But the fact that his films have drawn fuit
houses oll over the world and that many have
even gone to see them twice or three times,
proves that the deeper inquiry into the faith,
the uncertainties, the doubts and the ambi-
tions of modern man does not only fascinate
the thin intellectual top-layer, but very, very
many if, that is so say, the problems are put
forward as artistically and as humanly as
Bergman does.
By making his work entirely dependent on his
own demands and criteria, he has been a
pioneer in a field where many young film ar-
tists have foliowed him, seeking for the ex
pression of ideas of their own, trying to find
their own new shape for this „septième art"
which in that way is developing into an in
dependent artistic form, with its highlights, its
disappointments, its gropings, its hesitations.
Within this development, in what might be
called the second stage of the medium film,
Ingmar Bergman's work forms an entity of
prime importance, on account of its own ar
tistic value as well as the stimulating effect
it has had on a third generation of film-makers.
In the more southern countries and, in the
case of Sweden Holland does by exception
belong to the southerners we are some-
times inclined to consider the Scandinavian
view of problems of the human soul and
human relations, as rather heavy-on-the-hand.
The dramas of Ibsen and Strindberg have of
course contributed to that idea. And yet the
force of their conceptions, the humanity of
their conflicts have been able to overcome
our reserve.
We also come across this earnestness, this
tragedy-of-conflicts-between-human-beings in
Bergman's films. But they are the conflicts
between passionate, warm feeling people in
search of happiness and therefore very near
to us. People we can understand, people we
pity, peopie we sometimes love because they
reflect our own soul, our own disquiet, our
own problems.
Although his work is based on a completely
different conception from that of Mr. Chaplin,
we are glad that this award is bestowed on
both of them, because both are so deeply
engrossed in human needs, the tangible needs
often in Mr. Chaplin's work, the intangible in
that of Mr. Bergman. Together they form the
facets of that remarkable creation of nature
called man. Not all facets, fortunately not.
It is good that there is also an element of
fun in those human beings. With Chaplin that
is the essence of his creative work, but also
Bergman, comes so much closer to us, when
next to the seeker to whom it is essential to
fathom the human and divine mystery, we
recognise the man who can relax. Films like
,,A lesson in love" and „Smiles of a Summer
Night" in which a relieving laugh lightens
human tragedy, bring us also closer to him,
as a man and as an artist.
Time magazine once wrote about him: „Berg
man is unquestionably one of the most for-
ceful and fascinatingly original artists who now
confront the United States in any medium".
I don't know if he himself would agree enti
rely with this great compliment. I mean the
word „original". It certainly applies to the form
of his work. I have, myself, - as a passionate
amateur - quite a few times handled a ca
mera. Perhaps because of that, and because
I live in the country of Rembrandt, I have an
unlimited admiration for the masterly and per-
sonal way in which, in his films, he uses light
and also sound and silence. Those are the
elements in which, in each of his works, we
recognise at once the hand of the talented
and sensitive composer Bergman. The story,
too, often strikes us by its original and unex-
pected turns.
I think, though, that he might not like to see
the word „original" applied to the elements
of the drama which underlies most or perhaps
all of his films and which have a universal
value: human loneliness; man's desire and
struggle to come closer to a God who could
break through that loneliness; a struggle in
which God's loving kindness as well as the
devil's hardheartedness play a part; a struggle,
too often lost, but which in every new film, he
does not hesitate to fight anew.
It has been said that in his films the Anti
christ has been expressed. It is my personal
conviction that they who say so, approach
his work too dogmatically and therefore ha-
ven't understood or even haven't wanted to
understand.
Bergman himself once said: „While God is
in His heaven, all is wrong with the world.
Man needs a God much closer to home, a
God within himself". And in „The Seventh
Seal" he has made one of his characters say:
„I want knowledge! I want God to stretch his
hand toward me, to uncover his face, to speak
to me"!
Here Bergman speaks for himself, in his
doubts, but also in his desire to get into
touch with God. In contrast with the thinker,
the doubter and seeker Sartre, Bergman says:
„Man's essence is God's existence".
