Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads

"Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads: Between Theory and Practice is the outcome of a four week long writing retreat for a group of invited guests to work on Ingmar Bergman's film. The aim of the retreat was to bring international scholars and practitioners together to discuss Bergman from different angles and experiences, and to explore what theory and practice can 'do' for each other. Mainly, its aim is to jointly analyze a smaller selection of Bergman's work and to openly exchange perspectives and competences, transgressing the often-rigid boundary between theorists and practitioners. Much has been published on Ingmar Bergman since he became an international name in the 1950s with films like Summer with Monica (1953) and The Seventh Seal (1957). His work has attracted scholars coming from a variety of perspectives (theatre and performance studies, literature studies, gender studies, philosophy, religion and music. His work has also been the object of the serious film critique. Yet, the scholarly interest for his films (as well as theatre and written) work is not in decline - rather the opposite. Bridging the abyss between practice and theory, and through this bridging, engaging and expanding the theoretical issues concerning both 'intermediality' and the growing field of film and media production studies, this collection is unique and novel in the way it involves filmmakers, theatre directors, and/or producers with film scholars, and as such promises to take the existent research on Ingmar Bergman in new directions."--