Ingrid Bergman Film Poll

A couple of interviews in the documentary I liked: Sigourney Weaver talking about working with Bergman on the stage, when she was just starting out, and how Bergman helped her (just in the way she carried herself) come to terms with her height; and Liv Ullmann's Autumn Sonata story, which didn't turn out how I thought it would. The highlight, though, was Bergman's screen test for Selznick. (It's on YouTube, but the poster added music and gums it up in other ways.) For the whole 45 seconds or so, the theatre I was in (about 80% full) was absolutely silent, and I had this weird feeling that I was sitting in a movie house 70 years ago. A couple of times Bergman flashes a toothy grin, but mostly she's in repose and looking away. In the last few seconds, she looks directly into the camera, so therefore directly at you. It's really something to see. (Extra timely for me, as I'll be seeing a program of Warhol's Screen Tests in a couple of weeks.)

Cactus Flower is one of those DOA swinging comedies of the late '60s, usually French-based, with middle-aged stars (plus Oscar-winning saucer-eyed ingenue Hawn) and talent sweating to seem "with it." Ingrid Bergman is certainly game, and has a breakthrough moment erotically smothering herself in a black mink. (A stage hit for Billy Wilder's frequent coscribe Izzy Diamond... BW sorely missed, esp the touch of vulgar class supplied later in Avanti!.

She can handle badinage, of course, but she can't do comedy, light or otherwise.

I thought she had a couple good snippy scenes w/ Jack Weston in the Bourgeois '60s Disco (altho he gets off most of the shots, like "you look like a giant Band-Aid in the office"}. But yeah it's pretty grievous. She's funny in Orient Express if you choose to view it that way.

She's game in the otherwise (very) minor Elena and Her Men, but the mugging in MOTOE is hard to take.

In the filming of Autumn Sonata, Ingmar Bergman said Ingrid kept trying to insert jokes in her dialogue, to which Ingmar said NO JOKES. A wise man.

but she can't do comedy, light or otherwise.

a lot of ppl find Ingmar at his straightest funny already

anyway the thing about Cactus Flower et al is they were about the squares, who bought the tickets.

I love Goldie Hawn, but she seemed to make nothing but bad films up till Sugarland Express. (Never seen Cactus Flower for some reason, but There's a Girl in My Soup and Butterflies are Free are pretty dismal, from what I remember.)

Checked the Goldie Hawn thread I started, and I say there I have seen Cactus Flower. Don't remember so much as an image.

I don’t think I ever saw that or Butterflies Are Free, just vaguely remember the posters/ads.