But he is one of those who are not content
to just leave it at that. He wants to recognize
the signs of God's existence in man's destiny
and in that of the duality man-woman. The
tragedy of many of the characters whom he
has created is that they don't succeed, that
death, that calamity crosses their path and
that in that darkness the divine light is not
seen or recognized. Not always: in „The
Virgin Spring" with its sequence of terrible
scènes, God does in the end make his mira-
culous gesture by making a source spring
from the stony rocks. And the father of the
outraged girl acknowledges God's hand when
he says: „there I will build a church unto
Thee
This I have wanted to establish firmly oppo-
site the other eternal elements that play such
a prominent part in Bergman's film: death
and eroticism. Of death he has said: „I be-
lieve in life, in this life, a life after death, all
kinds of life. And death is a part of life." He
even goes one step further when he says that
he thinks and is moved by „the reality beyond
reality." In this, death differs from mere
„nothingness", it plays a part in man's des
tiny as elementary as eroticism. His fellow-
countryman Hjalmar Soderberg once wrote
than many Swedes are torn between the de
sire of the flesh and the eternal loneliness of
the soul. Soderberg might have said this not
only of the Swedes, but of many men. That is
why the dramas filmed by Bergman have
deeply stirred and moved people throughout
the world.
He has been able to explore the changes of
mood, the passions, the tenderness, the
warmth and the despair in human faces and
succeeded in recording them by means of
subtle, sensitive camera-movements. In doing
so he has brought these people so close to
us that as in a looking-glass we have recog-
nised in them the stirrings of our own soul.
In the relationship between man and God, as
his film portray it, not a tracé of complaoency
is to be found, but behind the doubt, the des-
peration sometimes, there always rises a sign
of hope, of relief, of revelation.
Ingmar Bergman's worK has now world-re-
nown. This has happened without his having
made any concessions in giving shape to the
most authentic thruths concerning contempo-
rary man. He has achieved this by giving the
best of himself for twenty years, by being -
for twenty years - himself in each film. I am
proud to be able to award in Bergman with
the 1965 Erasmus Prize, the representative of
a subtle art, which is the expression of a
European way of thinking, full of doubts but
ultimately nourished by positive values.
ADDRESS BY
MR. CHARLES S. CHAPLIN
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ambas-
sadors, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentle
men,
I have been very moved, I must say, by His
Highness's speech. I think, it was most excel-
lently rendered, and assured and moving what
he said about both of us, I myself included.
Now may I thank you for this great honour
and for the generous gift which goes with it.
As the rich say, money is not everything. Still
it is a worthy incentive for everything.
But, apart from the reality of this, I wish to
say, that I am not a lettered man. And the
moment I was notified that I was to receive
this award, I rushed to the encyclopedia to
find out more about Erasmus.
The more I read about him, the more his
status grew, the more his image grew as the
greatest heart and the most stirring per-
sonality, I think, this world has ever produ-
ced. It's so akin, in a small way, to myself.
I think of Erasmus first and foremost as a
humanist, and the more I think about him, and
his pity and compassion for humanity, the
more I love him.
He is a man, I think the greatest af all rea-
lists, because he proclaimed that he was a
Citizen of the world in his time, and that's
advanced thinking.
He also was tolerant. He hated combat and
violence. I love him for that, also. Under the
name of such a great man I am most honou-
red to receive this award.
I am only sorry that my associate in the film
world is not here to hear that wonderful
eulogy that His Royal Highness said about
him: Ingmar Bergman.
I have always admired him. I have not seen
too many of his pictures, because l'm an old
man and he is a new arrival in the world, and
a very welcome one. But he, as a poet and an
artist is an excellent creator, and for that I
am so happy to be associated with him this
morning and that we received this great award,
this great honour, the pair of us together.
I was supposed to say a few words about
making motion pictures. Frankly, I have very
little to say about that. I work emotionally. I
have no format, no geometrie concepts of
picture-making. Each picture to me is an ad
venture, an unknown quantity.
To those who are desirous, or ambitious as
amateurs, I can only say: There are two
aspects that one approaches in the making
of a picture.
One is to make money, and the other one Is
to make something that pleases oneself. And
in pleaslng oneself, that is, by putting one's
soul and personality into an effort, into a
work, I think, comes nearer approaching a
work of art.
When I was a young man, somebody asked
me what I thought a work of art was. And I
said: It is a love letter to the world, well
written. I think Erasmus would have agreed
with that. Thank you.
476
