Acting icon Liv Ullmann turns 85

Norway - Acting icon Liv Ullmann turns 85

This face, this face again and again. Liv Ullmann' s great counterpart, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, filmed it again and again.

No wonder director Georg Maas called his documentary about her ten years ago "Liv Ullmann - A Close-Up". Ullmann's laugh lines have become a little deeper in the meantime. This Saturday (16.12.) she will be 85 years old.

Ullmann was not born to become an icon of the women's movement. When she was born in Tokyo in 1938, where her father was working as an aeronautical engineer, the nurse told her parents: "I'm afraid it's a girl," Ullmann recalls. Despite the war, the family traveled the world until her father died in 1945. They then returned to Norway.

Ullmann goes to school near Trondheim, is shy but convinced that she wants to be an actress. Pious relatives did not approve. When she auditions for the Norwegian State Theater after drama school in London, she is rejected and goes to the provinces. There, in Stavanger, Ullmann is given the role of Anne Frank and makes it her first big success. She is then promptly engaged in Oslo, plays Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov - and gets into film.

First encounter with Bergman

She often talked about her first encounter with Bergman, including in the documentary "Liv & Ingmar". The director, 20 years her senior, met her on the street with her friend Bibi Andersson, suddenly turned to her and asked: "Would you be in one of my films?"

Bergman wrote the screenplay for "Persona" in hospital. It would be the first of ten films together, many of which are considered masterpieces, including "Screams and Whispers" and, above all, "Scenes from a Marriage".

The actress and the director became a couple and their daughter Linn was born in 1966. Bergman once called Ullmann his Stradivarius. While shooting the film "Passion" in 1969, he announced that he would shoot the longest close-up of her that he had ever done. She played this scene of a woman losing her composure so intensely that she later no longer recognized her face on the screen herself, Ullmann later said.

But Bergman is also possessive. Many of the characters she played were actually him, Ullmann reports: "I was a part of someone else's dream." After five years, she leaves Bergman.

Thanks to the success of their films together, Ullmann was snapped up by Hollywood. In the 70s, she sometimes made three films a year. She was nominated for an Oscar twice, but came away empty-handed.

Switching behind the camera

After Bergman advised her, Ullmann took over the direction of the Danish film "Sophie" in the early 90s, for which she had already written the screenplay. Ullmann reports this spring, when the documentary series "A Road Less Traveled" about her is presented in Cannes, that she thought she knew everything about the main character she had created and that she could play her best. But then she took close-ups of lead actress Karen-Lise Mynster. "When I saw her - when I saw her face - I was blown away. I would never have thought of doing exactly what she did," confesses Ullmann.

Since then, Ullmann has worked both in front of and behind the camera. She remained in contact with Bergman until the end. "Only when it was all over did we become real friends," she says. Ullmann continued to work with him, most recently in the 2003 television film "Sarabande" - Bergman's last work before his death in 2007.

In Europe in particular, Ullmann is still often regarded as the woman who played under Bergman or as the master's muse. "I've traveled the world and I've done a lot without Ingmar," she states, including things that Bergman himself liked to do but never realized. "But we always end up talking about Ingmar." She sometimes finds that a little sad.

When Ullmann received the Oscar for her lifetime achievement in 2022, her colleague John Lightgow said: "To those who say that without Ingmar Bergman, she would not have become one of the greatest actors in the world, I would say that without Liv Ullmann, Ingmar Bergman would probably not be considered one of the greatest filmmakers."

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1. Liv Ullmann, born in Tokyo to a Norwegian father, spent her formative years traveling around the world due to her father's work, until they eventually returned to Norway.
2. After attending drama school in London, Ullmann was rejected from the Norwegian State Theater and moved to the provinces in Stavanger, where she landed her first major role as Anne Frank.
3. Following her success in Stavanger, Ullmann was offered roles in Oslo, performing Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov, and eventually venturing into film.
4. During her time in Oslo, Ullmann had her first encounter with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, whose screenplay for "Persona" would lead to a decade-long collaboration between the two.
5. Together, Ullmann and Bergman went on to create numerous masterpieces, including "Screams and Whispers" and "Scenes from a Marriage," for which Ullmann received an Oscar nomination.
6. Though they were often regarded as Bergman's muse and his feminine counterpart in Europe, Ullmann continued to work in both acting and directing, both in front and behind the camera.
7. In 2022, Ullmann was recognized for her lifetime achievement in the film industry, with her colleague John Lightgow acknowledging her significant impact on Bergman's career.
8. The documentary series "A Road Less Traveled" about Ullmann's life and work was presented in Cannes in the early 90s, and Ullmann remained in contact with Bergman until his passing in 2007.

Source: www.stern.de