Ingmar Bergman

I hope I never get so old I get religious

Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. A little twitch in our optic nerve, a shock effect: twenty-four illuminated frames in a second, darkness in between, the optic nerve incapable of registering darkness. At the editing table, when I run the trip of film through, frame by frame, I still feel that dizzy sense of magic of my childhood: in the darkness of the wardrobe, I slowly wind one frame after another, see almost imperceptible changes, wind faster — a movement.

Laterna Magica (1987); The Magic Lantern : An Autobiography as translated by Joan Tate (1988)

Ingmar Bergman died at his home on Fårö, Sweden, in the early morning of July 30, 2007, aged 89