Liv Ullman

Liv Johanne Ullmann (Tokyo, December 16, 1938) is a Norwegian actress, writer and filmmaker. She starred in nine of Ingmar Bergman's feature films, with whom she had a daughter, writer Linn Ullmann. She is considered a living legend of cinema and one of the most important European actresses of the 20th century. Ingmar Bergman's last muse, her performances in films such as Persona, Secrets of a Marriage, Face to Face, Autumn Sonata or Cries and Whispers continue to be acclaimed by critics and the public.

Ullmann was a winner at the Golden Globe Awards and also at the New York Film Critics Circle for Best Actress for her performance in The Emigrants in 1972 and later nominated for four other nominations. She was nominated twice at the BAFTA Awards and also twice at the Oscars for Best Actress. She was also awarded at the San Sebastian Festival for starring in the 1988 film La amiga. In 2022, she received the honorary Oscar due to her great career as a professional.

She was always linked to cinema and theater, with works that highlighted her dramatic talent. She became one of the three famous actresses of the 20th century Swedish cinema, along with Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo. In one way or another, she worked in the company of the most outstanding actors in years, such as: Max von Sydow, Charles Bronson, James Mason, Olivia de Havilland, Michael Caine, Gene Kelly, Norma Aleandro, Dirk Bogarde, Sean Connery, among others. others.

Biography

Early Years

Daughter of a mining engineer attached to the Norwegian Embassy in Japan, when the Germans invaded her parents' country, her family moved to Japan and Toronto (Canada), where Little Norway was founded with exiles fleeing the occupation. With the death of her father, in 1945, she returned to her place of origin, settling in Trondheim, the main Norwegian port, 400 kilometers from Oslo.

At the age of seventeen, she went to London to study drama at the Weber-Douglas School with Irene Brent as her teacher. She was in the British capital for eight months, but at the end of the course she failed an exam at an Oslo theater, where she was deemed to lack talent. She subsequently enrolled in the Conservatory of Dramatic Art, where she stood out as a brilliant student.

She soon landed her first major role, that of Anne Frank, at the Stavanger Theater. Her interpretation opened the doors of the National Theater in Oslo where she interpreted works by Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht and Shakespeare, at the same time that she began to shoot some small films.

Cinema

Ullmann in 1966

Ullman was known in Norway as a stage actress. At the age of twenty-one, she married the Oslo psychiatrist, Hans Jacob Stang, five years her senior. She traveled to Sweden and in Stockholm she met the film director Ingmar Bergman, who hired her in 1966 for the film Person where she acted alongside Bibi Andersson and Gunnar Björnstrand. Since then her life has been linked to the great Swedish director. She soon began the romance between them and the fruit of him was a daughter, the writer Linn Ullmann. When relations between the two cooled, Ullmann continued her career as an actress, however, filming Bergman films, up to a total of eleven, including The Hour of the Wolf, in 1967, acting alongside Erland Josephson and Max Von Sydow.; and Passion, in 1969 also starring alongside Sydow.

In 1971, Ullmann stars in Jan Troell's film Los emigrantes, an interpretation that earned her the Golden Globes for Best Actress - Drama and her first Oscar nomination.

In 1972, he shot again with Bergman, the film Cries and Whispers alongside Harriet Andersson and Ingrid Thulin, was acclaimed with positive reviews by the public and in international film academies. In this new stage, she participated in several Bergman films: Secretos de un matrimonio, in 1973; Face to Face, in 1976, for which she received the Best Actress of the Year award in January 1977, awarded by the New York Film Critics Circle and also earned her her second Oscar nomination for Best actress; The Serpent's Egg in 1977 with David Carradine and a supporting role in Autumn Sonata where she co-starred with Ingrid Bergman.

She has also starred in the film "Leonor#34; from 1975 directed by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel, acting together with Michel Piccoli and Ornella Muti.

He starred in the Italian film "Goodbye, Moscow" directed by Mauro Bolognini alongside Francesca Ciardi and Daniel Olbrychski, a role that earned her a Best Actress award at the David de Donatello Awards.

Ullmann and director Ingmar Bergman in 1968.

In September 1988, she received the acting award from the San Sebastián Film Festival for her role in the film La amiga, by Jeanine Meerapfel, in which she played one of the Argentine mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. At the beginning of 1991, she co-starred in the shooting of a film in Israel, which suffered delays due to the Iraq-Kuwait conflict. The film, co-starring with Michael York and directed by Vilmos Zsigmond, the film was called The long shadow.

She debuted as a film director, solo, in October 1991, with the film Sofie, shot in Copenhagen and based on a novel by Danish author Henri Nathansen, and with it she won the Grand Special Jury Prize at the Montreal Festival, the Ecumenical Award for its social values and the Award for the most popular film of the Festival. During the same year, she starred with Max Von Sydow and Ewa Froling in the film & # 34;The Ox, & # 34; under the orders of Sven Nykvist. This was selected to represent Sweden at the Oscars in 1992.

After promoting her second directorial project, Kristin Lavransdatter, at the Berlin Film Festival in February 1994, it became a reality and was Norway's biggest budget film. Released in August 1995, it became the biggest public and box office success in this Nordic country. The film tells a story of passions and conflicts set in the Middle Ages, based on the book by Sigrid Undset. For her she received the Special Grand Prix of the Americas for her contribution to cinema as an actress and director at the 1995 Montreal Festival.

