

In his autobiography Laterna Magica, published in 1987, Bergman states that his interest in films and cinema began early, at the age of 9, when he traded a set of tin soldiers with his brother for a magic lantern, a possession that altered the course of his life ( Reference BergmanBergman 1988 reprint).Ī film that he saw about death, at the age of 15, reinforced his attraction to the cinema as a means of exploring important themes and he certainly focused on the subject of death throughout his film-making career. As a child, Bergman was locked up in dark closets or beaten as a punishment by his father.

His father, according to Bergman and others, was a conservative parish minister with strict parenting habits, who maintained a capable, confident exterior to his parishioners but was often depressed and moody privately.

Bergman grew up surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. His mother was a nurse and his father a Lutheran minister. Ernest Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala, Sweden, on 14 July 1918.
