The guilty pleasure movies Ingmar Bergman kept in his mammoth collection
One of the most important and influential art house directors of all time, the films of Ingmar Bergman are the epitome of high-brow cinema. From his dark depiction of death in The Seventh Seal to his bleak exploration of mother-daughter relationships in Autumn Sonata, Bergman was never one to choose an easy option when it came to filmmaking. As such, you might expect that his own taste in cinema was just as high-brow, perhaps dominated by Czech new-wave classics or Italian neo-realism. However, you would be wrong.
Bergman spent much of his life immersed in the world of film; if he wasn’t making a motion picture, he would be consuming them. As such, the director did indeed develop an appreciation for fellow art house directors, like Andrei Tarkovsky, for instance. Nevertheless, everybody needs some light with the shade, even Ingmar Bergman. So, the Swedish filmmaker would often decompress by taking in a variety of blockbuster action films or low-effort American comedies.
Back in 2013, Jane Magnusson and Hynek Pallas created the documentary film Trespassing Bergman, which gave stunning insight into the home and, crucially, the film collection of the legendary director. When combing through Bergman’s extensive video collection, the filmmakers were surprised to find as many low-brow VHS tapes as they did. At the time, Magnusson shared, “We were very surprised by the collection. He had everything from Die Hard to Solaris. For instance, he loved The Blues Brothers. He even had a Blues Brothers T-shirt.”
On the face of it, that fact might not be all that surprising. After all, everybody loves The Blues Brothers. John Belushi and Aretha Franklin are in the same film, so what is there not to like? However, it is certainly difficult to imagine the profound mind that was Ingmar Bergman spending his evenings in front of the television watching Alan Rickman fall from the window of Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard.
Thankfully, Bergman’s interest in these guilty pleasure films did not often translate into his work. Bill Murray bleakly looks out over a ghost-infested New York City and quietly ponders the fragility of existence; imagining what a Bergman-directed version of Ghostbusters – another film in his collection – is certainly an entertaining thought. However, the action in Bergman’s films was usually understated; Summer with Monika would have been very different with the inclusion of Michael Bay-esque explosions.
The likelihood seems to be that Bergman used films like Romancing The Stone or Die Hard as a method of escape from the dark and mentally draining experience of directing bleak art house cinema. Had Bergman been entirely consumed by the worlds created within his work, the director probably would not have been able to function in normal society. Perhaps, therefore, watching these low-effort comedies and blockbuster action flicks balanced out the profound existentialism at the heart of so many of his own films.
On the other hand, it is certainly possible that Bergman simply enjoyed these films, it would not be unimaginable. After all, films like The Blues Brothers or Ghostbusters have enjoyed an intense and enduring level of popularity since their original release back in the 1980s.
The director might have been a pretty intense character when it came to his own filmography, but there is no logic which dictates that he cannot like these films for the same reasons that audiences across the world have enjoyed those same films for decades. The idea of ‘guilty pleasure movies’ is rooted in pretentiousness, and Bergman’s open adoration for 1980s comedy flicks is clear evidence of this fact.
