Chances are any film lovers worth their salt encountered Ingrid Bergman at a fairly early age, most likely through her iconic role in Casablanca (1942) or her trio of films for Alfred Hitchcock: Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946) and the black sheep of the trio (and the only one in saturated Technicolor), Under Capricorn (1949). One of the most prominent and popular of the many European émigrés who transformed Hollywood before and during World War II, she is also perhaps the most fascinating example of someone bridging the often peculiar relationship between the Old World and Tinseltown.
Bergman made her English-language debut in Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), a successful David O. Selznick remake of her biggest Swedish hit, Intermezzo from 1936; it’s a rare but not unique case of a studio bringing over a European star to transform a foreign-language film for American audiences. Ironically, she would go on to win her first of three Academy Awards for her leading role in Gaslight (1944), itself a remake of a much more streamlined British thriller from 1940 that MGM tried to wipe from existence. American audiences embraced Bergman with a strong fervor, and you could argue that she represents what Yanks perceived as the best qualities of Europe: glamor, sensitivity, cultivation, wit and a sense of vulnerability without seeming weak. It’s interesting how, apart from occasional outliers like The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), Bergman was always put in a persecuted role. You can’t really call her a victim though; she radiates a strength and sunniness that immediately instills confidence that she’ll find a way out of any predicament, even when she’s a complete train wreck of a human being like Alicia Huberman in Notorious.
That audience devotion was put to the test in one of the movie world’s earlier and most turbulent extramarital scandals when Bergman, who was still legally married to dentist Petter Aron Lindström, became involved with director Roberto Rossellini, which sent her packing to Europe for several years. That major life change resulted in some awfully good movies though, demonstrating Bergman’s ability to translate her appeal into any language or location. That language issue was even key to how their relationship started when Bergman wrote a fan letter to the director:
“Dear Mr. Rossellini, I saw your films Open City and Paisan, and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only ‘ti amo,’ I am ready to come and make a film with you.”
Also married at the time, Rossellini cast Bergman as the lead in Stromboli (1950), which was released at the same time the couple married in Mexico and had a son. Subsequent films they made together included Europa ’51 (1952), Journey to Italy (1954), Fear (1954), and a live Joan of Arc performance film, Giovanna d’Arco al rogo (1954). Two years and two more children later, they separated when Rossellini began an affair with screenwriter Sonali Das Gupta. The films they left behind are a fascinating study in Bergman’s linguistic dexterity, losing not one iota of her magnetism regardless of whether she’s speaking English, Italian, French or German (the primary markets for which the films were produced, Fear and Europa ’51 being shot in multi-language editions). Unlike publicity-conscious actors today, Bergman doesn’t shy away from her professional and personal situation, even playing an unfaithful wife who has no shame about her life decisions. Take a look at how she carries herself in these Rossellini films; there’s a wounded sincerity that really leaps off the screen, and it’s gratifying to see that these films have finally been enshrined as the true classics they always were.
The two films Bergman made in the wake of the Rossellini split are also a useful example of her global appeal, both interestingly casting her in aristocratic roles; in 1956 she rebounded from the Rossellini cycle by appearing in Jean Renoir’s deliciously colorful concoction, Elena and Her Men, as a countess wooed by a pair of very different men (check out that Bastille Day sequence!), and the CinemaScope historical concoction, Anastasia, which led to her much-touted return to Hollywood when her Notorious leading man Cary Grant presented her with her second Best Actress Oscar. (The two would reunite again for 1958′s Indiscreet, a cheeky riff on Bergman’s forgiven scandal in which Grant pretends to be married to avoid emotional entanglements). By this point it’s clear that Bergman is one of the few actors capable of skillfully traversing back and forth through that gossamer-thin line between “art films” and “commercial films;” all it takes is one glance at the audience or a half-smile, and it’s clear moviegoers in any language or country will follow her anywhere.
Nathaniel Thompson