Ingmar Bergman is without question one of cinema’s most important directors, his often existential films exploring the angst and doubt inherent in the human experience like few other filmmakers.
As Bergman’s muse, lover, longtime friend and collaborator, Liv Ullmann rode shotgun on a nine-film journey from “Persona” (1966) to “Saraband” (2003). Mostly, she starred opposite either Max von Sydow or Erland Josephson, men who critics and film historians often said were stand-ins for Bergman himself.
But asked which actor best represented Bergman, Ullmann said, “I’ll tell you who it was: It was me.
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“He saw that I recognized something about him in ‘Persona,’ although I couldn’t verbalize it,” Ullmann said of her largely mute role. “It was a difficult time in his life. I knew I was him, and he didn’t want to talk, because talk was wasted. He wanted to listen, was watching people and he was listening. I knew I was him. And other movies that I did, I knew I got lines that were not made for a woman, but which he allowed a woman to be a man’s voice. I might have taken parts from Max and Erland, actually!”
To celebrate the 100th birthday of Bergman, who died in 2007 at age 89, the Norwegian actress is traveling to select cities, including Berkeley and San Rafael, to talk about her work with one of the most important people in her life.
Although Bergman is dead, Ullmann often referred to him in the present tense during an interview with The Chronicle by phone from Key Largo, Fla., where she and her longtime husband, Boston businessman Donald Saunders, own a house.
“I don’t know how Ingmar would look at me traveling around instead of him,” Ullmann said. “I think, so far, he doesn’t mind. He likes the way I talk.”
Ullmann will make two appearances apiece from Thursday through next Sunday, Feb. 1 through 4, at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the California Film Institute’s Smith Rafael Film Center.
Ullmann said she offered suggestions for the films selected for the series, especially insisting that the anti-war film “Shame,” playing at both venues on Saturday, Feb. 3, be screened.
Theirs was one of the great director-actor relationships in cinema history. Ullmann was a constant presence on the art house circuit during the 1960s and ’70s, a Golden Age of European cinema, receiving two Academy Award nominations (for Jan Troell’s “The Emigrants” and Bergman’s “Face to Face”) and even having mixed success during a decade-plus in Hollywood (“Lost Horizon,” “A Bridge Too Far” among others).
Ullmann and Bergman famously became an item for a few years, a relationship that produced Ullmann’s only child, Linn Ullmann, now a successful novelist and journalist in Oslo. Liv Ullmann was 25 when she first met Bergman, who was 46 and married. But they always felt a strong connection that belied that age gap; and after their breakup, the “friendship became deeper,” Ullmann said. “We were always friends.”
The friendship faltered briefly when, for reasons Ullmann can’t explain, she turned down a main role in Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander” (1982), now an unshakable classic.
“I don’t even know why,” she said. “It was some kind of rebellion. ... When I saw it, I cried during the whole thing. I knew I had made a mistake, and for a year he would call me ‘Ms. Ullmann.’”
Ullmann later directed two of Bergman’s screenplays (“Private Confessions,” “Faithless”), and among her work as a director is a 2014 version of August Strindberg’s “Miss Julie,” starring Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton, currently available on Netflix.
Bergman eventually retired to his beloved island of Faro, and soon after “Saraband,” his health declined. Although by this time they communicated mostly by phone and letters, Ullmann, who has kept property in Norway, happened to see Bergman on the day of his death.
“I was in Norway when I knew he was not well anymore, and I just felt I had to go and see him, I just felt it one day,” said Ullmann, who became increasingly emotional during the recollection. “It was the first and only time I hired a private plane. ... We couldn’t talk, but I could hold his hand and I thanked him for so many things, and then in the last movie we did, which was ‘Saraband,’ my character goes to visit (ex-husband Josephson’s character) in a hospital, and he says, ‘Why did you come?’ and she says ‘You called for me.’ So I thought because here was the actress and here was the director, I thought maybe he’d like that. So I said, ‘You wonder why I came. I came because you called for me.’
“And I know he was on his way, but you know what? I know he heard it. I know he heard it.”
G. Allen Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ajohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BRfilmsAllen
Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman
On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Bergman (1918-2007), actress and muse Ullmann will appear in person to introduce their films and discuss his work.
Berkeley Art Museum’s Pacific Film Archive: “Persona,” 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 1 (sold out); “Shame,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3 (sold out). Part of “Bergman 100: A Tribute to Liv Ullmann” through Feb. 24. 2155 Center St., Berkeley. (510) 642-0808. www.bampfa.org
Smith Rafael Film Center: “An Evening with Liv Ullmann,” 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 2, preceded by the 2012 documentary “Liv & Ingmar,” 5 p.m.; “Autumn Sonata,” 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 4. Part of “A Tribute to Liv Ullmann,” Friday, Feb. 2, through Sunday, Feb. 4. 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. (415) 454-1222. www.cafilm.org