We were both, Sven Nykvist and I, fascinated by the very nature of light. Soft light, menacing light, dream light, living light, but also dying light, pure, cotton-like, burning, violent, raw, unpredictable, declining light, spring light coming in through the window, directed light, subdued light, sensual, aggressive, imperceptible, harmful, pacific, soothing light. Light.
Ingmar Bergman
In memoriam
Swedish director of photography Sven Nykvist died in Stockholm on September 20th. He was eighty-four.
What better tribute can be paid to him but by quoting Ingmar Bergman’s memoirs, Images: “Should I miss filmmaking, then it is only for my collaboration with Sven.”
Indeed, Sven Nykvist’s name cannot be separated from that of director and fellow countryman Ingmar Bergman, with whom he worked for almost a quarter of a century and made twenty films.
While keeping in mind the faces, shot in a luminous and profound black and white, typical of their early collaborations, such films as Cries and Whispers or Fanny and Alexander, for which he was awarded two Oscars for Best Photography, shall remain engraved in our memories for the rich rendering of carnations as well as the work on light - this light, the nature of which kept fascinating both men.
One cannot either not mention a few of the numerous directors whose films Nykvist brought his luminous contribution to: Louis Malle, Roman Polanski, Bob Rafelson, Peter Brook, Volker Schlöndorff, Bob Fosse, Alan J. Pakula, Andrei Tarkovski, Philip Kaufman, Woody Allen, Lasse Hallström...
(Translated from French by Mathilde Bouhon)
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