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the players
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bibi andersson
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harriet andersson
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g. bj�rnstrand
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ingrid thulin
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liv ullmann
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max von sydow
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The Magic Works of Ingmar Bergman is now located at www.bergmanorama.com. Please update your bookmarks. Thank you for visiting!
 INGRID
THULIN
Of all the actresses brought to prominence through the films of Ingmar Bergman, Ingrid Thulin perhaps best exemplifies the cool, blonde Swedish beauty who combines sensuality and suffering with Nordic intensity. She first worked with Bergman, who was the artistic director of the Malm� Municipal Theatre, after she had trained at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in the late 1940s. In the film
Wild Strawberries, however, playing the daughter-in-law, she made her mark in Swedish cinema and began her long and fruitful career in Bergman's films. She appeared in a variety of roles in his films from 1958 in
Brink of Life, for which she received an award at Cannes along with
Bibi Andersson and Eva Dahlbeck, to 1972 when she starred with
Harriet Andersson and
Liv Ullmann in
Cries and Whispers. Often cast as a mistress (Winter Light,
Hour of the Wolf,
The Rite), Thulin capitalized on the enigmatic quality of her stunning beauty and her tragic face which conveys a unique combination of pain and pleasure. Her career in Swedish cinema has not been restricted to the films of Bergman, however, and she also has been active in the movies of many other Swedish filmmakers�among them Alf Sj�berg
and Mai Zetterling. Particularly noteworthy was her appearance in the latter's
Night Games.
Ingrid Thulin's international career ranks her among the three great Swedish actresses with Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo. While the films in which she has appeared outside Sweden have made uneven use of her talents, her performances in Luchino Visconti's
The Damned and Alain Resnais's La Guerre est finie were marked by brilliance. Especially memorable, because it so movingly captured her unique style, was her portrayal of Yves Montand's loving and long-suffering wife in the Resnais
film.
� International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
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| Born: |
27 January 1926, in Sollefte�, Sweden. |
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| Died: |
7 January 2004, in Stockholm, Sweden. |
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| Education: |
Studied ballet; then studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School, Stockholm. |
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| Family: |
 Married Claes Sylwander, 1951 (divorced 1955).
Married Harry Schein, 1956 (divorced 1989).
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| Career: |
Stage actress at theatres in Stockholm, Malm�, and other Swedish cities.
1948: film debut in K�nn dej som Hemma.
1957:
Wild Strawberries, first of several films for Ingmar Bergman.
1965: directed first film, H�ngivelse (short).
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| BERGMAN FILMS |
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| Ingrid Thulin appeared in the following Bergman-directed films: |
| COMMENTARY |
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"I was an introverted child. My family lived in a small town in the north of Sweden, and I was very lonely. I had an artistic bent, toward painting and music, and then I drifted into acting when I was still an adolescent. I played everything�music hall singers, comedy ingenues, a few of the classics on the stage. I did one thriller for an American television producer with Robert Mitchum�I think it was finally released in theatres. I can't remember most of them today. My real career began when I went to work for Ingmar."
� Ingrid Thulin, 1964
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"It's fun to work with him [Bergman]. We get very involved emotionally for three months; then it's over and we say goodbye."
� Ingrid Thulin, 1964
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"I'd always had a feeling that a person who looks like that must be extremely gifted. And I was right."
� Ingmar Bergman, on "discovering" Thulin, Bergman on Bergman (1968)
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"Ingrid Thulin is a magnificent instrument. What was crucial [for her role in
Wild Strawberries] was that she should be a person of firm, strong character, and who knew how to express it�Ingrid emanates something substantial; and I suppose that was what I wanted. Not [just] anyone would have done to play against so overwhelming a personality as Victor [Sj�str�m]."
� Ingmar Bergman, Bergman on Bergman (1968)
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"We don't have a company of actors. No. It has just happened that he [Bergman] has used the same actors quite often....he uses us over and over again, and it must be very tiring for the audience sometimes. For us, as actors, it is quite amusing because you can follow him and ourselves developing in time. It's very special for us, working with him."
� Ingrid Thulin, 1972
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"With Visconti, I made a film, The Damned, and the acting in that I call 'illustrating.' You illustrate. You see your feelings and you illustrate them in what is happening and what is being said. In Bergman, often you say one thing and you mean another and you express a third. The film is more written that way and for an actor it is freer because you can get messages through. At least you can try as long as it doesn't disturb the whole idea of the picture."
� Ingrid Thulin, 1972
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"[Bergman's] repertoire of actresses is unique to movies. Ingrid Thulin,
Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann are an austere and solid group, without cajolery or coquettishness, rather like the women who pioneered in the American West. Their perceptions, conversations, and gestures indicate an intelligence with which Hollywood has always been impatient. For introspection, without snappy wit or glibness, leans heavily on our concepts of 'entertainment' and also of femininity. It's an anti-box-office intellect, and these are anti-box-office women. They care nothing for St. Laurent clothes or wood-paneled dishwashers but take themselves and the quality of their lives seriously."
� Marjorie Rosen, Popcorn Venus (1973)
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"Truly one of the great movie actresses of our time. As a jealous colleague expressed it once: 'she is married to the camera'."
� Ingmar Bergman, Images: My Life in Film (1990)
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"Ingrid Thulin's marriage to Harry Schein, head of the Swedish Film Institute, may account for her early wish to move into international films. But her films for Ingmar Bergman were crucial in showing the harrowing trauma that waits on a beautiful woman. That expressive face has doleful eyes unable to forget pain and a wide mouth that can convey passionate suffering and fraught pleasure. It is a tragic face, the unforgettable image of the anxiety that surrounds Bergman's world."
� David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (2002)
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"She was a wonderful actress and a close friend. I mourn her tremendously. She was extremely skilful, but so incredibly beautiful that people were tricked by her looks. They didn't always see her other sides. For instance, she had an incredible sense of humour."
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"The fact of the matter is that no other woman actor�not even
Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, or
Eva Dahlbeck�could express as much of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's complex, often tortured view of womanhood as Thulin, who could match his intricacies step by step....She was an actor of great beauty and considerable sexuality who could still suggest an intellectual subtlety usually at odds with attractive star personas."
� Derek Malcolm, "Ingrid Thulin," The Guardian (9 January 2004)
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