Motion picture photographer Sven Nykvist has recently lensed his 50th film, Ingmar Bergman's Skammen (The Shame). It is the eighth Bergman film he has shot. The two men have worked together since Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) in 1958.

Sven Nykvist, born in 1922, gave up his studies at the age of 18 and got his not very willing parents to let him try out the profession of a motion picture photographer. After finishing photography school and working as an assistant cameraman for a while, he studied a year at Cinecitta in Rome. Immediately after the Second World War he made some of his own documentary films, i.e., one about Albert Schweitzer. Eventually he was promoted to be a director of photography. In 1951 he was called in on Bergman's Gycklarnas afton (Sawdust and Tinsel, The Naked Night), but he and Bergman did not start to work together until 1958.

Before that Sven Nykvist was a well-known and skillful photographer. But when he looks back at what he did before his Bergman period, he feels almost embarrassed. As most other photographers did in those days and still many do today, his prime concern was beautiful pictures.

New view of his profession
Working on Jungfrukällan changed his basic attitude toward photography. A beautiful shot is not enough. The pictures have to be realistic and it is simplicity and not beautiful effects for which one should strive. The pictures are not there for their own sake. If a picture attracts attention to itself as a picture then something is wrong. If it is right the picture itself does not attract attention but it conveys a mood, which is its function. Sven Nykvist has continued to work along these lines. But there are occasions when he feels that he carries this realistic purism too far. He gets the feeling that it is only for his own sake that he strives as his goal is that mood and naturalness should be so obvious that the viewer does not give the work behind it a moment's thought.

To make films with Ingmar Bergman
is arduous, says Sven Nykvist. He is terribly demanding but it is wonderful to work with him. He has a rare ability to inspire a film troop. The photography must be changed according to the mood in each of his films, which makes the work tremendously alive and invigorating. Yet Sven Nykvist is equally happy to work for other directors. An important difference is, however, that in a Bergman film he operates the camera himself so as to avoid any go-betweens between the director and the photographer, which both men feel would result in unfortunate compromises.

To subordinate oneself to the script
is Sven Nykvist's foremost rule. Through the script one enters the atmosphere and the director's way of thinking. If one can only meet the director on his own ground and feel enthusiastic about the task with him then working together usually turns out fine.

Light equipment—small troop
are ideal to work with and they are the most important reasons why Sven Nykvist—despite tempting foreign offers—prefers to work with Swedish directors. He has, however, shot a couple of American features and nine films with Kurt Hoffmann, the German director. Foreign visitors are usually astonished to see how small Ingmar Bergman's teams are. But cooperation is naturally not only determined by the number of people involved but much more by the relations between the people. Bergman and Nykvist are not only able to cooperate as they have got to know each other while making eight films together. Both are sensitive towards each other and Nykvist's admiration for Bergman as a filmmaker is balanced off by Bergman's complete confidence in Nykvist's technical know-how and his artistic insight.

Colour
is what Bergman and Nykvist will work with in their next film. The reason why they have only used colour once in the films they have made together is that only one of their earlier films was suited to colour. But their next one will be in colour and they have already experimented some to find a colour film that does not beautify. Sven Nykvist considers the absence of light to be the most important in black-and-white photography and the absence of colour in colour work. He fully realizes that he and Bergman will be faced by many problems next year but he looks forward to them.

His next assignment is a Norwegian film in Cinemascope and colour, directed by Arne Skouen and with Liv Ullmann in the lead.