When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying, but now I think it — Ingmar Bergman

"For me the filmmaker Bergman is the greatest actor of all. His vision and his filmic force, the thing that the Frenchmen call auteur. What Kurosawa and Fellini also have — but to me Bergman is number one!"

"I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images."

"A French critic cleverly wrote that "with Autumn Sonata Bergman does Bergman" It is witty but unfortunate For me, that is I think it is only too true that Bergman (Ingmar, that is) did a Bergman I love and admire the filmmaker Tarkovsky and believe him to be one of the greatest of all time My admiration for Fellini is limitless But I also feel that Tarkovsky began to make Tarkovsky films and that Fellini began to make Fellini films Yet Kurosawa has never made a Kurosawa film I have never been able to appreciate Bunuel He discovered at an early stage that it is possible to fabricate ingenious tricks, which he elevated to a special kind of genius, particular to Bunuel, and then he repeated and varied his tricks He always received applause Bunuel nearly always made Bunuel films"

"The Seventh Seal was always my favourite film, and I remember seeing it with a small audience at the old New Yorker Theatre. Who would have thought that the subject matter could yield such a pleasurable experience? If I described the story and tried to persuade a friend to watch it with me, how far would I get? Well, Id say, it takes place in a plague-ridden medieval Sweden and explores the limits of faith and reason based on Danish — and some German — philosophical concepts. Now this is hardly anyones idea of a good time, and yet its all dealt off with such stupendous imagination, suspense, and flair that one sits riveted like a child at a harrowing fairy tale. Suddenly the black figure of Death appears on the seashore to claim his victim, and the Knight of Reason challenges him to a chess game, trying to stall for time and discover some meaning to life. The tale engages and stalks forward with sinister inevitability. Again, the images are breathtaking! The flagellants, the burning of the witch (worthy of Carl Dreyer), and the finale, as Death dances off with all the doomed people to the nether lands in one of the most memorable shots in all movies. Bergman is prolific, and the films that followed these early works were rich and varied, as his obsession moved from Gods silence to the tortured relations between anguished souls trying to make sense of their feelings."

"Say anything you want against The Seventh Seal. My fear of death — this infantile fixation of mine — was, at that moment, overwhelming. I felt myself in contact with death day and night, and my fear was tremendous. When I finished the picture, my fear went away. I have the feeling simply of having painted a canvas in an enormous hurry — with enormous pretension but without any arrogance. I said, Here is a painting; take it, please."

"When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings. Music works in the same fashion; I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence. Ever since childhood, music has been my great source of recreation and stimulation, and I often experience a film or play musically."