Liv Ullmann: “We Need Art, Because It Tells Us Who We Are”
Meeting Liv Ullmann in Berlin, on the very morning she was due to receive the European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award, felt like an unexpected privilege. The roundtable interview, attended by journalists from across Europe, carried a particular emotional weight for me – not only because of my long-standing admiration for her, but because something essential in the history of cinema seemed, quite literally, to take shape before my eyes.
Now 87, the extraordinary actress of Cries and Whispers (1972) and Autumn Sonata (1978), and above all of Persona (1966) – a masterpiece that has marked generations of cinephiles and continues to unsettle me with every viewing – sat across from us, studying her interlocutors with a piercing gaze. I had the chance to ask her questions, but more than that, to listen. Suddenly, all the film history books I had read – which rightly place Persona among cinema’s defining works – were transformed into something human, tangible.
The press discussion, held on January 17 during the 38th European Film Awards, could hardly avoid addressing her relationship with Ingmar Bergman. The timing made it inevitable: the previous evening, Scenes from a Marriage (1973) had been screened in Ullmann’s presence. The two were married for several years, collaborated on twelve films, and had a daughter together – the writer Linn Ullmann, mother of the young director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel (Armand, 2024), who attended the ceremony alongside his grandmother.
“Scenes from a Marriage is not the story of Ingmar Bergman and me at all,” Ullmann insists. “But it is about something very important at the time: the fact that someone dared to make a film about unhappy relationships, and about how you continue to live in them. I think it’s a very sad film. Back then, people used to say: It’s wonderful, because the woman gets out of it and feels free. It’s for feminists. I’ve rewatched part of it now, and I think it’s also for men. I feel so sorry for Erland Josephson. And I’m sorry I can’t tell him that anymore.”
“I was very young when I met Ingmar Bergman. He had seen me in some films. He wanted me [for Persona] because I could show both innocence and creativity. He used to say to me: You are my Stradivarius. I was a new instrument for him. We worked so much together. When he was isolated on his island (i.e. the famous Fårö) – because for almost ten years he was not well – he also gave me films to direct. So he learned something from me, too; otherwise, he wouldn’t have done that. But that doesn’t mean we were teaching each other. That’s just how life is,” continues Ullmann, who is also a screenwriter and director.
Awarded an honorary Oscar in 2022, Ullmann believes that actresses today are no less talented than those of her generation. “I met Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor – all of them. And women like them still exist today, with the same talent. But they don’t always get to make films. At the same time, there are so many influencers who become big stars. And more and more people start to look like them. I don’t like it.”
“Bergman used to say to me: You are my Stradivarius. I was a new instrument for him.”
For Ullmann, art – and cinema in particular – may be more necessary now than ever before. “It was important in the past because it helped change ugly thoughts and allowed people to see goodness. That’s how masterpieces were created. But it’s even more important now, because the world is crazy. It’s worse in a way. I feel we’re living in a more dangerous place. That’s why it’s good to have events like the European Film Awards. It’s important to make people aware of art, because art represents us more than anything else – just as ruins did thousands of years ago.”
She continues: “We can recognise not only that a film is beautiful, but how important it is for us to experience things, to be part of something, to feel. Unfortunately, art is not always subsidised as it should be. We need art, because it tells us who we are. A hundred years from now, people will uncover our films – documents that capture the present.”
“Wonderful films are still being made today,” Ullmann adds. “They’re different, because they live in the present. When I was young, we tried to express ourselves differently, but everything came – just as it does now – from our talent and from what we believed in.”
She also reflects on her long-standing humanitarian work, which includes her role as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, as well as her work as co-founder and honorary chair of the Women’s Refugee Commission. “Today, more than ever, it’s important to look at the real world and to understand that there is no ‘other.’ I learned this when I began travelling to refugee camps and meeting people in need. It wasn’t about what I could give or do, but about what people with no possibilities are, in fact, giving.”
Asked where she found the energy to pursue so many paths, Ullmann smiles. “It just came. I’m still a very energetic person, even though my age might suggest otherwise. I’m a lucky human being. So many things came to me that I didn’t even know existed.”
She admits that she enjoys being alone at home. “I can be childish, feel like I’m 14 again. I look at pictures and talk to my mother, and I say: I understand you so much more now, Mama. I do things I might have done if I had thought of them when I was much younger. I remember many things. I still have many friends in America and Norway, but most of the people who were part of my life are now part of the universe.”
Foto credit: Sebastian Gabsch
Journalist and film critic. Curator for some film festivals in Romania. At "Films in Frame" publishes interviews with both young and established filmmakers.
Journalist and film critic. Curator for some film festivals in Romania. At "Films in Frame" publishes interviews with both young and established filmmakers.