This fall, theaters across the greater Boston area will celebrate the 100th birthday of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman with a collaborative retrospective of his work. The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA, will begin the retrospective on August 31 with a multi-day run of Bergman’s 1966 film Persona, starring Liv Ullmann. The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA will begin their screenings on September 5 with Smiles of a Summer Night, and the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge, MA, will begin on September 7 with Summer with Monika. Together the theaters will be hosting over 30 screenings of the filmmaker’s work.
No name is more synonymous with the postwar explosion of international art-house cinema than Ingmar Bergman, a master storyteller who startled the world with his stark intensity and naked pursuit of the most profound metaphysical and spiritual questions. In a career that spanned six decades, Bergman directed dozens of films in an astonishing array of tones, ranging from comedies whose lightness and complexity belie their brooding hearts to groundbreaking formal experiments and excruciatingly intimate explorations of family relationships.
Other highlights of the retrospective include a screening of Autumn Sonata at the Coolidge Corner Theatre on September 16 at 2pm with star Liv Ullmann in person. The film was also notably the only collaboration between cinema’s two great Bergmans: Ingmar and Ingrid, the monumental star of Casablanca. The Coolidge will also present a “Cemetery Cinema” screening of Wild Strawberries, outdoors at the Mount Auburn Cemetery on September 26. The Harvard Film Archive will be showing the rarely shown lengthy TV cuts of two Bergman films; Scenes from a Marriage on September 23, and Fanny and Alexander on September 30.
The full listing of events can be found below.
Brattle Theatre
- Friday, August 31 — Tuesday, September 4, 2018: Persona
- Wednesday, October 3: Summer Interlude
- Thursday, October 4: Torment
- Friday, October 5: The Seventh Seal
- Saturday, October 6: The Seventh Seal
- Sunday, October 7: Sawdust and Tinsel
- Sunday, October 7: Summer with Monika
- Tuesday, October 9: Prison
- Tuesday, October 9: Thirst
- Wednesday, October 10: Secrets of Women
- Wednesday, October 10: Dreams
- Thursday, October 11: Smiles of a Summer Night
Coolidge Corner Theatre
- Wednesday, September 5: Smiles of a Summer Night
- Wednesday, September 12: Through a Glass Darkly
- Wednesday, September 16: Autumn Sonata with Liv Ullmann in person
- Wednesday, September 19: Cries and Whispers
- Wednesday, September 26: Wild Strawberries at Mount Auburn Cemetery
Harvard Film Archive
- Friday, September 7: Summer with Monika
- Friday, September 7: The Magician
- Saturday, September 8: Hour of the Wolf
- Saturday, September 8: Shame
- Sunday, September 9: Sawdust and Tinsel
- Saturday, September 1: The Magic Flute
- Saturday, September 15: The Devil’s Eye
- Sunday, September 16: The Virgin Spring
- Friday, September 21: Persona
- Friday, September 21: All These Women
- Saturday, September 22 & Saturday, October 6: Through a Glass Darkly
- September 23 at 1pm: Scenes from a Marriage (TV cut)
- September 24 at 7pm & October 6: Winter Light
- Saturday, September 29 & Sunday, October 7: The Silence
- Saturday, September 29: The Passion of Anna
- Sunday, September 30: Fanny and Alexander (TV cut)
- Monday, October 1: Wild Strawberries
- Friday, October 5: Autumn Sonata
- Sunday, October 7: Cries and Whispers
- Sunday, October 14: From the Life of the Marionettes
