Liv Ullmann: An Inspiration to all Women – Especially Those in Film
Liv
Ullmann, known to most as the Norwegian beauty and muse of Ingmar Bergman’s
films in the ’60s through the ’80s, has turned the tables by reinserting
herself into the limelight as an esteemed writer and director. No longer the “face”
of arthouse cinema, today she serves as a role model for all women in the film
industry.
“Miss
Julie,” a film she not only adapted from August Strindberg’s dramatic play, but
also directs, made its U.S. premiere on the Opening Night of the 50th Chicago
International Film Festival (CIFF) this past October. It was Ullmann’s night,
complete with a slew of Red Carpet reporters and photographers all anxious to
speak with her and star of “Miss Julie,” Colin Farrell.
Ullmann,
at 75, looked elegantly stunning on opening night in a
long, flowing black silk dress accessorized by a single strand of luminous
pearls. To say she was glowing would not be an understatement; this was her
night as writer and director in the business in which she has devoted over five
decades. She addressed the theater audience to present her film, “Miss Julie.”
Ullmann stated that film is a “most important medium”—one that makes theaters
a “magic place” where people can see “real life.”
Michael
Kutza, founder and artistic director of the CIFF, presented Ullmann with a
Lifetime Achievement Award stating, “We are honored to have her here with us
tonight to kick off our 50th year with her beautiful film, “Miss
Julie.””
The film is a multilayered psychological drama that
takes place on an Irish country estate, depicting a battle for power, class,
and entitlement, with Jessica Chastain as the title character, the lady of the manor,
and Colin Farrell as John, her servant.
In
speaking with Michael Kutza, he clarified the reason her film was the opener.
“We’ve
premiered every one of her films at the CIFF, starting in the ’60s, and
she’s been here every time they’ve opened. It was a natural progression that we
open with her film and the timing was wonderful.”
When asked
about what Liv Ullmann brings to film, Kutza answered, “She brings humanity.
She is a warm person, a real lady. There’s something very real about her. She
brings us truth.”
In
referring to “art-house” films of the past, Kutza explained that a theater
known as an “art-house” specializes in obscure, foreign films, and he continued,
saying, “That’s where you’d find Liv Ullmann, in Ingmar Bergman films for all
those years.”
And just
how well were her films received here in the United States?
Kutza
said, “Always very well. Even though they were foreign films, the audiences
always loved them; they were crowd-pleasers, so to speak.”
We caught
up with Ullmann the day after her opening at the 50th CIFF and met at the Park
Hyatt Hotel in Chicago. We discussed “Miss Julie” and the topic of women
working in film and, of course, the inescapable topic of Ingmar Bergman.
I began by
telling Ullmann that I felt as if I was truly meeting “film royalty,” as she
has made her quintessential mark in film history by her notable volume of work
as an actress in high-caliber films. (Ullmann was nominated for two Academy
Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role in “The Emigrants” (1973), directed
by Jan Troell, and “Face to Face”(1977),
directed by Ingmar Bergman. Beginning in 1957, to date, she has 57
acting credits, seven directing, and four writing).
She
graciously replied, “Thank you. Those are such nice words to say, but at my
age, it’s good because I feel I was given a gift, and I had the opportunity, by
a lot of luck, to meet people who helped me to have such a fantastic life as a
creator, as an actor, as a director, and writer.”
Liv
Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman met while filming “Persona” (1966). She was twenty-five
and he was forty-six. Both were married to others; they fell in love and she
had her only child with him—a daughter, Linn Ullmann, who is a best-selling
author now living in Norway. Ullmann and Bergman never married, but lived
together for five years on the secluded northern Swedish island of Fårö, on the
coast of the Baltic Sea.
In
Ullmann’s memoir, “Changing,” she describes her life with Bergman in great
detail. It was one of passionate love, hate, anger, joy, control, loneliness,
betrayal, and, eventually, courage. Yes—courage. Ullmann found the inner
strength to leave this ultra-controlling and toxic relationship in order to not
only save her soul, but also to secure the future for her child.
