The style of Ingmar Bergman’s films

This analysis of the style of Ingmar Bergman’s films uses methods of treating film style that were first proposed and put into practice over 40 years ago by the author. Since then they have been applied to a very large number and range of films, and the results of these investigations published in books and in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. The basic technique of analysis used is drawing on the terms and categories used by film-makers in creating the films. It also gives weight to the film-maker’s ideas about what they are doing and why. The local and international context of the work of the film-maker also contributes to the analysis. After a brief summary of Ingmar Bergman’s film-making career and his films, his individual films are analysed in terms of the characteristics of the shots in them, such as length, closeness of camera, camera movement, POV, and so on. A simple statistical consideration of all these quantities enables a new separation of Bergman’s career into three phases from this perspective, with the film Persona being one of the turning points. Using a new technique of digital frame analysis, other points emerge regarding the development of his handling of actor movement and camera movement in his staging of love scenes, which gives rise to what could be called the Bergman signature shot. Another discovery is that Bergman’s two best known films, Det sjunde inseglet and Smultronstället are stylistically anomalous in his work.