Continuous Artistic Growth – The Expansive Mindset Of Ingrid Bergman

“I belong to this make make-believe world of film and theatre. I never want to leave it.” – Ingrid Bergman

Continuous artistic growth requires an expansive mindset. That is;  staying curious, enjoying novelty and risk, for these are the drivers of our creativity. They lead us to set ourselves new and meaningful artistic intentions, and in reaching for these new intentions we break through our old boundaries and enter into a new world. Should we settle into a comfortable and permanent position, our creativity withers, and our artistic growth eventually ceases – we die as artists.

Actors who become great, or, to put it another way, actors who become artists are those who possess the expansive mindset along with the energy, the desire and a romantic and adventurous soul to maintain it throughout their lives. They never settle, they ask new questions of themselves and of their work. This instinct for the new guides the evolution of their work. They reject the hackneyed, the careerist, the formulaic and the comfortable. For them, boredom is the yawning groan of stagnation – their soul yearns to move on and fear is their inspiration. Finally,  this process of risk and adventure is their purpose, and the creation of a meaningful body of work is the result.

Ingrid Bergman is an example of such an actor. 

Her early, youthful success in the cinema of her native Sweden lead to her first great, expansive leap – to Hollywood, after an invitation from David O. Selznick. It turned out to be a wise move because there followed a run of classic pictures and iconic performances [including two for Alfred Hitchcock]. A switch to Hollywood by an actor whose star was in the ascendent may not seem like much of a risk. But what came next reveals a lot more about Bergman’s attitude towards her work. After ten years, Bergman complained that Hollywood had begun to feel like “a prison”. She discovered the neorealist cinema of Roberto Rossellini, and saw in him a very great artist. Bergman’s now famous correspondance with him, lead to her escape from Hollywood, to Italy, where her collaboration and relationship with Rossellini began. Bergman could’ve stayed in Hollywood, plodding along, churning out solid, silverscreen fayre. But she chose not to. She was driven to leave her successful Hollywood life because she was piqued by Rossellini’s neorealist aesthetic – it inspired her to ask a new question of herself and of her work: ‘could I be as real as that?‘ – she dropped Tinseltown and made her second leap in order to answer the question.

This expansive pattern continued throughout the rest of her life. She made four features with Rossellini, and although they were not as well received as some of her American work, they were nonetheless aesthetically important, affecting filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and Federico Fellini. After eight years in Italy, she switched to France and the Parisien stage. Twenty years later, Bergman made another leap, this time across the Channel to London. Finally, in 1978, aged 63, Bergman delivered one her greatest performances in what was to be her last film, Autumn Sonata, directed by her namesake, Ingmar. Again, she was driven to do so, even at the very end, by another question; ‘can I still do it?‘

Japanese poster for Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words.

Cannes film festival poster for Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words, portrait of Ingrid Bergman holding a film camera

FURTHER READING

Be Comfortable Not Knowing
Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity
Being An Actor By 5 Greats

RESOURCES

Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words [documentary]
Exchange of letters between Bergman and Rossellini initiating their collaboration

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