Watching Ingmar

Ingmar Bergman, the profoundly influential, profoundly depressing Swedish filmmaking giant, died in his sleep today, age 89.

Back in March, writer Joe Queenan sat down and watched every Bergman title he could get his hands on -- 38 in all, spanning five decades. Queenan's essay, funny and perceptive, ran in the Guardian. Press here to read.

Wrote Queenan: "No one who ever ventured behind a camera has adopted a more unapologetically bleak view of the relationship between men and women than Ingmar Bergman. With a handful of exceptions (The Seventh Seal, The Serpent's Egg) where the director goes in somewhat different directions, Bergman's movies break down into three broad groups: the ones where men torment women, the ones where women torment men, and the ones where men and women torment each other. Not terribly surprisingly, Bergman's first movie (as an actor) is entitled Torment."