Ingmar Bergman - Praise and Influence

Praise and Influence

Many filmmakers have praised Bergman and some have also cited his work as an influence on their own:

• Woody Allen referred to Bergman as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera."
• Pedro Almodóvar
• Robert Altman
• Olivier Assayas
• Francis Ford Coppola stated: "My all-time favorite because he embodies passion, emotion and has warmth."
• Guillermo del Toro stated: "Bergman as a fabulist—my favorite—is absolutely mesmerizing."
• Asghar Farhadi
• Todd Field stated: "He was our tunnel man building the aqueducts of our cinematic collective unconscious."
• Krzysztof Kieślowski stated: "This man is one of the few film directors—perhaps the only one in the world—to have said as much about human nature as Dostoyevsky or Camus."
• Stanley Kubrick stated: "I believe Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica and Federico Fellini are the only three filmmakers in the world who are not just artistic opportunists. By this I mean they don't just sit and wait for a good story to come along and then make it. They have a point of view which is expressed over and over and over again in their films, and they themselves write or have original material written for them."
• Ang Lee stated: "For me the filmmaker Bergman is the greatest actor of all..."
• François Ozon
• Park Chan-wook
• Éric Rohmer stated: "The Seventh Seal is 'the most beautiful film ever."
• Marjane Satrapi
• Mamoru Oshii
• Paul Schrader stated: "I would not have made any of my films or written scripts such as Taxi Driver had it not been for Ingmar Bergman. What he has left is a legacy greater than any other director. I think the extraordinary thing that Bergman will be remembered for, other than his body of work, was that he probably did more than anyone to make cinema a medium of personal and introspective value."
• Martin Scorsese stated: "I guess I'd put it like this: if you were alive in the 50s and the 60s and of a certain age, a teenager on your way to becoming an adult, and you wanted to make films, I don't see how you couldn't be influenced by Bergman. You would have had to make a conscious effort, and even then, the influence would have snuck through."
• Steven Spielberg stated: "His love for the cinema almost gives me a guilty conscience."
• Andrei Tarkovsky held Bergman in very high regard, noting him and Robert Bresson as his two favourite filmmakers, stating "I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman." Such was Bergman's influence, Tarkovsky's last film was made in Sweden with Sven Nykvist, Bergman's longtime cinematographer, and several of Bergman's favoured actors including Erland Josephson. Bergman likewise had great respect for Tarkovsky, stating; "Tarkovsky for me is the greatest director."
• André Téchiné
• Liv Ullmann