Ingmar Bergman: Three Films to Start With

Where do you begin with Ingmar Bergman? Start with a situation that interests you: an older man reconsidering his life, a knight searching for answers, or two women whose relationship becomes difficult to untangle. These three films offer different ways into his work without requiring a course in film history.

Watch one at a time. The useful question is not whether you have solved every image, but what has changed in your understanding of the people on screen.

Wild Strawberries (1957): begin with memory

Victor Sjöström plays Isak Borg, a professor travelling to receive an honorary degree. The journey becomes a reckoning with his past through encounters, memories and dreams. Bergman puts a public celebration beside a much less comfortable private assessment.

This is the starting point to choose if you prefer an emotional journey with a clear destination. Notice the difference between how Borg describes himself and how other people experience him. When a memory interrupts the trip, ask what feeling has brought it forward. A dream need not be a code to crack; it can reveal a fear that ordinary conversation avoids.

The Seventh Seal (1957): begin with a question

Max von Sydow's knight returns from the Crusades to a plague-stricken Sweden and plays chess with Death. The premise makes an enormous question visible: what can a person do with the time that remains?

The chess game is an inviting starting image, but do not let it eclipse the people the knight meets. Compare his need for certainty with the immediate needs of those around him. That contrast provides a way to follow the film even if its religious questions are unfamiliar to you. It also makes a good discussion afterwards: is an answer the only thing worth searching for?

Persona (1966): begin with uncertainty

A nurse talks to a patient who does not speak, and the boundary between their identities becomes unstable. The Ingmar Bergman Foundation identifies this relationship as the film's central situation.

Choose Persona when you are comfortable leaving some questions open. Pay attention to who speaks, who listens and who appears to control an encounter. Instead of forcing every moment into a single explanation, keep two possible readings in mind and see which details support or resist each one.

Make a small viewing plan

For a first sequence, try Wild Strawberries, then The Seventh Seal, then Persona. After each film, write down one scene you would revisit and one question you would ask another viewer. A second look at that scene is often more useful than immediately moving to another title.

Continue with our guide to symbolism in classic films. For current shopping options, browse the Drama DVD collection; this viewing list does not indicate that all three Bergman films are stocked.

Film references

Film details: Criterion's Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal; the Ingmar Bergman Foundation's Persona. The viewing prompts above are suggestions for interpretation.