Invited in 1943 to join the script department of Svensk Filmindustri on the strength of his much-admired productions for the Student Theatre in Stockholm, 25-year-old Ingmar Bergman set his sight on cinema as well as the stage. One of his screenplays Torment, was impressively filmed by Alf Sjöberg, and was well enough received for Svensk to consider rewarding Bergman for his persistence. He began shooting Crisis (his own script) in July, 1945, directed six stage plays in the same year, was "kicked out" by Svensk when his aptly-named film debut was generally regarded—not least by Bergman himself—as a fiasco.

He was promptly recruited by the independent film producer Lorens Marmstedt, whose thirty-year career as a cinematic impresario began back in 1932. Charming, debonair, and a dedicated gambler, Marmstedt had told Bergman at every meeting that they would work together some day. That day had now arrived, its cost already covered by a two-picture deal between Terrafilm (Marmstedt's production unit) and the Folkbiographer Company. Given four-weeks shooting schedules, Bergman's education as a film-maker was a fiercely concentrated business, and as he describes in his autobiography Marmstedt was "a harsh teacher—ruthlessly critical, forcing me to reshoot any scenes he didn't like."

Seldom the diplomat, Bergman made heavy weather of Marmstedt's no-nonsense methods, but had to accept them. "Every day, Marmstedt took the trouble to sit through the rushes, and even though he criticized and insulted me in front of the staff I had to take it because he was arguing passionately for the good of the film. I cannot remember that he praised me even once during the production of It Rains on Our Love. I was desperate and humiliated, but I had to admit he was right."

Years later, when Bergman himself was in the producer's role, he reflected on Marmstedt's brilliance, "his firmness, determination, honesty and guts, but also his tact, understanding and sensitivity." Marmstedt had a 'golden rule' for viewing rushes: "Don't be enthusiastic, don't be critical either. Put yourself at point zero. Don't let your emotions get involved in what you are seeing, and then you'll see everything." This piece of advice, Bergman says, "has been invaluable to me throughout my professional life."

Neither It Rains on Our Love (a modest critical success) nor A Ship Bound for India ("a major disaster") was greeted with much enthusiasm, and Marmstedt decided it was time for a safer bet. He bought the films right to Music in Darkness, the latest novel by popular writer Dagmar Edgvist, three of whose books he had already profitably filmed, and teamed her with Bergman to create a screenplay. Although enchanted by the novelist herself, Bergman protested that this was not his kind of project—but Marmstedt was inflexible. "My only memory of the filming," he says, "is that I kept thinking: make sure there are no tedious parts. Keeps it entertaining." It was a winning combination: Svensk took due note of the film's generous box-office returns and invited Bergman to come home.

A growing confidence and audacity can be traced in the nine films directed by Bergman between 1946 and 1950. If his material was sometimes over-written, overwrought and overlooked, if his narrative was often despairing and grim, there was no doubting his visual sense and his remarkable skill with actors, one of the benefits of his copious theatrical experience. For four films in a row, he worked with Göran Strindberg, a versatile cameraman sharing his interest in exploring the dramatic possibilities of the tracking shot and what might be achieved with lights and shadows. Among many such diversions in Music in Darkness, the rushing camera matches Ingrid's panic as she struggles to leave the enclosing dance-hall, while an evidently ingenious studio construction enabling a breakfast tray to travel to an upstairs bedroom was so pleasing that they used it twice and then, for good measure, filmed it in reverse.

Strindberg went on to work for, among others, Sjöberg, Ekman, and Disney but his influence on Bergman deserves reappraisal. Between them, Music in Darkness is a kaleidoscope of styles, retreating when all else fails to a gallery of close-ups or a brisk old-fashioned wipe to hasten the story. A sense of experiment, not always successful, lies in the contrast between scenes, from the imagery of Bengt's coma (mysteriously featuring a goldfish) to the respectful mini-documentary at the blind school where the children read out Jelma Lagerlöf's classic The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, from the bickering in the kitchen (a simple set neatly filmed in a single shot) to the oddly chilling spectacle of Bengt's silently accusing audience.

As a result of Marmstedt's restricted budget, Music in Darkness sometimes abandons backgrounds completely, leaving its characters to collide in silhouette. The glimpse of an aged couple retreating in the gloom from a distant circus entrance, suggests some discarded plot twist, but remains intriguingly consistent with other visual footnotes. Bergman's affection for symbolism enriches much of the action: a sheet over the face, the sound of a dog, a road-drill, a torn postcard, marriage vows, train tracks, the study of a foreign language. Allowing Björnstrand a vitriolic tirade, and Bengt's aunts an expectation of the worst ("Pain and suffering," they assure each other, "are part of God's design"), he hints at a sentimental tale of supernatural empathy between two lovers, partly to meet the current public demand for happy endings regardless of plausibility and partly to rescue his own failing marriage. It was also, not too seriously, a study of social politics, of servants and their hopes for betterment. But it was Mai Zetterling that people came to see.