Ingmar Bergman's relationship with critics has not always been free of complications. In a 1960 item in Chaplin, Bergman spoke of "those executioners committing their bloody jollifications"–driven by hatred, contempt or ill will.

The same year, Bergman appeared in Chaplin again, this time thinly disguised as a particularly contemptuous critic, "Ernest Riffe."

In this attack on himself, Bergman exaggerates the most commonly occurring objections and accusations aimed at him as a director.

Ingmar Bergman has betrayed our confidence, lived sumptuously on our dreams and anxious questions. He has appealed to our sympathy and we have listened in amazement to his excuses and prevarications.

This is what we have said to ourselves: Finally the masterpiece is being born, the decisive proof that our longing has not been in vain. There has been no shortage of assurances: Large coins of respectable appearance have been in circulation, see what riches, what resources of artistic vitality and broad humanity!

If Ingmar Bergman were aware of the gap between the illusory value and the actual merits of his products, in spite of everything he must be credited with a certain cold-bloodedness. If he has been unaware, which is more likely, the matter is more serious because in that case Bergman doesn't even possess the virtuosity of a swindler but must be characterized as a spiritual sleepwalker.

People have often accused Bergman of a lack of social commitment, a charge that he brushes aside with an equally grandiose and foggy declaration that his interests revolve around man's relationship to God. He thus believes that this fact eliminates the issue of material injustices, spiritual oppression or the convulsions of our society. The impression of honesty and reckless openness that Bergman makes in his declaration is actually a rather consummate mendacity: A man who declares that he wishes to be just one of the nameless craftsmen and artists who are building a cathedral is today the world's most widely discussed filmmaker. His pose is admittedly beautiful. It hints at secret suffering from all this attention, an averted grief at not creating soli deo gloria.

Bergman goes on to speak of his responsibility to his audience, but does not bother to define this arbitrary concept. At the same time, in film after film he provides examples of his profound misanthropy and lack of contact with his surroundings.

I find the strangest thing of all, however, to be Bergman's statements that "every film is my last film" and about "the courage to leave the arena in time."

These are meaningless phrases, because if Bergman could see through his products and especially himself, he would long ago have discovered his hollow emptiness and almost manic repetition of forms and motifs.

The more I occupy myself with this singular curiosity among the rich abundance of sterile plant species in cinematic history, the more clearly I see the image of an actor, a presenter of roles.

I have been told that Bergman is an outstanding theatre director. This artist, possessing no substance of his own, requires a literary work to wrap himself around, a writer's authority to lean against. Then, but only then, do Bergman's best qualities come to the fore: His insight, his sense of music and intuitive ability to communicate the most suitable impressions to an actor.

The moment Bergman is supposed to create something independently, breathe life into his own story or give a voice to his own creatures, he becomes confused, unoriginal and powerless, because deep down he mistrusts his intentions. Because of his lack of contact with reality, his inspirations are also blanched and stale–at best they are transformed dreams, very interesting to a psychoanalyst but hardly stimulating to those who require more substantial mental fare. Sensing this lack of ability, he consciously or instinctively resorts to melodramatic expressions, pathetic phrasing and artificially exaggerated situations.

With flowing formal elegance, he scores his anemic melodies, creates surging chords or subtle counterpointed effects: Empty tonal images that our feelings associate with the great masters. Indeed, Bergman's muse is a cold and perverse woman, experienced, constantly aware of the expressions of the amorous arts but void of love, warmth and real vigour.

If we wish, we can speculate about the conceivable reasons for the Bergmanian complication. He himself has given us certain clues, among other things his often-documented fear, which he calls "the artist's need to please, to be loved, to succeed."

To a filmmaker, these motives must, of course, be especially palpable because he works under constant threat of financial reprisals.

Bergman, who has neither belonged to any literary clique nor been regarded as a writer in his homeland, has most certainly suffered under this disdain from his literary colleagues.

He has moreover, sensed the enormous superiority of pictures over words, their directness in relation to the emotions. He has grasped at this means of expression in the same way as a drowning man grasps at a life preserver.

Bergman makes cinematography into his own full-scaled medium of expression, and then the strangest thing of all happens: Instead of using this medium to give us a cinematically innovative experience, he is driven by suppressed ambitions and presents a quasi-literary gruel. In film after film, shadowlike and unreal phantoms glide across the screen uttering laboured dialogues taken from Bergman's theatre productions but transposed into something horribly, sickly sweet.

In the end, this continuous manifestation of artistic insecurity makes such a despondent impression that we can only ask what preposterous and desperate arrogance drives this artist to continue his wanderings in the wilderness.

At the same time, to me Bergman is a dramatic example of the difference between a re-creative and a creative artist. Here, too, Bergman has a heavy responsibility. With his knowledge of cinematic expression, he could have brought his own generation of writers into a stimulating and innovative contact with filmmaking. But in his incomprehensible self-assertiveness, he has carved out his own kingdom in the wilderness and proclaimed himself its ruler.

It is high time we rid ourselves of this ghostly figure, who has caused so much tumult. He tells us nothing about ourselves and the life we live, or about God. He doesn't even tell us anything about his own insignificance or greatness. He is merely a frightening testimony to the terrible decline of our cinematic art.