I was in Sweden recently, researching travel stories on Stockholm and the university town of Uppsala, a lovely place just a 40-minute, $11USD train ride north of the Swedish capital. Uppsala is where the late, great filmmaker Ingmar Bergman was born and where he shot exteriors for his 1982 memory play and farewell to cinema, "Fanny and Alexander.''
Flipping through a book about Bergman, I came across this passage - translated from the Swedish for unilingual film fanatics and travel addicts like me - that Bergman has the grandmother recite in "Fanny and Alexander.'' In the movie, she is quoting the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg's "A Dream Play'':
"Anything can happen; anything is possible and likely. Time and space do not exist; on an insignificant basis of reality, the imagination spins and weaves new patterns.''
Showing posts with label Uppsala. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uppsala. Show all posts
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Friday, October 28, 2011
Ingmar Bergman's Projection Room
Near downtown, on a stately street near the university, through a handsome arched doorway, across the theatre lobby, nearly to the framed and mounted poster advertising "Fanny and Alexander,'' then up a few steps, is the modest projection room where Ingmar Bergman learned to love cinema.
The theater, a lovingly restored 1914 structure in the Swedish university town of Uppsala, is called the Slotts Biograph (in Swedish: Slottsbiografen). Bergman served as an upaid assistant to the projectionist while growing up in Uppsala, his hometown, in the 1920s and 1930s. The room, small but neat, is much like it was then.
The cinema,with its traditional single screen and non-traditionally comfortable seats, is a pleasure to visit. It still shows movies, including silents, though Slotts is no longer a commercial cinema. Rather, it is an arts center with a special emphasis on film. Theatrical performances, music, readings, meetings, even weddings for the heritage-minded, also take place there. The theatre operated as a commercial moviehouse until 1991. It was declared a monument in 1994. Extensively restored, it was reopened in 1996. With just 130 seats, about half as many as during Bergman's boyhood, it is more comfortable now than back in the day.
Visiting the Biograph was one of the highlights of my recent visit to Sweden and Finland. It provides a physical link to Sweden's rich cultural past and to Bergman, an Old Master who is to the movies what Rodin is to sculpture and Rembrandt is to painting. It's easy to imagine the boy Ingmar lifting a new reel of film and offering it to the projectionist, peeking out of the projection room at flickering black and white images on the screen of this marvelous, three-dimensional magic lantern and trundling home after the show to his grandmother's apartment.
She occupied an entire floor in a handsome building that still stands. This was the home fictionalized in Bergman's late masterwork "Fanny and Alexander,'' released in the early 1980s. Before that, making pilgrimmages to see Bergman pictures such as "Wild Strawberries,'' "Smiles of a Summer Night'' and "The Seventh Seal'' were artistic rites of passage for many filmgoers, including myself. His works survive as touchstones of 20th century European art cinema.
After retiring from filmmaking, Bergman (1918-2007) served in Stockholm as artistic director of the magnificent Royal Dramatic Theatre. Tours are offered in that cultural mainstay of central Stockholm and they are well worth taking.
Still, there is something innocent and beguiling about Slotts Biograph. It is easily reached from the central train station in Uppsala, which is only 40 minutes from the capital by train. If you get the chance, go.
Slotts Biograph is located at Lower Linnankatu 6B, 753 09, Uppsala, Sweden. Tel. 018.101101, e-mail info@slottsbio.com.
The theater, a lovingly restored 1914 structure in the Swedish university town of Uppsala, is called the Slotts Biograph (in Swedish: Slottsbiografen). Bergman served as an upaid assistant to the projectionist while growing up in Uppsala, his hometown, in the 1920s and 1930s. The room, small but neat, is much like it was then.
The cinema,with its traditional single screen and non-traditionally comfortable seats, is a pleasure to visit. It still shows movies, including silents, though Slotts is no longer a commercial cinema. Rather, it is an arts center with a special emphasis on film. Theatrical performances, music, readings, meetings, even weddings for the heritage-minded, also take place there. The theatre operated as a commercial moviehouse until 1991. It was declared a monument in 1994. Extensively restored, it was reopened in 1996. With just 130 seats, about half as many as during Bergman's boyhood, it is more comfortable now than back in the day.
Visiting the Biograph was one of the highlights of my recent visit to Sweden and Finland. It provides a physical link to Sweden's rich cultural past and to Bergman, an Old Master who is to the movies what Rodin is to sculpture and Rembrandt is to painting. It's easy to imagine the boy Ingmar lifting a new reel of film and offering it to the projectionist, peeking out of the projection room at flickering black and white images on the screen of this marvelous, three-dimensional magic lantern and trundling home after the show to his grandmother's apartment.
She occupied an entire floor in a handsome building that still stands. This was the home fictionalized in Bergman's late masterwork "Fanny and Alexander,'' released in the early 1980s. Before that, making pilgrimmages to see Bergman pictures such as "Wild Strawberries,'' "Smiles of a Summer Night'' and "The Seventh Seal'' were artistic rites of passage for many filmgoers, including myself. His works survive as touchstones of 20th century European art cinema.
After retiring from filmmaking, Bergman (1918-2007) served in Stockholm as artistic director of the magnificent Royal Dramatic Theatre. Tours are offered in that cultural mainstay of central Stockholm and they are well worth taking.
Still, there is something innocent and beguiling about Slotts Biograph. It is easily reached from the central train station in Uppsala, which is only 40 minutes from the capital by train. If you get the chance, go.
Slotts Biograph is located at Lower Linnankatu 6B, 753 09, Uppsala, Sweden. Tel. 018.101101, e-mail info@slottsbio.com.
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