explicable. Although some saw "Hour of the Wolf" as a step backwards for Bergman after some ground-breaking films, I think it adds to his oeuvre.

About the red herrings (all 1968): "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" is based on Carson McCullers wonderful novel, "Danger: Diabolik" is an crime thriller directed by Mario Bava, and "Coogan's Bluff" is a cop thriller starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Don Siegel.

Answer: Shame

The title "Shame" might refer to some of the unsavoury deeds both Jan and Eva carry out, or it might refer to the fact that these deeds are the effects of war.

When talking about the film, Bergman expressed how unhappy he was about the first part of the film (the war), and yet how pleased he was with the second half (the aftermath). He admitted getting caught up in the anti-war zeitgeist, and reflects that his pride at having contributed to the "social debate (the Vietnam war)" deluded him into thinking he'd made a good film. For somebody viewing the film years later, the second part of the film is a powerful indictment of the dreadful horrors that war inflicts upon those on the periphery. The appalling, despairing ending is one of Bergman's most fatalistic moments. He re-used the scene in "The Passion of Anna", a film very much connected to "Shame".

About the red herrings (all 1968): "The Astro-Zombies" is a sci-fi horror film that lent its title to a Misfits song. "How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life" is romantic comedy starring Dean Martin, and "Carry On Up the Khyber" is the 16th, and one of the best, "Carry On" films.