How To Be a Stradivarius
Dear Anton Pávlovitch,
A few weeks ago I told you about my boundless admiration for Liv Ullmann, one of the greatest actresses the world has ever known, and what a fabulous Lyubov Andreyevna I think she would have been (at seventy-six she would be too old for the part now). I believe it's going to remain forever one of the most intriguing happenings in the history of the art of re-enacting human life that one of its greatest geniuses, a man named Ingmar Bergman, who wrote and directed some of the most luminous films ever made, should one day meet quite by chance a 25-year-old woman who was potentially one of the world's greatest actresses.
At 46, he was already recognized as a genius by the whole world. They were instantly drawn to each other, fell in love, she flourished as an actress, they made ten films together, had a daughter, stayed together for the best part of five years spending most of that time on the island where he lived on the coast of Sweden (which served as setting for most of their films together), got apart, remained the best of friends even after each had embarked on other unions, continued working together, and without the world knowing anything about it, became the protagonists of an "after love story" that sounds like the myths and legends of the distant past.
Somehow (I wonder how he did it), three years after Ingmar's death a young director named Dheeraj Akolkar convinced Liv that she should come back to the island with him and open up in front of his camera about the story nobody knew. The result came out as Liv and Ingmar and it was the best documentary I have ever seen. I saw it last year at the movies with my friend Myriam Campello. Now it has come out on DVD and I couldn't resist buying it. I'll be damned if I know why, but certain films look much better if you watch them at home on the screen of your TV. This is a good example.
What a marvelous film. What a marvelous woman. What a marvelous story. It made me laugh. It made me wonder. It made me scared. And it made me cry. It made me cry the way I do, and I don't expect many people to understand it (on the contrary, I imagine many people would dismiss it as a hysterical reaction about which I should perhaps see a shrink), whenever I witness too much accomplishment in the way someone does something really difficult to do even reasonably well. Like the way Liv Ullmann builds her characters when she's acting and the way she relates to her ghosts when she isn't. That's the sort of thing that makes me cry.
But the reason to write you this letter-like journal entry is to tell you that I find it extraordinary that some authors develop such understanding of the human nature that things happen all the time that make you think the scene you've just witnessed could have been written by them. Like Ingmar listening to Liv's complaints that even on the island, where in the past thy could remain pretty much anonymous, now there are people scrutinizing them.
"It's because of you. Because they think of you as a genius, probably the only one they will ever see in person," she says.
"Not only me. It's because of you too. You say they think of me as a genius. If that is so, then you were my Stradivarius".
There is a pause and then she says, "It was the greatest compliment I ever got in my life".
As I watched it, my eyes misted, and I thought, "This dialogue is pure Chekhov. Anton Pávlovitch might have written it. It sounds just like some of the things one reads in The Cherry Orchard".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnyAG5umuTw
A few weeks ago I told you about my boundless admiration for Liv Ullmann, one of the greatest actresses the world has ever known, and what a fabulous Lyubov Andreyevna I think she would have been (at seventy-six she would be too old for the part now). I believe it's going to remain forever one of the most intriguing happenings in the history of the art of re-enacting human life that one of its greatest geniuses, a man named Ingmar Bergman, who wrote and directed some of the most luminous films ever made, should one day meet quite by chance a 25-year-old woman who was potentially one of the world's greatest actresses.
At 46, he was already recognized as a genius by the whole world. They were instantly drawn to each other, fell in love, she flourished as an actress, they made ten films together, had a daughter, stayed together for the best part of five years spending most of that time on the island where he lived on the coast of Sweden (which served as setting for most of their films together), got apart, remained the best of friends even after each had embarked on other unions, continued working together, and without the world knowing anything about it, became the protagonists of an "after love story" that sounds like the myths and legends of the distant past.
Somehow (I wonder how he did it), three years after Ingmar's death a young director named Dheeraj Akolkar convinced Liv that she should come back to the island with him and open up in front of his camera about the story nobody knew. The result came out as Liv and Ingmar and it was the best documentary I have ever seen. I saw it last year at the movies with my friend Myriam Campello. Now it has come out on DVD and I couldn't resist buying it. I'll be damned if I know why, but certain films look much better if you watch them at home on the screen of your TV. This is a good example.
What a marvelous film. What a marvelous woman. What a marvelous story. It made me laugh. It made me wonder. It made me scared. And it made me cry. It made me cry the way I do, and I don't expect many people to understand it (on the contrary, I imagine many people would dismiss it as a hysterical reaction about which I should perhaps see a shrink), whenever I witness too much accomplishment in the way someone does something really difficult to do even reasonably well. Like the way Liv Ullmann builds her characters when she's acting and the way she relates to her ghosts when she isn't. That's the sort of thing that makes me cry.
But the reason to write you this letter-like journal entry is to tell you that I find it extraordinary that some authors develop such understanding of the human nature that things happen all the time that make you think the scene you've just witnessed could have been written by them. Like Ingmar listening to Liv's complaints that even on the island, where in the past thy could remain pretty much anonymous, now there are people scrutinizing them.
"It's because of you. Because they think of you as a genius, probably the only one they will ever see in person," she says.
"Not only me. It's because of you too. You say they think of me as a genius. If that is so, then you were my Stradivarius".
There is a pause and then she says, "It was the greatest compliment I ever got in my life".
As I watched it, my eyes misted, and I thought, "This dialogue is pure Chekhov. Anton Pávlovitch might have written it. It sounds just like some of the things one reads in The Cherry Orchard".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnyAG5umuTw