"When working in total freedom, I touched wordless secrets that only the cinema can discover." This nineteen sixty-six quote from Ingmar Bergman not only epitomizes the auteur's unique style of filmmaking but also the intrinsic nature of cinema as an art form. Indeed, the moving images of film leave indelible imprints on our minds that shape how we perceive ourselves and our world. Ingmar Bergman greatly understood this profound propensity and masterfully used the cinema to express his own perceptions on the human condition.

One prominent characteristic of the Swedish director's films is their unabashed distinctness. It can even be argued that no other director has displayed a more pronounced authorial vision or style. Indeed, by "working in total freedom" in a highly collaborative medium, Bergman utilizes the cinema as a vehicle for individual expression. In the text, Understanding Movies, auteurism is defined as a theory that recognizes the director as the primary architect of a film. It is his or her style, vision, and thematic concerns that govern the material (532). Bergman's aforementioned directorial domination is an apt example of this cinematic concept.

Another characteristic of Bergman's films is their sense of intimacy. This is accomplished mostly by the director's unmitigated use of the close-up shot. The French theorist, Gilles Deleuze, stated it best when he described Bergman's use of this technique as a means of "enforcing a coalescence of the human face with the void" (Deleuze 105). This description is even more apt when one considers the recurring theme of spiritual isolation prevalent in many of Bergman's movies. In Winter Light, for example, Bergman frames a close-up shot of a small town pastor's face that is backlit by sunlight beaming through a window. This scene brilliantly conveys the emotional isolation and introspection of an ecclesiastical man who questions his faith. In what is perhaps one of Bergman's most famous scenes, Bergman uses a close-up shot in Persona to blend the faces of the two female characters into one apparent entity. Similarly, the sequences in Cries and Whispers, one of Bergman's later period masterpieces, begin and end with close-ups of women staring into the camera. Of course, the genre in which Bergman primarily worked also contributes to the intimate nature of his films.

Ingmar Bergman worked mostly in the chamber cinema style. The chamber cinema genre encloses time and space much like a theatrical play. Such confinement allowed Ingmar Bergman to center on mise en scene, a French phrase that refers to the placement of all visual elements within a specific area (44). Naturally, Bergman's intensely spiritual films such as Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence were particularly suited to this cinematic style. In the first film of this "faith trilogy," for example, the mise en scene is dominated by an opaque sky and a formidable shoreline with four ostensibly insignificant humans emerging from the arduous sea. Such a scene ingeniously sets the tone for this series of films that ponders the meaning of human existence in a world where God appears to be absent.

Lighting is another defining characteristic of Bergman's films. The director worked very closely with his cinematographers to achieve the symbolic connotations he wished to convey. Most of his early films, in particular, are lit in high contrast. Giannetti defines high contrast lighting as a style that emphasizes "harsh shafts of lights and dramatic streaks of blackness" (18). In The Seventh Seal, for example, Bergman composes scenes that shift between dark shadows and brightly lit areas. This lighting scheme brilliantly compliments the film's questioning of life and death, commonly associated with light and darkness, respectively. High-contrast lighting is also magnificently used in the nightmare sequence of the nineteen fifty-seven masterpiece, Wild Strawberries. Indeed, Bergman's use of such stark contrasts of light undoubtedly enhances the surreal quality for which the scene calls.

A study of Bergman's films also reveals several recurring themes. Of course, the most pervasive theme regnant in many of Bergman's films is spiritual isolation. Antonius Block, the knight in The Seventh Seal, questions the existence of an afterlife after returning from the Crusades. In Winter Light, the pastor Tomas fears he has been forsaken by a God that may not even exist, and The Silence explores an empty world in which God is mysteriously silent. The summer season is another theme of Bergman's movies. Films such as Scenes from a Summer's Night, Summer with Monika, Summer Interlude, and Wild Strawberries all portray the summer as a symbolic season of sheer bliss. Another recurring motif in Bergman's films is that of art and artists, specifically theatrical performers. Persona explores the relationship between two women, one of whom is an actress; Sawdust and Tinsel details the woes of an aging circus owner; and Bergman stages a scene in The Seventh Seal in which the actor's perform a medieval farce.

Bergman does in fact have a distinct vision and style that is immediately recognizable. As also coincides with the aforementioned definition of auteurism, a study of Bergman's films reveals several recurring themes the director enjoyed exploring. One of the most prominent characteristics of a Bergman film is its sense of intimacy. This closeness and familiarity is accomplished by the chamber style of filmmaking implemented by the director as well as his discerning use of the close-up shot. Another aspect of Bergman's films is their apt usage of lighting, particularly the high-contrast lighting that illuminated and defined such early masterpieces as The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. Perhaps the most palpable and wrenching attribute of the films of Ingmar Bergman is the continuing theme of spiritual isolation. The characters that deal with this dilemma have the paradoxical problem of living a tormented life of unjust burden without the comforting respite of ensuing death which really only serves as a finite ending to an experience fraught with despair and disappointment. There is no light to enter at the end of the tunnel as far as these characters are concerned. The films of Ingmar Bergman compel viewers to delve deep within themselves and discover the "wordless secrets" that many spend an entire lifetime trying to repress and ignore. Indeed, by exploring his own thoughts on the human condition, Bergman forces us to not only reflect about the world in which we live but also to think and explore the deep abyss of ourselves.