FILM LEGEND BERGMAN CRITICISES HIS OWN FILMS
Swedish film director INGMAR BERGMAN may be loved by film critics worldwide - but he refuses to watch his own movies.
THE SEVENTH SEAL auteur, 85, is his harshest critic and often feels disheartened by his epic films.
In a rare interview for public service network SVT, the enigmatic film maker - whose career spans seven decades - says, "I don't watch my own films very often.
"I become so jittery and ready to cry... and miserable. I think it's awful."
Bergman is considered one of the most influential directors in history. He has been nominated for nine Oscars himself, while his films have won Oscars won best foreign film three times.
Honest criticism
In the interview on Swedish channel SVT, he said he had "managed to push the medium to something beyond the normal boundaries, and also myself".
But since he won the Grand Prix at Cannes with Smiles of a Summer Night in 1956, his fame meant no-one would give him honest criticism, he said.
"There hasn't been anyone with whom I can discuss my scripts," he said.
"Even when the film is done, there is no-one I can show it to who gives his sincere opinion. There is silence."
'Scared of death'
Talking about making 1957's The Seventh Seal, in which a knight famously plays chess with Death, he said he was "terribly scared of death" at the time.
But Bergman - who has made several comedies - also recounted one of his happiest memories, when he received the Legion of Honour in Paris in 1985.
"When we came out from the Elysee Palace, there was a gigantic limousine waiting for us and four police on motorcycles," he said.
"It is probably one of the few times I have experienced my fame.
"I thought it was so fantastic that I laughed to the point of shouting. I laughed so that I fell over on the floor of this big car."
He also recalled celebrating with champagne - and suffering at a film rehearsal in Munich, Germany, the next day.
"It is probably the only time in my life I have showed up hung over, not just hung over, I was simply intoxicated, to a rehearsal," he said.
