Posted: 7/30/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Gunnar Seijbold, The Associated Press Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman is seen talking during a press conference in Stockholm in this May 9, 1998 file photo where he presented his latest TV-project "Faithless". Ingmar Bergman has died, Swedish news agency TT reported Monday July 30, 2007. He was 89 years old.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, one of the greatest artists in cinema history, died Monday at his home on an island off the coast of Sweden. He was 89.

Bergman's dozens of works combined deep seriousness, indelible imagery and unexpected flashes of humor in finely written, inventively shot explorations of difficult subjects such as plague and madness.

His vision encompassed the extremes of his beloved Sweden: the claustrophobic gloom of unending winter nights, its glowing summer evenings and the bleak magnificence of the Baltic islet of Faro, where the reclusive artist spent his last years.

Once described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist ... since the invention of the motion picture camera," Bergman first gained international attention with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."

His last work, of about 60, was "Saraband," a made-for-television movie that aired on Swedish public television in December 2003, the year he retired.

Allen said he was "very sorry" to hear of Bergman's death.

"He was a friend and certainly the finest film director of my lifetime," the Web version of Swedish daily Aftonbladet quoted him as saying.

"Saraband" starred Liv Ullmann, the Norwegian actress and director who appeared in nine Bergman films and had a five-year affair, and a daughter, with the director.

The other actor most closely associated with Bergman was Max von Sydow, who appeared in 1957's "The Seventh Seal," an allegorical tale of the Black Plague years as a knight playing chess with the shrouded figure of Death, one of cinema's most famous scenes.

His 1982 film "Fanny and Alexander" won an Oscar for best foreign film. His 1973 "Cries and Whispers" was nominated for Best Picture.

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