In a rather telling interview with the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre (“Dramaten”[1]) – in connection with the Bergman Festival (“Bergmanfestivalen”) 2016 [2], and the guest performance in Stockholm of her staged version of Private Confessions (Enskilda samtal or Fortrolige samtaler in her native Norwegian) [3] two decades after her ‘tell-all’ film [4] and own adaptation of secrets told in Ingmar Bergman’s mother’s diary, which the renowned cineaste had once given her access to and which he wrote the initial manuscript for – Liv Ullmann, who has starred in 10 Bergman films [5], does her very best to tackle the questions by Anna Hedenmo without getting too personal while the latter seems intent on steering the conversation in a direction where she highlights Ullmann’s weight as a director in her own right and Ingmar Bergman’s sometimes rather chauvinistic attitude towards his predominantly female entourage.
As the interview delves deeper into the artistic endeavours of both the director and the actresses required to follow his every artistic whim – and yes, he was unquestionably a remarkable auteur who left an indelible impact with a style that put Sweden and Nordic gloom, doom, desire and nostalgia on the map like no other Scandinavian artist had managed to at that stage – Ullmann, who gets ever more candid during this recorded female tête-à-tête, admits that a good director (like herself) may be benefitted from also being a good actor.
With reference to Autumn Sonata (Höstsonaten, 1978), where Ullmann famously plays Charlotte Andergast’s (Ingrid Bergman) daughter Eva, she also reveals a particularly forthright moment when Ingmar Bergman and Ingrid Bergman (not blood related) could not see eye to eye over a directing matter and went head to head in the middle of the shooting process [6]. Bergman versus Bergman, director versus actress in a verbal duel where a cancer-stricken Ingrid, standing her ground and much aware of her own professional standing, and dignity, was on the verge of walking out but was talked into staying put.
And so, the show went on; it always must. But not without the 1970s Swedish woman (her eyes now darker and fuelled by a burning fury that ironically led to an even more convincing acting performance) raising her voice against the 1970s Swedish man.
Bergman, known for his strict directing style [7] and intimate storytelling trough fragmented narratives, dark introspective and psychoanalytic explorations, and extreme closeups of women whose facial expressions reflect inner traumas and where eyes, as in Ullmann’s largely silent performance in Persona (1966), often speak louder than words, was a Talent with a capital T often worshipped as a god but accused by some of being a predator and womanizer all at once.
The fivefold husband who engaged in relationships with several actresses and fathered 9 children (among others Linn Ullmann, with Liv Ullmann) once declared acting to be: “a very special women’s profession. Women have much more talent for acting. I think women, perhaps from education, are more used to enjoying looking into the mirror that is the audience or the camera’s eye. If a man stands in front of a mirror, he can perhaps feel a little bit ashamed. He looks at his clothes, his hair and his face. A woman by education is not ashamed of looking at herself.” [8]
With reference to this, in hindsight rather narrowminded, quote and yet lingering on the idea of women being more adept at acting than (some) men, it is undeniable that neither Ingmar Bergman nor his Spanish counterpart Pedro Almodóvar, operating within quite different contexts, would have been able to make a name for themselves as auteurs with their own distinct form and style, fashion, purpose and agenda had it not been for the women who made it all happen, and who – skills, stage presence, and beauty combined – lit up the silver screen and bolstered/keep bolstering their respective reputation.
One dark and solemn; a cinema where brooding characters seem to almost literally form an extension to an external landscape that is forever relegated to its own existential twilight zone, while Almodóvar – with his range of “chicas Almodóvar” and Madrid as the major protagonist of them all – every location within this great metropolis constituting an important backdrop to the events unfolding on screen – serves up a stark postmodern expressive cocktail of female meltdowns and conundrums. And yet, thematically and existentially, Sweden meets Spain in an intercultural space in-between where we are moved and pulled into the drama taking place primarily within.
In the case of Liv Ullmann, who shuttles regularly between Boston, Oslo and Florida [9], she has been moving and working within an international setting for years. This multi-award-winning actress, filmmaker, theatre director, and human activist who keeps living life fully and who, undeterred, turned 87 just the other day, on 16 December, will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Film Academy at the 38th European Film Awards in Berlin on 17 January 2026 – for her “outstanding body of work as an actress, director and screenwriter” [10].
My brief contribution primarily geared towards an Australian readership celebrates and turns the gaze on Ullmann as a creator and artistic force to be reckoned with, on her foreign connections and, importantly, on Ullmann and Australia – far away yet so close. Ullmann, born in Tokyo in 1938, in an ancient cherry blossom land geographically distant from Sweden and Norway yet the nations meet in their sparse décor and to the point, minimalist communication style; no big gestures, no big drama.
