Haskell Wexler, the great cinematographer, wrote: "I was good friends with Sven Nykvist, who told me stories about Bergman. They sat in a big old church from very early in the morning until as black as the night gets. They noted where the light moved through the stained glass windows. Bergman planned where he would stage the scenes for a picture they were about to do. This had the practical advantage of minimizing light and generator costs. Sven said sitting alone with Ingmar in the church had a profound effect on him. I asked him if it made him more religious. He said he didn't think so but it did give him some kind of spiritual connection to Ingmar, which helped him deal with the times Bergman became very mean."

Bergman said rather humbly of his own process: “I want to be one of the artists of the cathedral that rises on the plain. I want to occupy myself by carving out of stone the head of a dragon, an angel or a demon, or perhaps a saint; it doesn’t matter; I will find the same joy in any case. Whether I am a believer or an unbeliever, Christian or pagan, I work with all the world to build a cathedral because I am artist and artisan, and because I have learned to draw faces, limbs, and bodies out of stone. I will never worry about the judgment of posterity or of my contemporaries; my name is carved nowhere and will disappear with me. But a little part of myself will survive in the anonymous and triumphant totality. A dragon or a demon, or perhaps a saint, it doesn’t matter!”

In fact, he made three films about the artist and his persecution by society: The Magician, Sawdust and Tinsel, Hour of the Wolf. He had two traumatic brushes with society: his tax arrest was one. The other one sprang from a stay in Germany in 1934 at the age of 16, when he lived as an exchange student with a clergyman's family. He attended a Nazi rally in Weimar. He listened to the clergyman toss off sermons based on Mein Kampf. ''We were absolute virgins politically and we found it marvelous,'' he recalled. ''We were infected.'' He returned to Sweden a ''little pro-German fanatic.'' Years later, he was overcome with shame. ''I understood I had made a great mistake, and since then political thinking has scared me to death.'' For many years, he never read political books or editorials. He didn’t vote.

5. HIS WORK WITH ACTORS AND ACTRESSES

The actress Sheila Reid worked with him: “He gave me very helpful notes that said things like, ‘She is a candle that never goes out’ and ‘She has a screen inside her up to her neck.’ I was extremely fortunate to have worked with Ingmar in both theatre and cinema.”