With Ingmar Bergman's death in the summer of 2007, the world lost one of the greatest artists in the history of cinema. His filmography numbers over 60 works, most of them fairly described as "great" and many of them landmarks in film history, representing the pinnacle of sustained work by a master at his craft.

The first installment of the multi-part retrospective of the best of Bergman's films focuses on work from the 1950s. These films brought Bergman his first international acclaim at the Cannes and Venice film festivals, after he had honed his craft in the late 1940s. As Bergman scholar Peter Cowie has noted, these films often explore ethical themes using period settings, in contrast with the hard psychological turn and contemporary settings Bergman favored in the 1960s.

Bergman's developing stock company of actors during this time includes Bergman's first great discovery Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Bjoernstrand, and the signature Bergman actor, Max von Sydow. All films in this series were photographed by the great Gunnar Fischer --except 1960's THE VIRGIN SPRING, the first Bergman film shot entirely by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Bergman's regular photographer from then on.

AFI Silver is proud to screen SUMMER INTERLUDE [Sommarlek], SUMMER WITH MONIKA [Sommaren med Monika], SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT [Sommarnattens leende], SAWDUST AND TINSEL a.k.a. NAKED NIGHT [Gycklarnas afton], WILD STRAWBERRIES [Smultronstället], THE MAGICIAN a.k.a. THE FACE [Ansiktet], THE SEVENTH SEAL [Det sjunde inseglet] and THE VIRGIN SPRING [Jungfrukällan].

AFI Member passes will be accepted at all screenings in the Ingmar Bergman series.

SUMMER WITH MONIKA
[Sommaren med Monika]

An important influence cited by filmmakers from Jean-Luc Godard to Martin Scorsese to Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman's moving story was many years ahead of its time and the director's international breakthrough. Two young lovers (Lars Ekborg and an 18-year-old Harriet Andersson, in her star-making role) spend a summer idyll together only to see it whither in the light of real-world responsibilities. The film's frank--and frankly glorious--depiction of sexuality made it an art house sensation.

DIR/SCR Ingmar Bergman, based on the novel by Per Anders Fogelstroem; PROD Rune Waldekranz. Sweden, 1953, b&w, 96 min

Friday, February 8, 4:45; Saturday, February 9, 7:20; Sunday, February 10, 7:20

SUMMER INTERLUDE
[Sommarlek]

"SUMMER INTERLUDE was my first film in which I felt I was functioning independently, with a style of my own, making a film all of my own." -Ingmar Bergman

Ballerina Maj-Britt Nilsson opens the diary of her deceased first love, and memories of their perfect summer in the Swedish archipelago come flooding back. By reckoning with her past, she gains the strength to face the challenges of the present, including the demands of taskmaster ballet director Stig Olin, the amorous advances of new suitor Alf Kjellin, and opening night.

DIR/SCR Ingmar Bergman; SCR Herbert Grevenius; PROD Rune Waldekranz. Sweden, 1951, b&w, 96 min.

Saturday February 9, 1:00; Tuesday, February 12, 7:00

SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT
[Sommarnattens leende]

Jury Award for "Best Poetic Humor", Cannes Film Festival

Bergman's breakthrough on the international stage and the source for both Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music and Woody Allen's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY. SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT may be the masterwork of romantic farce, the one that all others must measure themselves against. In frothy, fin-de-siècle Sweden, stage actress Eva Dahlbeck arranges a weekend at her mother's country estate. Guests include her former lover Gunnar Björnstrand and her current lover Jarl Kulle, as well as the two men's ill-matched spouses and moonstruck maid Harriett Andersson. After much wicked flirtation and romantic gamesmanship, the tangle of husbands, wives, old mistresses and new lovers resolves itself, gracefully, into four new couples.

DIR/SCR Ingmar Bergman; PROD Allan Ekelund. Sweden, 1955, b&w, 108 min.

