On Bergman's Birthday!

Not that he would care or approve but anyway best wishes to Ingmar Bergman on his 89th Birthday!

The Independent has a nice report from Faro, the Swedish island where he lives in seclusion.

As a guest at Bergman Week, you can't help but feel like a naturalist hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare and near-extinct breed. This impression is reinforced by one of the week's main events – the Bergman Safari. On a blustery Saturday evening, when the light is grey and overcast (just as Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist used to like it), we clamber aboard an old bus and set off round the island. Our hosts are Arne Carlsson, a bluntly-spoken islander who worked as his truck driver and cameraman for Bergman, and the formidable Katinka Farago, who was an assistant and production manager on many of his films. We wander across "Persona beach," are shown where Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow's farmhouse was burned down in Shame ("Bergman's only action movie") and drive past various houses that he has built for his family and collaborators. We also stop briefly on the north side of the island for a "Bergman burger".