Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words Page #3

I feel it has changed me inside.

We're drinking

our last bottles of champagne.

I'm breaking off

a precious part of my life.

But one learns.

We're performing the operation so well,

both patients will live

happily ever after.

She loved photographers

and camera people.

Even Capa.

That was how she experienced love.

She was madly in love with Victor Fleming.

That was a huge, passionate love affair.

And that whole thing went through the lens

and the making of the movie.

Movie was over? That's it. Good-bye.

And then I think she learned

from her father

This is my own theory.

That he would take photographs of her.

And the beloved father

she'd already lost the mother

The beloved father's on

the other side of the camera,

saying,

"Smile. Look at me. Tilt your head."

Love would be coming

right through that lens,

and she would look into that lens

at her dear, dear father.

And she would flirt with him,

and she would play with him,

and she would pose with him.

She was completely comfortable

with the camera lens.

She already knew how to pose.

My father poor fellow.

He was a brain surgeon.

He would

I mean, it was a different, uh, world.

And I suppose it was no accident that when

he married again, he married a doctor.

And they could speak the same language.

Hollywood's latest

supercolossal movie opens in New York.

Film fans jam the streets

for a glimpse of star Ingrid Bergman,

scheduled to attend the benefit premiere.

Next, Ms. Bergman,

with the film's director, Victor Fleming.

Broadway gives Hollywood's

most ballyhooed new picture

a real Hollywood welcome.

I was tiny

when I first read Joan of Arc.

Then I started collecting books,

medals, statuettes.

I went to France

to see the places she had been.

I think it was because of her youth and...

her courage.

The way she obeyed those voices.

It's very moving.

I have always been puzzled

by this interest that my mother had

in Joan of Arc.

Because it started very young.

She did it in the theater in New York.

She of course made a film of it.

It was something within the story,

I think, of a young girl

who hears a voice that says

she's going to do remarkable things.

That she's going to go into the world

and be amazing.

I don't think it actually had a religious

significance, or something like that.

I think it was more

a poor peasant girl who has a calling

to be heroic.

It's like a bird of passage

has always lived inside me.

Since I was tiny, I've longed

for something new and different.

I have seen so much,

yet it is never enough.

I've tried to put up with daily sadness

and be happy.

I never understood the kind of happiness

I was longing for.

When Petter and I were apart,

during his studies,

I wanted a house with a pool

and all those things the stars have.

We finally got a house.

We fixed it up the way we wanted.

But then that bird of passage

started to flex its wings again.

Francesco! Francesco!

Francesco!

Mama! Mama!

I saw Rome, Open City

in Hollywood.

I liked it very much. It stayed with me.

But I didn't know how

to contact Rossellini.

I thought it might be a fluke.

It's possible to do a great,

magnificent film, followed by a flop.

So I waited until one day, in New York,

I saw another of Rossellini's films.

It had the same effect.

I realized he truly was a great artist.

So I wrote the letter

saying I wanted to work with him.

Dear Mr. Rossellini,

I saw your films Open City and Paisan

and enjoyed them so much.

If you ever need a Swedish actress

who speaks very good English,

a little German, who can make herself

understood in French

and can only say "ti amo" in Italian,

then I'll come and make a film with you.

Ingrid Bergman.

It was a combination of passion,

that I fell in love with a man

that was so different from any other man

that I had ever known.

And it was my boredom in Hollywood.

The more I worked there, the more I wanted

to break out and do something different.

I wanted to do something

that they didn't expect me to do.

I wanted to leave Hollywood,

because I felt that there was

another way of making movies,

and I was just dying to try my wings.

Could I also

come into that type of picture?

Could I become as real as that?

INGRID BERGMAN:

SHOOTS ON TOP OF A VOLCANO

April, 1949.

We're filming on a tiny volcanic island

called Stromboli,

far away from the newshounds

and paparazzi.

It's so beautiful here.

So peaceful.

If Hollywood could see me.

The whole island is involved in the shoot,

as extras or actors,

others help the film crew.

When we were on our way

to Stromboli We were driving down.

He stopped at the beach in Salerno

and said, "Sit here a minute in the car.

I'll go down and pick up

a leading man for you."

He went down on the beach

and he watched all the fishermen.

And then he couldn't decide between

two of them, so he took both of them.

And they thought that they were

going to be be carrying things,

you know, just work in the crew.

Then he said,

"I've picked out two boys for you.

Now we'll study them

when we get to Stromboli

and see which one is the more intelligent.

It was awfully hard to find one

that was taller than you."

Mmm.

In my days

in those days, it was a shock

to leave a husband and a child,

and fall in love with a man,

and openly show the world

that she had fallen in love

and not deny the baby to be born.

I was a danger for American womanhood.

Even my voice over the radio

was supposed to be dangerous.

Of course I was hurt.

But I didn't think what I had done

was so much other people's business.

I thought that you should look upon

an actress as an actress.

What she does on the screen

or on the stage, that's what you pay for.

And that's what you get. If you don't like

the performance, you can walk out.

But to criticize people's private life

I thought was wrong.

To such an extent that even a senator

in Washington gets up on the floor.

Out of Ingrid Bergman's ashes

will grow a better Hollywood.

I was stunned.

I was told she wasn't coming home.

I was stunned. I couldn't understand

why she thought the life she had there

was so terrible

that she would leave me to live there,

and leave my father.

I thought he was very wonderful.

So I was stunned.

Darling,

I wish I could fly home on a big bird

instead of writing.

Instead I'll talk to your photo here

in front of me.

My dear Pia,

our life is going to change.

It's hard to tell you this

because our life together was wonderful.

Never forget that I love Daddy

and I love you.

We belong together.

That will never change.

But sometimes we want to live

with someone else.

It ends with a separation. Or a divorce.

It happens often. But it's painful.

Write to me, and I'll write back.

I hope time will pass quickly

and we'll see each other soon.

Mama.

Petter.

Would you send me a few of my things?

My parents' portraits...

I miss them terribly.

I love the one of Pia too.

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