For me, the lesson that Bergman gives us hinges on three points: liberation of dialogue, a radical cleansing of image, and absolute primacy granted to the human face.

Liberation of dialogue. The text of a film is not a piece of literature, but simply honest speech, things said and things not said, confessions and confidences. We could have learned this lesson from Jean Renoir but, strangely, it has been more clearly revealed through a language that is foreign to us and cinematographically pure. And that since Illicit Interlude, the film of our holidays, of our twenty years, of our first loves.

Cleansing of image. There are filmmakers who allow chance in their images, the sun, passers-by or bicycles (Rossellini, Lelouch, Huston), and there are those who strive to control every square centimetre of the screen (Eisenstein, Lang, Hitchcock). Bergman began like the first group and then switched allegiances...