Was Ingmar Bergman a Changeling?

They should have suspected something. He has a huge wart on his cheek, his mother didn't.

[Warning: I was so eager to get this blog post out there that I haven't reeaally checked all sources. Do it yourself if you don't believe me. But believe everything I say, my Messiah complex tells me that I am indeed correct.]

I was going to trash the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film to pieces (I won't even link to its IMDb page), but it's not really necessary. It's shit. I will make a one-sentence-review: The mermaids were cool and should have been a short film on it's own, while the rest was tired recycled-predictable-once-successful bullshit. Don't see it. Don't give Disney the money. Don't let Johnny Depp disappoint you this way any more. And don't f*cking watch 3D movies, it's shit.

Now to the real subject of this blog post. It does not seem to have hit the international news yet (but the Swedish, so use Google Translate on this article if you're obsessed), but apparently... Ingmar Bergman's mother was not his biological mother! He was a bastard!

At least according to a DNA analysis. Well, I can't argue with science, can I? No, but I can argue with the sources of the DNA samples, which were two stamps that Bergman may have licked in the 1950's. And the world is flat, because it looks that way.

But - so what if he was a bastard child? Unfortunate for him, in that case, since he had to grow up in a strict and mentally disturbed pastor family without really having to. BUT. Artists go nuts, totally bananas. They think we will have to reinterpret all Bergman's films now, since most of his films had strong ties to his personal life and his upbringing.

I don't think that's necessary. I will explain why, referring to that Swedish news article that you can't read. The reporter has contacted a scholar (oh yeah, a scholar) called Jan Holmberg, and asked him how the these news about Bergman's biological heritage is going to affect the director's creations.

- I would say nothing. But I am not very naive. When it comes to Swedish artists such as Bergman, one is interested in his works mostly from a biographical perspective. He has repeatedly said that childhood is the key to his artistry," says Jan Holmberg.

On the other hand, Jan Holmberg thinks that researchers, critics and journalists have been somewhat uncritical when it comes to the analysis of Bergman's films.

- You should remember that Bergman was amazingly good at convincing. He was also terribly sneaky. Just because Bergman said that something was in a certain way, it need not necessarily mean that it was like that," said Jan Holmberg.

And, of course, Bergman was not aware that his mother wasn't his biological mother (if she wasn't, but she probably was), so how the hell could that affect his work?

But then again, as an arguing friend of mine teased me with: he may have KNOWN, but didn't TELL...

I had to argue that Bergman was a narcissist and liked to share his private life. He would have let us know about it. Then again, probably not truthfully. He liked to spice up the stories of his life, add a few "dämons" and canted camera angles. (He did not say "demons" like normal people, he had "dämons". Then again, he was far too different from ordinary people to have ordinary demons.) But he would NOT have kept quite about being a bastard child, it would have been too good and scandalous story at the time and the context of a strictly religious home.

So if anyone thinks that these news are a reason to revalue all of Bergman's films, that person is no better than the idiot that thought Hitchcock was adding poop and rectums in all his film. (Read another blog post of mine.)

This angel can't be a bastard, can he?