Sunday, November 16, 2003

The Genius and the Charlatan - Ingmar Bergman on Orson Welles
Bergman: For me he's just a hoax. It's empty. It's not interesting. It's
dead. Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of - is all the critics' darling,
always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it's a total bore.
Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that
movie's got is absolutely unbelievable.

Aghed: How about The Magnificent Ambersons?

Bergman: Nah. Also terribly boring. And I've never liked Welles as an
actor, because he's not really an actor. In Hollywood you have two
categories, you talk about actors and personalities. Welles was an
enormous personality, but when he plays Othello, everything goes down the
drain, you see, that's when he's croaks. In my eyes he's an infinitely
overrated filmmaker.

The Genius and the Genius - Ingmar Bergman on Andrei Tarkovsky
'When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside.'