Legendary Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, an iconoclastic filmmaker widely regarded as one of the great masters of modern cinema, died in his sleep Monday at his home on the small Baltic island of Faro, Sweden. He passed away at the age of 89.
Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, confirmed his death. Bergman’s family has not set a date for his funeral yet, but they have confirmed that funeral will take place in presence of a close group of friends and family.
Bergman first gained international fame with 1955’s ‘Smiles of a Summer Night,’ a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical ‘A Little Night Music.’ But it was ‘The Seventh Seal,’ released two years later, that fascinated critics and audiences.
Bergman, whose 1982 film ‘Fanny and Alexander’ won an Oscar for best foreign film has made about 60 movies before retiring from film making in 2003. In his films, Bergman’s vision encompassed all the extremes of his beloved Sweden: the claustrophobic gloom of unending winter nights, the gentle merriment of glowing summer evenings and the bleak magnificence of the island where he spent his last years.
Bergman who was also one of the towering figures of serious film making even approached difficult subjects such as plague and madness. In a tribute to the actor on his 70th birthday in 1988, actor Woody Allen quoted him as
probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera.
Bergman was married five-times and fathered nine children, including a daughter Linn Ullmann, whose mother Liv Ullmann, was his partner in a five-year affair.
