Bergman's Muses: Æsthetic Versatility in Film, Theatre, Television and Radio

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McFarland, Jun 28, 2010 - Performing Arts - 271 pages

Bergman is a most versatile director who has devoted himself to several muses in a variety of media. Apart from being a writer of plays and screenplays, he has over the past fifty years directed about a hundred stage performances, fifty films, and many works for radio and television. During this time, all the production equipment used have undergone significant changes (allowing, just for instance, a more varied and subtle use of light and sound). But by his own admission, Bergman's texts have often lacked a clear orientation toward a specific medium.

This book focuses on Bergman's way of tackling the problems inherent in each art form he has dealt with, giving a penetrating picture of his craftsmanship and the intimate relationship between his work on stage and in film, as well as the possibilities and limitations of the various forms. With the varied media at his disposal, Bergman is internationally the most versatile author-cum-director presently at work, well aware of what each medium can and cannot do and, most importantly, eager to test its borders. The book addresses itself not only to Bergman fans but also to all those interested in the aesthetic problems related to different presentational forms.

 

Contents

I
1
II
5
III
21
IV
36
V
46
VI
65
VII
80
VIII
91
XIII
161
XIV
172
XV
181
XVI
197
XVII
204
XVIII
215
XIX
221
XX
235

IX
101
X
117
XI
129
XII
146

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Page 5 - A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in "high definition." High definition is the state of being well filled with data. A photograph is, visually, "high definition.
Page 5 - And speech is a cool medium of low definition, because so little is given and so much has to be filled in by the listener.

About the author (2010)

Egil Törnqvist, professor emeritus at the University of Amsterdam, is a leading Bergman scholar. He has also published books on Ibsen, Strindberg, and O’Neill and has lectured widely in Europe, the United States and China. He lives in Amsterdam, Holland.

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