Four years later, "Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words" opened to strong reviews at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received special mention in the Golden Eye category. The documentary arrives Dec. 11 at the Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles.
Those Bergman aficionados expecting a documentary that explores the craft of the Swedish actress who received seven Oscar nominations and three Academy Awards ("Gaslight," "Anastasia" and "Murder on the Orient Express") may be disappointed in "In Her Own Words"
But if you want to know about Bergman the woman, "In Her Own Words" is touching, funny and poignant. It features her diaries, letters, photographs and amateur home movies, and candid interviews with her four children: Pia Lindstrom and Roberto, Isabella and Ingrid Rossellini. There's also a plethora of clips from her films, including her Oscar winners as well as 1939's "Intermezzo," 1942's "Casablanca," 1946's "Notorious" and 1950's "Stromboli," the first film she made with her second husband, Roberto Rossellini.
"She was a hoarder," said Lindstrom. "Stig probably started out thinking he was going to do a film more about her work, but we happened to have such a treasure trove of home movies. I think he was quite surprised when he went into the basement and came out with boxes and boxes of films."
It was her father, said Lindstrom, who started her mother out "posing and smiling and flirting and putting on costumes in front of a camera. I think she looked at the lens and saw somebody who loved her. She fell in love with men who looked at her through the lens."
Hollywood and her fans turned against her when she fell in love and had a son out of wedlock with Italian director Rossellini. They made five films together during their seven-year marriage.
Bergman made a strong comeback in Hollywood, winning her second lead actress Oscar for 1956's "Anastasia," leading her to say her image went from "saint to whore and back to saint again."
The actress was not a conventional mother. Though Lindstrom says in the film that her mother was fun to be with, she noted in conversation that her mother was "not maternal. She didn't do that. She was a great friend. She was fun. Not everyone is maternal. She never lived in the same country with her children. Even at the end of her life, she had one son who lived in Paris and three daughters who lived in New York. She decided to live in London."
Bergman never had any misgivings about her life choices.
susan.king@latimes.com