Over the years Ullmann has appeared in several foreign productions, including Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in 1975, “and since then has starred on Broadway and in London’s West End four times” [11], and in medieval gothic horror flick Leonor (Der gläserne Tod) directed by Juan Luis Buñuel, 1975 (who opts for a surreal spin, much like his famous father). In 1977 Ingmar Bergman’s ’German exile production’ The Serpent’s Egg (Das Schlangenei, 1977) saw the light, with Ullmann starring in a Weimar Republic thriller “über eine mysteriöse Mordserie im Berlin der 20er Jahre”. [12]
Post Bergman, Ullmann has featured in films by English, French-Australian, Canadian, Italian, Mexican, German and German-Argentine, Dutch, Hungarian-American, Norwegian, Danish, etc., directors and her globetrotting circle of life seems complete.
Australia and Oceania… Once known as ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ from Latin for “Unknown South Land” [13] it has since been discovered and rediscovered, visited and revisited, applauded and re-applauded time and time again. Also by Liv Ullmann who – herself drawn to this remote vast land of opportunities while ‘Aussies’ are, in turn, swayed by her – has featured repeatedly on SBS [14] and was interviewed by the late David Stratton in 2009 as he hosted “In Conversation with Liv Ullmann” in conjunction with her staging of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Cate Blanchett.
Tennessee Williams’ play set in the ‘Deep American South’ meets Norwegian Ullmann, meets Cate Blanchett who acted as co-Artistic Director and co-CEO for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC, 2008-2013). The successful play adapted Ullmann style had already attracted the directorial attention of Pedro Almodóvar ten years earlier; in intersectional All About my Mother (Todo sobre mi madre) where it becomes a fixture and is repeatedly referred to.
In that Australian multicultural endeavour, one creative powerhouse met another. Liv Ullmann delivered what the Kennedy Centre has called an “utterly astounding”[15] interpretation of Williams’ play in collaboration with the Sydney Theatre Company. [16] Three main Australian actors stepped up to a quintessentially blues-fuelled American occasion, through the (ground)work of a Norwegian director. [17]
Blanchett herself highlighted the intersectionality – and multiculturality – saying: “You feel like you’re doing Tennessee Williams and Chekhov and Ibsen, and you’re doing the Greeks because he references all of those wonderful forms of theatre – and I think that’s what Liv has really unlocked. It’s very easy to make this play very camp or very melodramatic – but you’ve got to find a balance between all those things and to bring out the human humour. … It’s a gift. [18]
And Liv Ullmann is a gift – to the world of art and creativity, to the world of intercultural interconnectivity, and to the world of unmasked honest conversations and an attempt at mutual understanding across borders, where we are allowed to be our vulnerable true selves: “We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good if we talked… not just pitter-patter, but real talk.” [19]
Liv Ullmann – congratulations on your well-deserved Award and ‘Gratulerer med dagen’
And the Lifetime Achievement Award goes to … Liv Ullmann!
Reflections in honour of an artist who has made Australia, and the world, her home away from home
Words: Dr Jytte Holmqvist
Images: Liv Ullmann – courtesy of Cannes Film Festival | Liv Ullmann in Persona, 1966 (IMDb) | Liv Ullmann – photo by Jenny Bewer (courtesy of European Film Academy) | Cate Blanchett as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, 2009 – photo by Lisa Tomasetti (courtesy of Sydney Theatre Company)
Footnotes:
[1] www.dramaten.se/en
[2] www.youtube.com
[3] See also www.nrk.no – where an emotional Ullmann looking back on her life, is interviewed by the National Theatre of Norway.
[4] True to Bergman’s tendencies, also Ullmann here availed herself of Sven Nyqvist’s skills as a cinematographer: www.imdb.com
[5] www.rafaelfilm.cafilm.org
[6] Some 14 minutes into the interview: www.youtube.com
[7] See with reference to the stage, but the same was true for his style as filmmaker: www.ingmarbergman.se
[8] www.theguardian.com (see also Mikael Timm’s Lusten och Dämonerna from 2008 – two years post “me-too”)
[9] www.wmagazine.com
[10] www.europeanfilmacademy.org
[11] www.youtube.com
[12] www.cinema.de
[13] www.library.gov.au
[14] www.sbs.com.au
[15] www.youtube.com
[16] www.charlierose.com
[17] www.youtube.com
[18] www.youtube.com
[19] www.livinglifefully.com