Where do you stand politically?

Nowhere. If there was a party for scared people I would join it. But, as far as I know, there is no such party.

Your religious leanings?

I don't belong to any faith. I keep my own angels and demons going.

Say something about The Shame.

I don't discuss my own films. That would kill the pleasure for audiences and interpreters.

This is going to be a poor interview. I got to get some meat on it. Can we talk about your private life?

No. We can't talk about my private life.

What the hell are we going to do then?

I don't know. You're being paid to write about me, not me. If you start crying I don't plan to console you.

If you don't cooperate I'm going to write something terribly unpleasant about you and your film. If I were you, Mr. Bergman, I would watch myself. You're no longer on top. You're on the skids. You need us. We don't need you. You're terribly old. You're not big business. You're not so big in any respect. Face the facts and let's work out an interview in an atmosphere of mutual consent.

Excuse me. If I have offended you, I'm sorry. You destroy me. I'm willing to make all the concessions you wish. What do you want me to do? Shall I kiss your ass?

I can imagine greater pleasures. All I want you to do is to say something about your damn, shitty film, which, to be sure, I haven't seen but which according to many sensible people could just as well never have been made.

That's it. Just as well never have been made. You're more right than you understand, you dear dirty darling son. In the drama that washes over us, my cry is just as audible as the chirp of a bird during a battle. I feel it. I know it.

If you're aware of the total pointlessness of your work, why do you continue with it? Why don't you do something useful instead?

Why does a bird chirp from fright. Yes, I know, the answer sounds melodramatic and I see already how the corners of your mouth beneath your weak little moustache turn into an ironic and a very becoming smile. But I have no other answer. No, I have no other answer. If you want to you can note down the whole series of words: anguish, shame, humiliation, anger, boredom, contempt. Do you know what a film is? No, how the hell could you. You're a critic. A film is like a big wheel that one gets started with all the physical and spiritual power that one can muster. Slowly, the wheel starts to move. And its own weight gets it to turn faster and faster. In due course, one becomes hopelessly a part of the wheel, of its motion. That's the way it goes, Mr. Big Shit. Let me conclude our discussion with a punch on the jaw and by wishing you good luck.

This is the second article by Ernest Riffe. The first one–a violent attack on Ingmar Bergman was first printed in the Swedish film periodical Chaplin a few years ago. The rumour that Riffe is a pseudonym for Bergman has, so far, not been convincingly denied.