Simon: Would you say there is a central theme now in your work? Robert Graves, the poet, says that the two real themes, the only themes, are love and death. Do you have any such principal themes?

Bergman: Yes and no. I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of contact and what happens then. That's what is fascinating. I feel that I have come out into an enormous field, and I can now get started. I'm very curious about the pictures waiting for me around the corner. It's very difficult to explain. Because of that I made A Passion and my documentary, and because of that I am writing my new picture (The Touch).

Simon: Then your main theme is interpersonal relations?

Bergman: Yes, but much more so now than before, because I feel much freer.

Simon: Is it unfair of me to ask about certain episodes in your films that I find difficult to understand?

Bergman: No. I will try to be honest.

Simon: For example, in Hour of the Wolf, the episode with the child, the fishing and the drowning. What is the relationship of the hero to that boy—is that his son?

Bergman: No, I don't know exactly. I think it was based on a dream I had.

Simon: You were saying that in Persona, those little scenes between the titles meant the impatience of the film to begin. And you were talking about your sickness, your ear infection—what was it called again?

Bergman: Morbus Ménièris; sounds like a dish.

Simon: It made you lose your balance. How did that affect Persona?

Bergman: I was at the hospital for two months, and I wanted to make a poem of the atmosphere in which Persona grew.

Simon: Is that why Elisabet is in the hospital for quite a while?

Bergman: No, that has nothing to do with it.

Simon: Those first shots, then, before the titles, that is the poetry?

Bergman: That is the poetry, yes.

Simon: And you had that from the beginning?

Bergman: Yes.

Simon: You began with that? I thought perhaps it was an afterthought.

Bergman: No, but perhaps I elaborated.

Simon: Is there much change between your script and what happens when you start shooting from it, or do you stay fairly close to it? Some little changes?

Bergman: Yes, in A Passion many, because A Passion was written in a very strange way; I just dashed it off—not my usual way of writing. Then, I think, I translated it back when I shot it.

Simon: I find the most difficult part about most of your films is the ending, because the ending always to me is more of a question than an answer. But I'm sure that's what you want it to be. For example, in Persona the thing I find very difficult to comprehend is why we only see Alma getting on that bus and why we don't see Elisabet any more. A lot of people have taken this to mean that the whole thing takes place in Alma's mind.

Bergman: It does not. You see Elisabet for a very, very short moment. She's in the studio. She's at work.

Simon: But it's the same shot you've used before.

Bergman: Yes.

Simon: So one doesn't know whether that's the future or the past.

Bergman: She's going on. You know here, in the theatre, we play the same play every night for years. So she's back.

Simon: She's speaking again.

Bergman: Yes.

Simon: Because that one word which she says, "nothing," that, I think, she says in one of Alma's dreams. So that's not really Elisabet speaking.

Bergman: Elisabet has come back. She has invented a new aspect of her emptiness and she has filled up with Alma, she has fed on Alma a little bit. And she can go on.

Simon: Where does that leave Alma? Is Alma eaten up completely?

Bergman: No. She has just provided some blood and meat, some good steak. Then she can go on.

Simon: And there's enough left for Alma.

Bergman: Yes, Alma is still alive. You must know, Elisabet is intelligent, she's sensible, she has emotions, she is immoral, she is a gifted woman, but she's a monster, because she has an emptiness in her.

Simon: Do you think most artists have this emptiness?

Bergman: No, it has nothing to do with artists; it has just to do with human beings.

Simon: So she does not represent the artist?

Bergman: For heaven's sake, no. It was just a way of putting it—it was convenient.

Simon: But surely a character like the Magician does represent the artist in some way.

Bergman: He is an artist.

Simon: And Vergérus is the scientist. Was the point there that somehow both of them are struggling for an answer, a different answer, that neither of them can finally come up with—or does somebody come up with an answer?

Bergman: I have no answers; I just pose questions. I'm not very gifted at giving answers.

Simon: Was the ending of The Magician based on Brecht's Threepenny Opera somehow, because of the happy ending out of nowhere?

Bergman: No. It just happened. It was the right way of doing it. I just had the feeling that I had to end with some tour de force.

Simon: What about something like the last image of The Seventh Seal, the Dance of Death? Was that meant at that time to suggest that there is some kind of life after death? I mean was that a form of life, death leading these people, or was that a form of non-existence?

Bergman: When I made The Seventh Seal, I was still involved in all these complications. I can't remember exactly.

Simon: It was a very ambiguous image; it could mean that something goes on after death.

Bergman: Yes, The Seventh Seal is, in a way, very concrete, like a medieval play. Everything is there, you can touch everything. The Virgin Mary is real, with the child. When they are dancing, they are concrete; they are. It is not fantasies or dreams or imaginations. It is always my intention to be exact, to be precise, to be concrete; and sometimes I succeed, sometimes not. But my intention is always to be very simple.

Simon: That was a very concrete image, visually; but what it meant metaphysically was not quite so clear.

Bergman: To me that is not so interesting.

Simon: Well, then, would you say that Persona is really about how a person who feels empty, depleted, and sick gets back into life again by using another person?

Bergman: I don't want to say anything about that. Persona is a tension, a situation, something that has happened and passed, and beyond that I don't know.

Simon: Speaking of tensions—does living on an isolated island minimize them?

Bergman: When I write, you know, people say, "Come, come and have dinner with me tomorrow." I say, "No, I can't, because the airplane is booked; it is too complicated to come." So that is that.

Simon: It's a very practical solution.

Bergman: And when my girl friend and I quarrel and she wants to go away and she is all packed, everything is always too complicated; first she has to drive by a very complicated way through the woods; then, the ferryboat leaves only on the hour; from there, she has to find a flight. So, she ends up staying.

Simon: At one point it was announced that you would make a film out of Peer Gynt. Are you still working on that?

Bergman: No.

Simon: What happened there?

Bergman: Nothing.

Simon: Then it was not true?

Bergman: Yes. They asked me if I wanted to make a film of Peer Gynt after I had done it on the stage.

Simon: Yes, in Malmö.

Bergman: Yes. I said that could be nice. And they asked how much it would cost, and I said, "A lot of money." "How much?" "Give me five million dollars." Silence!!

Simon: That's too bad, for we have never seen a good production of Peer Gynt in America and your film would have explained what the play is all about.

Bergman: I think the only way to explain the play is to play it on the stage, because a film must be an adaptation; it is not the same thing; you must translate. It's hard work; I prefer to write my own scripts; not adapt; it is too much of a job.

Simon: My editors, looking at your films on the Movieola, felt that you were fascinated by certain objects, like doors or windows or curtains; do you share that feeling?

Bergman: Yes, it's a bit childish. To a child, a window is very interesting; or a door, or a mirror. My attitudes can sometimes be a little bit childish. Infantile. But if an artist loses his joy in playing, I think he is no artist any longer.

Simon: Yes, you know Nietszche, who spoke about the child in man?

Bergman: But look at Picasso or Stravinsky. Look at their faces. They are children, grown-up, old, wise children, with wonderful childish eyes. Marvellous!

Simon: In other words, you find no special symbolic significance in doors? You just like doors.

Bergman: It's fascinating. A door separates you from other people, or you can open it and come in.

Simon: A mirror probably does have more significance than that. Since you are so interested in faces, a mirror tells you more about a face.

Bergman: Look at a woman. Look at a woman looking in a mirror. It is interesting. Especially if she doesn't see you, if she doesn't know that you see her.

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