The words
“muse” and “mentor” are often used synonymously to describe her film
relationship with Bergman. Ullmann quantified that she was in eleven of his
films and directed two of them; others have stated the number as twelve. When
inquiring about what she learned from him as an actor in terms of her directing,
she said, “He was a teacher, a wonderful teacher. I believe, I, as a woman,
taught him something too because I do not think that his choice for his next
movie would be me if he didn’t feel that he had something to ‘catch’ from me.
“If I am
to be grateful, which I am, I would say, ‘It’s the most important career thing
that happened to me in my life that he wanted to work with me and that I
learned so much from him and that my life became so rich because of him, and
I’m incredibly thankful for that.’”
Although
Ullmann had the courage to stand up to him personally, she did not always professionally.
For example, in contrast, actress Ingrid Bergman (no relationship to Ingmar
Bergman) was notorious for disagreeing with directors. When I inquired of
Ullmann what she felt Ingrid Bergman might have brought to women in film, she
gave an example of her dissent.
“I’m sure
she brought a lot to women because she’s the first and only person to question
Ingmar. I worked with her in “Autumn Sonata” (1978). She disagreed with him, asking him, ‘Why did you write like this? I
don’t believe in that. Could you change that?’ Of course, he didn’t like it.
They didn’t have a very good working relationship.
This
turned into a big quarrel. I had a long monologue, three pages. I was her
daughter, and she was my mother, who had a career. I told her how my life was
miserable and now, at 40 years old, I couldn’t do anything because she said
yes to a career.
They
filmed me first, and then, the camera was on Ingrid. All she had to say was, ‘Please
hold around me. Please love me.’ When Ingmar Bergman turned the camera, and she
was to say her lines, she said, ‘I’m not saying it!’ Almost, that day, the
movie was stopped. He could not take it.
They
shouted to each other and, in the end, of course, he won. He’s the director.
He’s a genius, but when she did finally say, ‘Please hold around me. Please
love me,’ she did not dance around saying it. She said it with a hurt that all
women will recognize. Her face showed the anger because she had to say these
lines.”
It’s a
well-known, disheartening fact that women directors are clearly in the minority
today, which is unfortunate because women directors can give us different
points of view. They also may be able to direct women or men in terms of taking
risks or possibly delving deeper into their roles. Ullmann explained the latter
point.
“I believe
if you’re a woman director, you have an even greater chance with men than
sometimes a man director because men, in the end, do not have to play that role
of ‘I’m the strongest’ as they have to do with a man. They know, from being a
son, a brother, or a husband how to really open up for what is most vulnerable
in them, and they dare to do things maybe with a woman [director] watching them
more than they would with a man.
I felt
this with Colin [Farrell], for example. He was not afraid of showing the vulnerable
side of John, where anyone else I’ve seen in that part plays the role very
macho. ‘I’m full of hate. I’m full of revenge.’ It’s such a difficult part, and
I’ve never seen anyone do that part the way Colin Farrell does it.”
How does
she feel that being a woman has influenced her style or approach as a film
writer and director?
“Well, as
you know, being a woman yourself, we experience the world somewhat differently
than men. I know that from having very close women friends and they influence
me in my life. When I read material, for example, [Alan] Ginsberg, I
will read it as a woman and I will even see things that maybe he even missed
because he’s very much from a man’s standpoint and he also has some negative
positions towards women, which I do not have, but anything I do comes from me
understanding life as a woman. Obviously, I write from being a woman, and I
know if I were a man, it would look different.”
What does
she enjoy most about directing?
“First, I
must have great actors and what I enjoy in them is to see them being creative.
The fulfillment this also gives me is the material I give them. Perhaps it
inspires them and makes them look into their own fantasies so they can find
things within themselves that they maybe haven’t used before in a movie.
“From my
experience, in all the films and plays that I have directed, the ideas I missed
when writing a script, that’s partly what they create because they know things
from their experiences that I do not know. My fulfillment is that they give
more to my work than I knew.”
