Of all the films released in the early 1960s that could have served as the basis for a seminal entry in the "making of" documentary subgenre, Winter Light doesn't have the makings of a strong candidate for that honor... at least going by today's standards. The somber, austere chamber drama, about a pastor's crisis of faith over the course of three hours on a Sunday afternoon in November, doesn't feature any big action sequences or extravagant sets that cause viewers to wonder "how did they do that?" With a sparse budget, small film crew and no special visual effects, the production is small and humble by just about any film-making standards one could imagine. And without any intention of demeaning their skill and proficiency in any way, actors like Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin and Max Von Sydow are not really the kind of household-name movie stars whose charisma automatically generates enough interest to make a 2 1/2 hour behind-the-scenes study seem all that necessary. Even among the great art house cinema titles of this era, Winter Light's production was as dry, efficient and straightforward as any of them - quite likely much more so, when compared to such ambitious classics as 8 1/2, The Leopard, High and Low, L'eclisse or Harakiri, just to list a few of the higher profile pics from 1962-63.
But there were two primary factors that led to the filming of Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie. The first was the popularity of and fascination with Bergman himself among his fellow Swedish citizens. They were curious to know what their country's most famous cultural ambassador was up to as he wrote and directed movies that proceeded to cause quite a stir around the world, and this in turn opened up an opportunity for the second factor: a persistent young film critic and aspiring director named Vilgot Sjoman, whose tenacious pursuit of Bergman and capable pitching of his idea for a program about Bergman's auteurist methods to Swedish TV executives resulted in a five-part television series that was filmed in the fall of 1961 and winter of 1962, eventually broadcast sometime in 1963. (I can't find the actual dates, so I'm now in the "mop-up" section of 1963 films, reviewing titles that may not be in exact chronological order of their release.)
The landing upon Winter Light as the film under scrutiny here seems to be a random luck of the draw, just a coincidence of timing as the various arrangements were made between Bergman, Sjoman and the respective producers, publishers and networks. As the series begins, Bergman has just released Through a Glass Darkly to very strong and positive reviews, which the director regards as a bad omen for whatever follows, in that the praise was (in his opinion) too effusive, setting the stage for an inevitable backlash as the critics will now see him as due for a much-needed humbling. Watching Bergman's candid response to the critical establishment alone justifies the time spent watching this film.
I have to give Sjoman a lot of credit for getting Bergman to open up like he did - the younger man obviously had done his homework and gives us a Platonic ideal of the earnest Northern European cinephile in this Golden Age of Great Auteurs: cerebral, analytical, well-informed on the contents and progression of the director's filmography and capable of grappling with both the big ideas that informed Bergman's films and the more technical aspects that go into capturing them on film. Even his beard and horn-rimmed glasses give him a look that would settle in quite nicely among today's movie blogger community:
The clip (for readers in too much of a hurry to just sit down and watch it) focuses mainly on Bergman's explanation of the rigors involved with maintaining a consistent emotional tone in Winter Light - the subdued pacing, the intense concentration required of not only the actors but also cinematographer Sven Nykvist (and by extension, the crew under his command) and the lack of any variance of mood throughout the entire film to alleviate some of that pressure. The result is a very rare opportunity to hear directly from a great artist while he's in the very midst of creating what turned out to be one of his signature works from a rather fertile and prolific phase of his career. Bergman also facilitated a similar documentary on The Making of Fanny and Alexander some twenty years later, but that was a different kind of thing - a self-conscious swan song as he prepared to settle into a quasi-retirement, at least from big screen feature films. Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie captures him at the very height of his powers, certainly well after his reputation had been established but still very much in his prime.
There's a lot to absorb in the dialog between Sjoman and Bergman, including some intriguing discussions about the relationship between The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light that almost sound as if Bergman was viewing them as a trilogy of sorts back then. Of course, it was the latter two, plus The Silence, that went on to become "the Bergman Trilogy," now packaged by Criterion as such, but he does speak at length about how the films he was making at this time were indeed manifestations of his internal struggles with theology, spirituality and organized religion. By the time we get to the end of the series, he's already embarked upon his direction of The Silence and an untitled "comedy" (presumably All These Women) that he plans to take on once that film is complete. This non-stop pace allows him, as he admits, to not only direct his focus away from the negative reviews that he expected to receive upon Winter Light's release, but also some of the more immediate crises going on in his personal life. Bergman shows himself to be a classic workaholic, wholly devoted to the pursuit of his consuming passions, often at the expense of those closest to him, who must have known what they were getting into (at least, those who had a choice in the matter) but took the risk in order to achieve such proximity to greatness. A devil's bargain, as I see it!
Ultimately, the lasting value and significance of Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie rests on two pillars. One is the insight that it provides on what he was thinking throughout the entire process of conceptualizing, scripting, filming and perfecting Winter Light. The other is a more general education on the arduous labor involved in seeing a project like this through to completion. The series is divided into five episodes: one on script development, two on the filming process, one on post-production and the last one dedicated to the film's premier, including reactions from the opening night audience and Bergman himself, even after he's moved on to new projects and in a sense left Winter Light to determine its ultimate fate without him. Learning about the discarded bits that were apparently rather important in the early stages (a young boy and his dog, and a scene of continual snowfall? I don't recall seeing any of that in the final cut, but Bergman mentions them as "essential" in the first episode) reveals that even a world-renowned genius is not above the need for second-guessing and smart editing. Observing the sustained focus and discipline exercised by Bjornstrand, Thulin, Von Sydow and everyone else involved in creating some of Winter Light's most crucial verbal exchanges is every bit as awe-inspiring to me, though on a smaller scale, as any kind of massive battle sequences and fantasy realms mustered up for The Lord of the Rings or the wire fu fights choreographed in The Matrix, just to name a couple of blockbuster franchise films that have received lavish treatment in their respective chronicles of how those epics took their place amidst the brightest stars in our cinematic firmament. To most moviegoers, of course, Winter Light is a a relatively dim and obscure point, low on the horizon and hard to distinguish amidst all the celestial glitter. But once it's spotted, and especially with the guidance of Vilgot Sjoman's studious scrutiny and Ingmar Bergman's forthright consent, the illumination is unforgettably substantial.