Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky were each others mutual idols.

Tarkovsky once made a list of his top ten films. Three of the films were Bergman films:

1. Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)

2. Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

3. Nazarin (Luis Buñuel, 1954)

4. Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

5. City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)

6. Ugetsu Monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)

7. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

8. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)

9. Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1967)

10. Woman of the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964)

A most telling quote from Tarkovsky:

"I am only interested in the views of two people: One is called Bresson, the other one is called Bergman.”

Bergman was very frank in his views on different film directors, in no mood for telling polite lies, so the following quotes from him about Tarkovsky are quite extraordinary:

"For me, Tarkovsky is the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, as a dream."

"When film is not a document, it is a dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the rooms of dreams. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, most willing of media. All my life have I hammered on the doors to the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to venture inside."

"My discovery of Tarkovsky's first film was like a miracle. Suddenly I found myself standing at the door of a room that the keys, until then, never had been given to me. I felt encouraged and stimulated: Someone was expressing what I have always wanted to say without knowing how."

Tarkovsky's last film, The Sacrifice, is quite much a hommage to Bergman. It is made not only in Bergman's native country Sweden, but on the same Swedish island where Bergman resided, Gotland.


If you are into films from these directors, check out my subreddits r/IngmarBergmandirects and r/Tarkovskydirects for more post about them.

Bergman and Tarkovsky