With that
said, it would appear that Ullmann enjoys the process of directing. She
elaborated, saying, “I enjoy it a lot. I have done so much acting myself, I can
almost not surprise myself anymore, although I wish maybe I would get one more
film role as an actor, where I could really surprise myself, but I don’t know
if that actually will happen.”
In film
criticism, women are in the minority as well. Does a woman’s perspective bring
something different to a film?
Ullmann’s
face lit up as she answered, “Oh, they bring a lot. Everything, which has been
unsaid in so many of these movies that are made today needs to be heard by a
woman’s strong voice.”
What types
of women film-related jobs would Ullman like to see more of?
“I would
very much like to see more women writers; I would accept that it might be the
most important job. I also wish there were more women producers.”
Does she
feel that women’s film groups or women panels during film festivals help in
fostering possibly more jobs or more exposure for women?
“Yes,
absolutely, because women very often are great speakers, because I know when I
met you, first of all, you’re a great speaker, but generally, some very good [women]
speakers—they speak differently than men. I’m always very happy when I can be
part of a film panel, and the panels are more often men and we miss something
when women are not there.”
What
advice would she offer to women who are working in film; possibly producers,
directors, or writers?
She
answered without hesitation, “Be truthful; be very, very truthful and forget
all those courses where we are told ‘think this way so men will not intimidate
you.’ Forget all of that; just be truthful and allow yourself to be a woman,
allow yourself to say what you really mean and not what is politically correct,
because all of us have paid a big price for being truthful.”
Her advice
triggered a similar reply to a question that I asked Roger Ebert in 2011 when I
asked him in an interview what he felt the core of being a great film critic to
be. He said, “To be truthful and to be truthful to yourself and how did the
movie really make you feel?”
At this
point, Ullmann excitedly said, “Do you know that when I was in Cannes years
ago, Roger Ebert was there, and he was gazing across the balcony and, Sarah, he
began describing me. He said, ‘There is Liv Ullmann, someone from the times
when it was ‘in’ to be truthful. It’s like she’s a ghost now (not that I was a
ghost),’ but I am truthful.
“It
shouldn’t be that we are ghosts when we talk the truth and, as you’re telling
me, you’re quoting him now, and of course that’s wonderful. Continue to speak
the truth.”
What would
Ullmann wish for her daughter in the future?
“To be
able to do everything she wants, because I find her so tremendously talented. I
would want her to be allowed to be exactly the person she is and not try to be
a tough woman in a tough man’s world.”
Incidentally,
best-selling author Linn Ullmann credits growing up in a home with endless film
viewing as “key” to her development as a writer in describing characters. How
do they look or feel in certain lighting? What do the visual characteristics
say about a person? How do they respond to different emotional situations? One
can only imagine watching films with her father, the legendary Ingmar Bergman,
or her mother, a gifted actress, the profound influence her parents bestowed
upon her.
What can we learn from Liv Ullmann? Plenty. She has
strong opinions on women working in film, in addition to offering solutions. She
encourages women to speak the truth, face their fears—to stand up and be heard.
Above all, she’s living proof of what is possible when women create—when they
write scripts as well as direct. She’s not simply talking the talk; she’s
leading by example. Her incredible wealth of filmmaking experience and wisdom
continues to be passed down to today’s hottest actors: Cate Blanchett, Jessica
Chastain, and Colin Farrell, among others.
A quote by Eleanor Roosevelt seems fitting when
examining Liv Ullmann’s film contributions: “You gain strength, courage, and
confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the
face. You are able to say to yourself: I have lived through this before. I can
take the next thing that comes along. ‘You must do the thing you think you cannot
do.”
In the past, Bergman called the shots; today,
Ullmann controls her destiny, paving a path in the film industry as a tour
de force.
(Photo Credits: 1-Timothy Hiatt, 2-Timothy M. Schmidt, 4-Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
