Erik Henrik Fredrik Bergman (22 October 1886 – 26 April 1970) was a Swedish parish minister of the Lutheran Church and Ingmar Bergman's father.
Erik Bergman was born at Mörbylånga, Kalmar County in 1886. He was ordained to the Swedish State Church in Uppsala in 1912 and served as a priest in Valbo as of 1913. In 1918 he was relocated to Stockholm and served as a minister at Hedvig Eleonora Church where he became the parish vicar in 1934. In that capacity he also served as a royal chaplain to the Swedish royal court.
He was married to nurse Karin Åkerblom. Ingmar Bergman later wrote the semi-biographical script about his parents' complex courtship in The Best Intentions, a story that includes the unhappy early years of their marriage up to the point where the mother is pregnant with her second son, effectively Ingmar himself. Erik Bergman was a rather strict family father and his complex relationship with his son is a somber theme in Ingmar Bergman movies such as Fanny and Alexander.
Erik Bergman died in Stockholm in 1970.
Famous quotes containing the words erik and/or bergman:
“In any case, raw aggression is thought to be the peculiar province of men, as nurturing is the peculiar province of women.... The psychologist Erik Erikson discovered that, while little girls playing with blocks generally create pleasant interior spaces and attractive entrances, little boys are inclined to pile up the blocks as high as they can and then watch them fall down: “the contemplation of ruins,” Erikson observes, “is a masculine specialty.””
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)
“Begin thinking of death and you are no longer sure of your life. It’s a Hebrew proverb.”
—Leo V. Gordon, U.S. screenwriter, and Arthur Hiller. Major Bergman (George Peppard)