Ingmar Bergman is one of the best filmmakers to have ever lived. When we say one of the best filmmakers to have ever lived, we don’t just mean that he made a bunch of good films, or that he was influential, we mean that Bergman is really one of the best filmmakers to have ever lived. Like Scorsese good. Or Kubrick good. The person who is typing these words has, at at the time of typing these words, seen twenty-two films by Ingmar Bergman and has yet to come across a bad one. That’s a pretty good strike rate. What’s an even more impressive strike rate is that the same person, writing these same words, has come across an almost unbelievable number of masterpieces within the collection of Bergman’s filmography.

If you haven’t seen Fanny & Alexander, Persona, Winter Light, Autumn Sonata, Wild Strawberries, Through a Glass Darkly or The Virgin Springs yet, do yourself a favour and watch them all. Then watch everything else that Bergman made as well.

Here’s the great thing about video essays, though – they can offer some pretty amazing insight into the film/filmmaker/scene/etc. in question while also providing examples of that film/filmmaker/scene/etc. at the same time. The video essay is arguably the single most powerful and compelling format in which to convey and digest information about film. Remember all those two thousand word essays that you wrote for Cinema Studies at university? The person who is typing these words sure does. How much more interesting would have those essays been to make and to look at had they taken on the very medium that they were discussing? Much more.

This is a video essay on Ingmar Bergman. What a wonderful combination.