Get the latest gossip
Stellan Skarsgård on Ingmar Bergman: ‘The only person I know who cried when Hitler died’
Actor spoke at Karlovy Vary film festival about his experience working with ‘manipulative’ director in the 80s
In 1999, the director explained to Maria-Pia Boëthius, author of a book questioning Sweden’s neutrality during the second world war, his positive feelings for Hitler after attending a Nazi rally during an exchange trip to Germany in 1934, at the age of 16. He added that his family put a photo of the fascist dictator next to his bed after, because “the nazism I had seen seemed fun and youthful.” The book also details how Bergman’s brother and friends vandalized the house of a Jewish neighbor with swastikas – and that he was “too cowardly” to raise objections to the attack. “When the doors to the concentration camps were thrown open,” he said, “I was suddenly ripped of my innocence.” Bergman went on to explore anguish over the horrors of war in such films as Winter Light, The Silence and Shame.
Or read this on The Guardian
