comment #1

NYCBusybody says ...

I don't know what's worse, being a deadbeat asshole all your life, or the strangely compelling logic that to uselessly apologize for being an asshole would simply act to compound the assholicism.

Damn you, Bergman.

comment #2

T. S. Idiot says ...

"Few geniuses have happy domestic lives. Discord leads to art. Only the mundane are truly happy."--Lou Costello

comment #3

JD says ...

While certainly a sporadically great filmmaker, Bergman is also an unapologetically ice cold asshole. Woody Allen loves imitating Bergman and I've always thought that whole affair-with-his-semi-adopted-daughter/molesting-his-real-daughter was a borderline tribute to Bergman (though, evidently, Bergman would never pay that much attention to his family). Proving that many of us cinephiles prioritize movies over real life, nobody ever really holds any of this against Woody Allen or Ingmar Bergman. Mel Gibson, on the other hand...

comment #4

p.Vice says ...

I think the lesson to be learned from this is that there's never a shortage of dumb bitches ready, willing, and able to fall for shitheels like Ingy. He should be sorry for them not because he left them behind, but because they actually thought he would want to stay.

comment #5

NYCBusybody says ...

p.Vice, I think you're quite right, but it's not the women/mothers I feel sympathy for.

Even Bergman acknowledges the "gravely serious" nature of a child growing up feeling abandoned/neglected/unwanted by a parental figure.

And as for Lou Costello's quote, there's a large difference between being "truly happy" in familial life (who is ever "truly happy"?) and owning up to your individual, moral responsiblities to children you bring into the world. The idea that artistic talent is necessarily linked to a moral nature corrupt enough to willfully neglect one's familial responsibilities is glib, false, and regressive.

comment #6

jeffmcm says ...

NYCBB, you're arguing against something that nobody said.

JD: There's a difference between harming the ones closest to you through neglect, and harming the ones closest to you through neglect AND virulent public displays of boorishness and racism.

comment #7

NYCBusybody says ...

jeffmcm, I don't see why T.S. Idiot would have posted that quote unless the implication of it was meant to have a bearing on this subject. The implication being, obviously, that Bergman's familial neglect is somehow tied to the "discord" of his artistic nature.

I argue that they're not intrinsically linked, but that it's a common, trite fall back for immoral assholes to claim they're "misunderstood" or "artistic" in a way merely mundane peons, who love their families, couldn't possibly understand. Surely, Polanski's drugging and raping a 13 year old girl was simply his "artistic" nature surfacing?

comment #8

Monument says ...

The tortured artist mystique is unmitigated bullshit and always has been. There are plenty of artists who are good fathers and husbands. It seems that Mr. Bergman is both a great filmmaker and a self absorbed asshole; while it is possible to both both at the same time, it isn't required.

comment #9

Monument says ...

be both rather

comment #10

JD says ...

Jeffmcm, Woody simply neglect his daughter, he molested her (ar at least that's what Mia Farrow says she saw and that's what the prosecutor in the case believed):

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00614F8385F0C768EDDA00894DB494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fA%2fAllen%2c%20Woody

As for Mel Gibson, as far as I can tell, most of his "boorishness and racism" (anti-Semitism actually) is tied to one particular incident that happened when he was drunk/on drugs and had nothing to do with his family. I'm not saying I like Mel any more than I like Bergman or Woody (they're certainly better directors than he is), but their misbehavior's all in the same ballpark.