A special issue of Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture: Patrick Burkart and Christian Christensen,
co-Editors-in-Chief. Edited by Danial Humphrey (Texas A&M University) and
Hamish Ford (University of Newcastle, Australia)
We seek scholarly essays from that represent and reflect on the
genuinely international response to Ingmar Bergman’s cinema over seven decades.
Until now, most of the very substantial amount of academic work devoted to the
director in English or via translation has offered perspectives from
Scandinavia, North America, Britain, and to some degree France. Yet since the
1950s Bergman has elicited substantial critical and scholarly interest,
passionate viewership, and influence on filmmakers in the wider world, to a
much more extensive degree than other European ‘art cinema’ figures. Such
longstanding interest belies oft-heard clichés and critiques insisting
Bergman's films are of interest primarily to privileged Western audiences. It
is our intention to shine a light on the genuine, remarkably global nature of
these films’ reception.
