Searching for Ingmar Bergman opens with acclaimed German director Margarethe von Trotta in Gotland, on the rocky beach from several of Ingmar Bergman’s films, including The Seventh Seal (1957). Describing that film’s opening sequence, she intercuts her present interpretation with the filmed landscape into which she inserts herself. This scene sets the tone for how von Trotta will deal with Bergman: rather than looking to define him on his own terms, her documentary seeks to construct what Bergman meant to those around him, including herself.
Partway through the film, von Trotta discusses her initial apprehension when she was asked to make the film, hinting at the untouchability of the titular director. Bergman’s enduring status as one of the great filmmakers would make him a daunting subject for anyone. In a somewhat unnecessarily defensive act, von Trotta argues that she is in fact well qualified to take him on, given his respect for her: included in his list of favourite films from 1994 was von Trotta’s own Marianne and Juliane (1981). Von Trotta makes the claim for her own significance here: not only was her work meaningful to Bergman, but she was the youngest filmmaker on his list, and the only woman. Her abilities shone through the patriarchal film canon, part of which he ended up defining. In focusing clearly on her own experience, von Trotta successfully decentres the sacred Swedish cinematic giant without denying the impact of his legacy upon herself and others.
Interviews with key figures (family, colleagues, filmmakers) make up the bulk of the documentary, and these people take up diverse perspectives. Presenting a balance, we find those who admired Bergman and viewed his work as immense, as well as artists who saw him as old-fashioned, stodgy, and not nearly as exciting as his reputation makes him out to be. We find the actors and family members who saw him as a driving force in their lives and source of inspiration, matched with those with darker views: his son, Daniel Bergman, for example, calls his father narcissistic, neglectful, and immature, a ‘man-child’ too preoccupied with himself to even pretend to care about his family. Eschewing reverence, von Trotta paints a full portrait of Bergman, examining in-depth the positive and negative.
Though von Trotta opens up her film to disparate opinions, the film’s energy is very much hers. Speaking to the artists who discuss the influence of Bergman, she is receptive and respectful, but not always accepting. When actress Liv Ullmann recounts her career with Bergman with cult-like devotion, von Trotta appears distracted, as though she doesn’t completely buying Ullmann’s tales of Bergman’s greatness. When we later see Daniel’s interview, where he discusses his father’s habit of getting women pregnant (he believed it proved their love for him) before leaving them immediately, we can understand von Trotta’s skepticism in the face of Ullmann’s hypnotic praise. When a louche Carlos Saura speaks of the women in Bergman’s films (avoiding the common theme of their strength and complexity and focusing in on how hot they were), we find von Trotta again bored, playing with a passer-by’s dog, only half-listening to him. She allows his perspective to exist alongside others, and this makes sense: audiences can appreciate the strength of Bergman’s female characters as much as their sensuality and erotic allure. This doesn’t mean we have give equal strength to the latter angle.
In defining the tone of Searching and centring herself as guiding gaze, von Trotta’s film makes no claims to objectivity. Sometimes, this is to be welcomed, as in the case of Saura, but sometimes it feels insensitive, as in the case of Ullmann. But in allowing herself to drive her film, von Trotta sets up a challenge to the Swedish auteur, reminding us that though this film is about him, it is without a doubt hers. This is a unique departure from many documentaries that celebrate dead male auteurs. Frequently, von Trotta uses her documentary for introspection. She shows clips of her own films along with Bergman’s. She visits the places important to her own career and artistic development (a cinema in France where she first saw his films, an apartment complex where she lived when she began directing), placing them on the level of Bergman’s home, church, or favourite café. She ruminates on her own memories and reactions to Bergman’s films as much as she examines the films themselves.
By reiterating her own cinematic output, cultural importance, and significance in the story, von Trotta rather uses Bergman as a launchpad to discuss authorship and challenge the idea of a canon. Searching is a tribute to Ingmar Bergman, but one which never lets go of its perspective, nor diminishes the presence of its director in the face of Bergman himself. To search is to take an active role, and rather than submitting to Bergman’s presence, von Trotta embraces that agency.
