People ask what are my intentions with my films - my
         aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually
         give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the
         human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to
         satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer to des-
         cribe what I would like my aim to be.
           There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was
         struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thous-
         ands of people came from all points of the compass, like a
         giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild
         the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building
         was completed - master builders, artists, labourers, clowns,
         noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous,
         and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of
         Chaitres.
           Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which
         are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art
         lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from
         worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own
         sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days
         the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory
         of God. He lived and died without being more or less import-
         ant than other artisans; 'eternal values,' 'immortality' and
         'masterpiece' were terms not applicable in his case. The
         ability to create was a gilt. In such a world flourished invul-
         nerable assurance and natural humility.
           Today the individual has become the highest form and the
         greatest bane of artistic creation. The smallest wound or pain
         of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of
         eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his
         subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally
         gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our
         loneliness without listening to each other and without realising
         that we are smothering each other to death. The individu-
         alists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence
         of each other. We walk in' circles, so limited by our own
         anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and
         false, between the gan~ter's whim and the purest ideal.
           Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose
         of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the
         artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a
         dragon's head, an angel, a devil - or perhaps a saint - out
         of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satis-
         faction that counts. Regardless of whether I believe or not,
         whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the
         collective building of the cathedral.



                                    INGMAR BERGMAN
         

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