'Ingmar Bergman's dead', I say over the table which is spread out, as it never was, both leaves folded upward, in the middle of the room, 'I've been thinking of him a lot recently' - and I have, getting hold of his DVDs. 'Dead! Imagine that!' I tell my Visitor I've been waiting most of my adult life for him to die. 'I was always sure he'd go off at any moment'. She's reading a book on Existentialism, and is surprised I only seem to realising now that death happens.
It was the same with Blanchot, I tell her, and he lasted until he was 95! 95! Imagine! And I thought Bergman should at least have made it until he was 90!, I tell her. Of course his parents died a lot earlier - the father in his 70s, the mother in her 80s, if I remember, I tell her. Bergman was always ill, I muse. Blanchot was very ill, of course. My Visitor is unimpressed.
I should write something about Bergman, I tell her, as I fill the washing up bowl and leave the dishes from last night to soak. I pace up and down the living room floor. But what? Ah Bergman!, I think to myself, not wanting to disturb my companion. Wasn't he my earliest image of what it was to be an artist? He was very humble, I think to myself, and spoke savagely of his own work.
I've always admired that, I think to myself, as if by so doing he pushes his own films away from him and lets them become something else. As though his loathing, his apparent indifference, frees them. And he spoke savagely of himself, too. He was unsparing, I think to myself, and was even unsparing about his being unsparing. How marvellous!, I think.
He was a contorted human being, bent back over himself as though his spine was broken. So many affairs, several marriages, what a drama! His exile to Germany for alleged tax evasion. His return to Sweden, his last film and then retirement! Perhaps we should watch one of his films tonight, I say to my Visitor, who is busy working. She agrees.
It was to be The World of Apu tonight, but what instead? - Fanny and Alexander? I think she might like it, my Visitor. Has she seen it? No she hasn't she said from the kitchen, where she's gone to do the washing up. I was going to do it!, I said. Too late, she says. There's no washing up liquid! There is, she says. She turned the bottle upside down. I was going to go out and buy some. No need, she says. I wanted to walk down the road and think about Bergman!, I say. Go on then, she says.
Bergman!, I think to myself as I surf the net. 'Bergman obituary' into Google. Entries for Ingrid Thulin, who died in 2004 at the age of 75, for Sven Nykvist, who died in 2005 at the age of 83. Max Von Sydow is still alive, I think to myself. He played Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon. How old is he now? And Bibi Andersson. And Liv Ullman, of course. They're still alive, from the old ensemble. Only Bibi says she never speaks to Bergman now, I think. Never spoke to him, I correct myself.
Imagine it! Bergman! Dead! Wasn't he my first vision of what it was to be an artist? There was a season of his films - when? in 1987? Before I saw Tarkovsky ... And always the sense for me that Bergman wasn't as great as the others, that his writing, his direction, was too theatrical! And the sense that it was for something about him, Bergman, that drew me to his films, viewing them as a long Bildungsroman.
All those overlapping names, I think to myself. The same surname in film after film. The sound of water draining from the tank that is here behind louvre doors in the living room. My Visitor washes up and I am typing. It was The Touch I always wanted to see, I reflect. Wasn't it in English? Bibi Andersson and ... who else? Eliott Gould?
My Visitor has assembled the mineolas to feed into the juicemaker, which I don't know how to operate. The Touch, I think to myself. When did I read the script? What was the name of the protagonist? David Kovacs, was that it? I've written about him before, I'm sure. So negative. Broken backed, turned in upon himself. And indulged by those around him. Thoroughly indulged, I think to myself, as could only happen in Sweden.
In Sweden! With a welfare state! And lots of space! And big houses! Room for drama that us Brits do not have. We're not as self-dramatising, I think to myself. We can't take ourselves as seriously as Bergman's Swedes. And now he's dead, Bergman, I think to myself. There on BBC news online.
The tap's running in the kitchen. I should be more helpful around the house. Be of more use. I'm sitting at the computer to do - what? Well, it's forgotten now, now that Bergman's dead. I should write something about that, I think to myself, Bergman's death. He was always so frank about himself!, I think. He pushed himself. He struggled.
He and his father went scouting for locations for Winter Light, I remember. Father - an old priest - and son, scouting together, after long periods of estrangement. His mother had an affair, I remember. She was ferociously intelligent. In his old age, retired to his island, Bergman went through her diaries, dramatising them. And Bergman himself kept diaries, I know that. Diaries that recorded his wife's death from cancer, 10 years ago. They've been published in Swedish, I think to myself. When will they be translated? Will his death mean more translations? Will documentaries be shown?
Alone on his island all those years, I think. Like the narrator of Faithless, I think. I always liked him. The film's not so great, but he didn't direct it. Played by Erland Josephson, he of two Tarkovsky films. Is he still alive? Is he? He must be in his 70s! When he dies, and Liv Ullman, and Bibi Andersson, who'll be left?
Bergman! Dead! The smell of peeled mineolas. What are mineolas, as opposed to satsumas, oranges and the like? I buy the fruit, this is the arrangement. I bring home big bags of fruit. My Visitor goes across the Moor to the delicatessen, and I buy the fruit, bringing it back everyday.
And now the noise of fruit being fed to the juicer. I just brushed my teeth - the wrong move! The taste will be wrong! Bergman, I think to myself. On his island. Writing his diaries. Diaries in the plural because he stopped and started them, in my imagination. Sometimes his children would come out to visit him. From Stockholm, by ferry.
Where did he die?, I wonder. On his island? In a Stockholm hospital? It'll be big news in Sweden, I think to myself. Are they tired of him over there? How long did I have to wait to see Bergman films? Let's see - I bought The Magician when it came out on video. £17 - an unimaginable amount, back in the early 90s. Friends bought other videos; we swapped them; we watched them round one another's houses.
But I still haven't seen The Touch. Or From the Life of Marionettes. And then there's the theatre - will they show some of his productions, which I know were filmed, some of them, for TV? And Saraband, the last film. I only saw Scenes From a Marriage last Christmas, I think. And that was the short version for cinema, I thought, though there was no way of telling from Amazon. You can get the long version now, I think to myself. I should watch that and then Saraband, I think to myself. With - who? - Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson? That must have been moving, I think, making that film with Ingmar Bergman. He must have been 84 or 85 - imagine.
Bergman, dead at last, I think. Did his demons subside as he grew older? Was he calmer? Some kennels keep old dogs apart from young ones, housing them in a 'contemplation room'. Did Bergman contemplate at the end of his life? Was he more content, less fiery? What was his last wife like? He found happiness with her, didn't he? or did he? Happiness - and for Bergman?
My visitor cleans the juicer before she serves glasses of juice. She's washed the dishes from last night, and done the juicing, which I wouldn't know how to do. And what have I done? Bergman's dead, I think to myself. What was I supposed to be doing this morning? What was I supposed to be writing? Never mind, I think to myself. Bergman's dead.
