Woody Berman

Recibí de una amiga un email con el último escrito de Woody Allen en el New York Times en el que hace un semblante de Ingmar Berman. Me llegó sin el link. Cuenta de las preocupaciones estéticas del genio recien fallecido. El interés por mostrar las dificultades en las relaciones humanas, la soledad, la mortalidad, el arte. Y el silencio. La imposibilidad de comunicarse con los demás. Habla de su admiración por Berman, de las largas conversaciones telefónicas que suplían la dificultad de verse, en las que Woody prefería disfrutar el privilegio de escucharlo. De ese catolicismo intelectual de querer pasar a la eternidad que abrigan muchos artistas y que el cineasta hubiera cambiado por unos años más de vida. Y culmina con una típica burla de si mismo aludiendo a las 60 películas que alcanzó hacer Berman: “Yo llevo 38. Si no lo alcanzo en calidad al menos me acerco a la cantidad” .

Dice que alguna vez le escuchó a alguien decir a la salida de una película de Berman que no sabia exactamente qué lo había retenido al borde de la silla durante cada fotograma. No otra cosa podía pasar cuando una cámara inmóvil durante 15 minutos ante el rostro de Liv Ullman, mostraba el flujo de emociones que lo recorría. En cambio, en el cine de estos tiempos la cámara no para de moverse.

Al terminar de leerlo recordé que en Cartagena la cultura universal de estos genios llegó en las películas que el señor Víctor Nieto ponía en cartelera en el cine Miramar, entre ellas las películas de Berman.

Así escribió W. Allen, The Man Who Asked Hard Questions.