Thursday, February 14, 4:45; Friday, February 15, 4:45; Saturday, February 16, 2:45; Sunday, February 17, 12:45

SAWDUST AND TINSEL a.k.a. NAKED NIGHT
[Gycklarnas afton]

A key early work featuring frighteningly intense performances and bravura technical work prefiguring Bergman's landmark film PERSONA. Fleabag circus owner Åke Grönberg is tempted to abandon his life on the road with circus-tramp girlfriend Harriet Andersson when his caravan arrives in the hometown of his estranged wife and children. Peeved at Grönberg and looking to climb the showbiz ladder, Andersson goes off with cynical local theater director Gunnar Björnstrand. The characters' wanderings and returns, romantically and professionally, begin in cold practicality but escalate to fevered passion.

DIR/SCR Ingmar Bergman; PROD Rune Waldekranz. Sweden, 1953, b&w, 93 min.

Saturday, February 16, 12:45; Tuesday, February 19, 7:00; Wednesday, February 20, 7:00

WILD STRAWBERRIES
[Smultronstället]

1958 Golden Bear, Berlin Film Festival
1960 Best Foreign Film, Golden Globe Awards

A milestone in motion pictures, Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES is to cinema what Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past is to the novel, the definitive "memory piece" of the art form. Victor Sjöstrom-himself an accomplished director, and mentor to Bergman-gives a remarkable performance as an elderly professor traveling by car to receive an honorary degree, an old man for whom the past seems as present as the countryside outside his car window. The uniquely cinematic conjuring of memory, using dream sequences and flashbacks, evokes a bittersweet nostalgia of successes savored and regrets that still sting.

DIR/SCR Ingmar Bergman; PROD Allan Ekelund. Sweden, 1957, b&w, 91 min.

Friday, Feb. 22, 4:45; Saturday, Feb. 23, 3:10; Sunday, Feb. 24, 1:00; Tues., Feb. 26, 9:20

THE MAGICIAN a.k.a. THE FACE
[Ansiktet]

1959 Special Jury Prize, Venice Film Festival

Bergman deftly blends the eerie with the comedic in this philosophical battle of wits. In 19th-century Sweden, mesmerist Max von Sydow leads a troupe of traveling mountebanks, "Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater," that includes his wife Ingrid Thulin, disguised as his male assistant; his witchy old grandmother Naima Wifstrand, purveyor of potions; coachman Lars Ekborg, skilled at getting out of town quickly; and show barker Ake Fridell, a silver-tongued persuader. Detained in a small town by suspicious police, they are ordered to give a command performance for the local authorities, eager to expose them as fakes. But von Sydow comes up with his greatest trick yet...

DIR/SCR Ingmar Bergman; PROD Allan Ekelund. Sweden, 1958, b&w, 100 min.

Saturday, February 23, 1:00; Monday, February 25, 7:00; Wednesday, February 27, 6:30

THE SEVENTH SEAL
[Det sjunde inseglet]

1957 Special Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival

Ingmar Bergman's best-known and most iconic film is a touchstone of international cinema's golden age in the 1950s and 1960s - and has been essential, rite-of-passage viewing for every film buff since. Knight Max von Sydow returns from crusading to discover his country ravaged by plague - and comes face to face with Death himself. Unwilling to go quietly, von Sydow challenges Death to a game of chess. An allegorical parade of human foibles and suffering pass by as the two match wits.

DIR/SCR Ingmar Bergman; PROD Allan Ekelund. Sweden, 1957, b&w, 92 min.

Fri., Feb. 29, 4:45; Sat., March 1, 1:00; Sun., March 2, 7:15; Tues., March 4, 7:00

THE VIRGIN SPRING
[Jungfrukällan]

This powerful tale of morality, faith, and revenge in medieval Sweden won Bergman the first of his three Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film. Max von Sydow performs with near-demonic possession as the family patriarch out to avenge the violation and murder of his beloved daughter in a world on the cusp of pagan tradition and the recently arrived Christian faith. Bergman's first collaboration with cinematographer Sven Nykvist is a tour-de-force of outdoor shooting, natural light and mobile camerawork.

DIR/PROD Ingmar Bergman; SCR Ulla Isaksson; PROD Allan Ekelund. Sweden, 1960, b&w, 89 min.

Sunday, March 2, 1:00; Monday, March 3, 7:00