In 2000 he directed the film Trolösa (unfaithful), selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for a foreign film at the Goya Awards. In 2003, Ullmann reprized his role for Historias de un marriage in Saraband (2003), Bergman's last film.

In 2013, Ullmann directed a film adaptation of Miss Julie. The film, released in September 2014, stars Jessica Chastain Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton. It was widely praised by the Norwegian press.

In 2021 it was confirmed that he was going to be awarded the Honorary Oscar along with Samuel L. Jackson among others.

Papers he turned down

In 1980, Brian De Palma, the director of Carrie, wanted Liv Ullmann to play the role of Kate Miller in the erotic crime thriller Dressed to Kill and gave it to her. he offered, but she turned it down due to the violence. The role later went to Angie Dickinson. In 1982, Ingmar Bergman wanted Ullmann to play Emelie Ekdahl in his last feature film, Fanny and Alexander , and wrote the role with this in mind. She turned it down, feeling the role was too sad. She later stated in interviews that turning him down was one of the few things she truly regretted.

In 2004, Ullmann revealed that he had received an offer in November 2003 to star in three episodes of the popular US series, Sex and the City. She was amused by the offer and said it was one of the few shows she watched regularly, but she turned it down.Later that year, Steven Soderbergh wrote a role in the movie Ocean's 12 especially for her, but she turned it down as well..

Importance in Bergman's cinema

In an interview before receiving the Donostia Award, Ullmann stated that her “best moments” took place with Ingmar Bergman, although it was with her death that she really realized how important it was to her. “It meant different things to me, and I already knew it was very important, but not that much. In her work there was a truth. When he started, no one made films like the ones he made with him and it was in Latin America where he was first recognized, before in Scandinavia or Sweden. He never sold himself to Hollywood, and I admired that," Ullmann noted. He also added "There are few producers and distributors who want to invest in them", three of the ten titles that he shot under the orders of the Swedish director.

Other works

In 1980, she was appointed UNICEF ambassador. Since then, she has traveled to both Third World and developed countries, seeking greater financial support for the organization in the latter. As a representative of this organization, she has been concerned with children and has visited numerous refugee camps in war zones and has given lectures on the subject. At the same time, she is a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). From then on, she dedicated a large part of her time to these two representative activities.

Personal Life

Liv Ullmann was married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to psychiatrist Hans Jacob Stang. In the 1980s she married Donald Saunders, whom she divorced in 1995, but they continued to live together until 2001. She has a daughter, Linn Ullmann, with Ingmar Bergman, according to her autobiography (Changing , 1977). She is Christian.

In addition to Norwegian, Ullmann speaks Swedish, English and other European languages. He received an honorary degree in 2006, Doctor of Philosophy, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

He published two autobiographies, Changing (1977) and Choices (1984).

Filmography

As a director

• 2014: Miss Julie.
• 2000: Infidel
• 1996: Private meetings
• 1995: Kristin Lavransdatter (the novel by Sigrid Undset)
• 1992: Sofie

As an actress

Theater

• Long journey to the night (Long Day's Journey into Night)of Eugene O'Neill (2010)
• Old Timesof Harold Pinter (1984-1985)
• Ghostsof Henrik Ibsen (1982)
• Rosmersholmof Henrik Ibsen (1978)
• Anna Christieof Eugene O'Neill (1977)
• PygmalionGeorge Bernard Shaw (1975)
• A Moon for the Misbegottenof Eugene O'Neill (1975)
• Dollhouseof Henrik Ibsen (1974)
• Brandof Henrik Ibsen (1973)
• Seks personer søker en forfatterby Luigi Pirandello (1967)
• Anne Pedersdotterby Hans Wiers-Jenssen (1967)
• Den Hellige Johanna by George Bernard Shaw (1965)
• Herr Puntilla Og Drengen Hans Mattiby Bertolt Brecht (1964)
• Romeo Og JulieWilliam Shakespeare (1964)
• MedmenneskeOlav Duun (1963)
• UngenOskar Braaten (1963)
• FaustGoethe (1963)
• Brennende mørke(1962)
• Den Kaukasiske krittringenby Bertolt Brecht (1962)
• Peer Gyntof Henrik Ibsen (1962)
• Mannen som kom(1961)
• Kongs-Emnerneof Henrik Ibsen (1960)
• Flyktningen (1959)
• HamletWilliam Shakespeare (1959)
• Kristin LavransdatterSigrid Undset (1959)
• Anne Franks DagbokFrances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (1957)

Awards

In her acting career, Ullmann was nominated for two Oscars for Best Actress, for Los emigrantes in 1971 and Face to Face (1976). She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress-Drama for The Emigrants and was nominated four times. She was a two-time BAFTA Award nominee and a four-time David de Donatello Award winner. At the National Board of Review she as well as at the National Society of Film Critics she received three wins for Best Actress.

As a film director, he was a candidate for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Trolösa in 2000. In 2007 he received the Donostia Award at the San Sebastián Festival for his career in cinema.