Mar 28, 2016

Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words: A Documentary On One Of The Greatest Actresses Hollywood Ever Produced

WE GOT to watch a couple of docus about Hollywood stars during Holy Week and we want to share them with you. First is “In Her Own Words”, which is about Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982), who became one of our favorite Hollywood stars after seeing her in “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, a movie about the Spanish Civil War originally released in 1943. We watched it in a second run theatre then (Scala, we think) when we’re about 12 years old in the late 50s and we just fell in love with Ingrid.

After college, we got to work with the original Channel 5 film programming department and they had a good library of old Hollywood flicks where we got to watch more vintage Ingrid movies, including “Gaslight”, “Notorious”, the classic “Casablanca”, “Spellbound” and “Anastasia”. She became our favorite along with Olivia de Havilland in “To Each Her Own”, “Snake Pit” and “The Heiress”.

Ingrid belongs to Golden Era of Hollywood and is considered one of the best actresses of all time, winning three Oscars. The docu shows rare interviews and home movie clips of her recalling her incredible career. She left a voluminous archive of diaries, photos, mementos and personal letters from the likes of Director Alfred Hitchcock and Ernest Hemingway (who wrote “For Whom the Bell Tolls”), so the docu is understandably titled as “In Her Own Words”.

Also in the docu are her twin daughters, Isabella (who also became an actress but didn’t succeed as big as her mom) and Ingrid, their brother Robert, and half sister Pia Lindstrom. There are many behind-the-scene images about her personal and professional life. Some of her letters are read by recent Oscar best supporting actress Alicia Vikander, who is also Swedish like her. Her leaving her first husband, Peter Lindstrom, to run off with Director Roberto Rossellini in the 40s became a big scandal. She later said: “I was bored. I was searching for something. I knew not what.” They don’t make stars like Ingrid anymore and this celebratory docu, which is made with respect and affection for her, is certainly a fascinating portrait of one of Hollywood’s greatest stars.