By WOODY ALLENPublished: August 12, 2007I GOT the news in Oviedo, a lovely little town in the north of Spainwhere I am shooting a movie, that Bergman had died. A phone messagefrom a mutual friend was relayed to me on the set. Bergman once toldme he didn't want to die on a sunny day, and not having been there, Ican only hope he got the flat weather all directors thrive on.I've said it before to people who have a romanticized view of theartist and hold creation sacred: In the end, your art doesn't saveyou. No matter what sublime works you fabricate (and Bergman gave us amenu of amazing movie masterpieces) they don't shield you from thefateful knocking at the door that interrupted the knight and hisfriends at the end of "The Seventh Seal." And so, on a summer's day inJuly, Bergman, the great cinematic poet of mortality, couldn't prolonghis own inevitable checkmate, and the finest filmmaker of my lifetimewas gone.I have joked about art being the intellectual's Catholicism, that is,a wishful belief in an afterlife. Better than to live on in the heartsand minds of the public is to live on in one's apartment, is how I putit. And certainly Bergman's movies will live on and will be viewed atmuseums and on TV and sold on DVDs, but knowing him, this was meagercompensation, and I am sure he would have been only too glad to bartereach one of his films for an additional year of life. This would havegiven him roughly 60 more birthdays to go on making movies; aremarkable creative output. And there's no doubt in my mind that's howhe would have used the extra time, doing the one thing he loved aboveall else, turning out films.Bergman enjoyed the process. He cared little about the responses tohis films. It pleased him when he was appreciated, but as he told meonce, "If they don't like a movie I made, it bothers me — for about 30seconds." He wasn't interested in box office results, even thoughproducers and distributors called him with the opening weekendfigures, which went in one ear and out the other. He said, "Bymid-week their wildly optimistic prognosticating would come down tonothing." He enjoyed critical acclaim but didn't for a second need it,and while he wanted the audience to enjoy his work, he didn't alwaysmake his films easy on them.Still, those that took some figuring out were well worth the effort.For example, when you grasp that both women in "The Silence" arereally only two warring aspects of one woman, the otherwise enigmaticfilm opens up spellbindingly. Or if you are up on your Danishphilosophy before you see "The Seventh Seal" or "The Magician," itcertainly helps, but so amazing were his gifts as a storyteller thathe could hold an audience riveted and enthralled with difficultmaterial. I've heard people walk out after certain films of hissaying, "I didn't get exactly what I just saw but I was gripped on theedge of my seat every frame."Bergman's allegiance was to theatricality, and he was also a greatstage director, but his movie work wasn't just informed by theater; itdrew on painting, music, literature and philosophy. His work probedthe deepest concerns of humanity, often rendering these celluloidpoems profound. Mortality, love, art, the silence of God, thedifficulty of human relationships, the agony of religious doubt,failed marriage, the inability for people to communicate with oneanother.And yet the man was a warm, amusing, joking character, insecure abouthis immense gifts, beguiled by the ladies. To meet him was not tosuddenly enter the creative temple of a formidable, intimidating, darkand brooding genius who intoned complex insights with a Swedish accentabout man's dreadful fate in a bleak universe. It was more like this:"Woody, I have this silly dream where I show up on the set to make afilm and I can't figure out where to put the camera; the point is, Iknow I am pretty good at it and I have been doing it for years. Youever have those nervous dreams?" or "You think it will be interestingto make a movie where the camera never moves an inch and the actorsjust enter and exit frame? Or would people just laugh at me?"What does one say on the phone to a genius? I didn't think it was agood idea, but in his hands I guess it would have turned out to besomething special. After all, the vocabulary he invented to probe thepsychological depths of actors also would have sounded preposterous tothose who learn filmmaking in the orthodox manner. In film school (Iwas thrown out of New York University quite rapidly when I was a filmmajor there in the 1950s) the emphasis was always on movement. Theseare moving pictures, students were taught, and the camera should move.And the teachers were right. But Bergman would put the camera on LivUllmann's face or Bibi Andersson's face and leave it there and itwouldn't budge and time passed and more time and an odd and wonderfulthing unique to his brilliance would happen. One would get sucked intothe character and one was not bored but thrilled.Bergman, for all his quirks and philosophic and religious obsessions,was a born spinner of tales who couldn't help being entertaining evenwhen all on his mind was dramatizing the ideas of Nietzsche orKierkegaard. I used to have long phone conversations with him. Hewould arrange them from the island he lived on. I never accepted hisinvitations to visit because the plane travel bothered me, and Ididn't relish flying on a small aircraft to some speck near Russia forwhat I envisioned as a lunch of yogurt. We always discussed movies,and of course I let him do most of the talking because I feltprivileged hearing his thoughts and ideas. He screened movies forhimself every day and never tired of watching them. All kinds, silentsand talkies. To go to sleep he'd watch a tape of the kind of moviethat didn't make him think and would relax his anxiety, sometimes aJames Bond film.Like all great film stylists, such as Fellini, Antonioni and Buñuel,for example, Bergman has had his critics. But allowing for occasionallapses all these artists' movies have resonated deeply with millionsall over the world. Indeed, the people who know film best, the oneswho make them — directors, writers, actors, cinematographers, editors— hold Bergman's work in perhaps the greatest awe.Because I sang his praises so enthusiastically over the decades, whenhe died many newspapers and magazines called me for comments orinterviews. As if I had anything of real value to add to the grim newsbesides once again simply extolling his greatness. How had heinfluenced me, they asked? He couldn't have influenced me, I said, hewas a genius and I am not a genius and genius cannot be learned or itsmagic passed on.When Bergman emerged in the New York art houses as a great filmmaker,I was a young comedy writer and nightclub comic. Can one's work beinfluenced by Groucho Marx and Ingmar Bergman? But I did manage toabsorb one thing from him, a thing not dependent on genius or eventalent but something that can actually be learned and developed. I amtalking about what is often very loosely called a work ethic but isreally plain discipline.I learned from his example to try to turn out the best work I'mcapable of at that given moment, never giving in to the foolish worldof hits and flops or succumbing to playing the glitzy role of the filmdirector, but making a movie and moving on to the next one. Bergmanmade about 60 films in his lifetime, I have made 38. At least if Ican't rise to his quality maybe I can approach his quantity.