Roger Ebert interviewed the late master cinematographer Sven Nykvist in a fascinating visit to the set of "Face to Face" in 1975:
Sven Nykvist photographs Bergman's films. He is tall, strong, fifty-one, with a beard and a quick smile. He is usually better-dressed than Bergman, but then almost everyone is; "Ingmar," a friend says, "does not spend a hundred dollars a year for personal haberdashery." Nykvist first worked for Bergman on 'The Naked Night' in 1953, and has been with him steadily since 'The Virgin Spring' in 1959. This will be his nineteenth title for Bergman, and the two of them together engineered Bergman's long-delayed transition from black and white to color, unhappily in "All These Women" and then triumphantly in "A Passion of Anna" and "Cries and Whispers."Nykvist is in demand all over the world, and commands one of the half-dozen highest salaries among cinematographers, but he always leaves his schedule open for Bergman. "We've already discussed the new film the year before," he says, "and then Ingmar goes to his island and writes the screenplay. The next year, we shoot -- usually about the fifteenth of April. Usually we are the same eighteen people working with him, year after year, one film a year."
At the Cannes Film Festival one year, he said, Bergman was talking with David Lean, the director of "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago." "What kind of crew do you use?" Lean asked. "I make my films with eighteen good friends," Bergman said. "That's interesting," said Lean. "I make mine with 150 enemies."
Nykvist and Brach in the same week. Say it ain't so.
When I read the news about Sven Nykist’s passing I was upset. This weekend I have decided to celebrate his life through his work, by watching several of his movies, because it’s easy to tell that they were both deeply entwined.
than you for the article on Sven Nykvist
Wow. Man. Ingmar Bergman's films have resonated so deeply with me over the years, due in a large part to Nykvist's work. Want to talk about opening shots, even in the most subtle first moments of the film, metaphors were laid so deeply. The shot of still water in the opening moments of "Through a Glass Darkly" broken by the four figures moving waste deep towards us. Or the final shot of "Passion of Anna" in which the image seems to break apart as the character does. For me, there couldn't have been a Bergman without a Nykvist. He elevated Woody Allen with what I consider one of his greatest films "Crimes and Misdemeanors", and topped off Tarkovsky's career with "The Sacrifice". He didn't only work, he elevated work. He made images almost spiritual, like meditations, emotional stories that few can match with even the cleverest of dialogue. I can continue to praise him, but I'll stop. I fear though that with his death and the death of Conrad Hall, and the fact that Kaminski works pretty much just with Spielberg, and that it will be difficult to spread Vittorio Storaro around to all the movies he's needed for - that all the visual imagery in our films will continue to look more and more like flair on the shirt of a waiter at Applebee's; pretty but pointless. Who else is there Jim? Who else is there? Bill Pope, Hall's son, whowhowho??? You've upset me terribly with this news.
Truly a remarkable artist. As one of my friends aptly said, his collaboration with Bergman is not only one of the great ones in cinema history, but in art history. He will be missed.
This weekend I think I shall watch the documentary Sven Nykvist: Light Keeps Me Company along with one of his films. Rest in peace, Sven.
Not only Bergman or Woody Allen! What about Paul Mazursky's Willie and Phil?!!
Yeah I know that is a remake of that Truffaut film! So what!? Remember Star 80 and Cannery Row?!! God Damn it!!
Don't forget!!
Philip Kelly,
There's Chris Doyle, Roger Deakins, Mark Lee, Harris Savides, Robert Elswit, all excellent, and many others.
Chill, etc.
JE: MANY others: Robbie Muller, Chris Menges, Vilmos Zsigmond, Russell Boyd, Stephen H. Burum... And don't forget Haskell Wexler!!!
Philip Kelly,
"Ignorance is the dilemma of the beast"! - What about Vilmos Zsigmond! Darius Khondji! Robby Müller! Peter Suschitzky! Jack Green! Benoît Delhomme! Gyula Pados! Rodrigo Prieto! Guillermo Navarro! That is only the top orbeginning of the bottom of the worldcinematographic iceberg! Go ahead and rent movies!
Mylo Josh Plochmann
please allow me to bring it to your attention that another great Swedish cinematographer, Lars Swanberg, has also passed away.
Re scottlord's post about LARS SWANBERG having passed away.
Does anybody have any information about that? I knew Lasse in Stockholm (we went to Konstfack, the art school, together.
I have emailed him a few times over the years to get the addresses of mutual friends. I was doing that today on google (looking for his address) when I read that post. Very shocking. He was a few years younger than me.
He was a photographer then. I became a professor in Film.
I don't read this --- happened on it by mistake --- but if anybody could email me any information I would be very grateful. Thank you. Mike Howard