Ingmar Bergman, the film director, was widely hailed as a genius for The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and Fanny and Alexander amongst many others. Martin Scorsese said “it’s impossible to overestimate the effect that Bergman’s films had on people”. Stanley Kubrick and Woody Allen both proclaimed him “the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera.”
Like all creative types he had his dark side with allegations (from himself) that he raped a former partner; an arrest for tax evasion and his youthful adoration for Hitler, whom he mourned when he died. Bergman first saw Hitler when he was 16, on a school exchange trip to Germany in 1934 and described him as “unbelievably charismatic.” Bergman’s father was pro-Nazi who believed that Hitler was the answer to the world’s problems. Bergan said “The Nazism I had seen seemed fun and youthful. The big threat were the Bolsheviks, who were hated.”
Yet he underwent a seismic shock in 1946 – “When the doors to the concentration camps were thrown open, at first I did not want to believe my eyes,” he would say. “When the truth came out it was a hideous shock for me. In a brutal and violent way I was suddenly ripped of my innocence.” “My feelings were overwhelming and I felt great bitterness towards my father and my brother and the schoolteachers and everyone else who’d led me into it. But it was impossible to get rid of the guilt and the self-contempt.”
It changed the course of his life and career and thereafter many of his films and stage productions dealt explicitly with the evil caused by the Nazi regime.
Bergman was born 14 July 1918 12.15am Uppsala, Sweden, and had a quick witted, communicative 3rd house Cancer Sun with an independent-minded Uranus in his 10th, a charming Venus in Gemini on his Ascendant; and a dynamic Mars in Libra in his entertaining 5th in an ultra-, can-be-ruthless square to a super-confident Pluto Jupiter conjunction in Cancer. Mars Pluto is a hint of his experience of his father as is his 4th house filled with deceptive, can-be-neurotic Neptune, Mercury, Saturn in Leo.
Bergman’s Saturn in Leo exactly conjunct Lilith was also conjunct Hitler’s 10th house Saturn with Hiter’s MC conjunct Bergman’s 4th house Neptune; with Hitler’s Moon Jupiter in Capricorn falling in Bergman’s 8th – so there would be a deep, nebulous and father-issue connection.
Hitler’s Chiron was also closely conjunct Bergman’s Pluto which could be allied to Bergman’s healing journey after his youthful idealism was shattered. In this combination Pluto can show a poisoned Chiron that what they think is good isn’t so. And (in this case unwittingly) Chiron can activate Pluto’s desire for self-transformation, reminding Bergman that his Pluto (= power) could be a force for evil and would hold him back.
What interested me was what was going on in Bergman’s chart when his misplaced idealism (devotion) of Hitler flipped to total disillusionment.
At that point tr Uranus was crossing his Ascendant setting him off on a new path and one where the views of others would not be so persuasive. Tr Pluto was also wading its way through his 4th house pulling him away from past family attitudes and father, having just made the disorientating conjunction to Neptune and then on to Mercury. Tr Saturn was also conjunct his Solar Arc South Node and Sun – also a separating aspect from father and unevolved attitudes.
His relationship chart with Hitler at the point of his unwelcome realization had tr Uranus conjunct the composite Pluto for a total upheaval. Tr Saturn conjunct the composite Mars for anger. Tr Pluto moving into the composite 8th aiming to conjunct the composite Saturn for a period of deep depression.
Interestingly, Stellan Skärgård’s comments were picked up in Finland, and contrasted by an Bergman biographer Antti Alanen. He told he’d spoken with Bergman’s favourite male actor Erland Josephson, Bergman’s favourite male actor of Jewish heritage, who said Bergman exaggerated his Nazi sympathies out of guilt of having been very much in love with a German Jewish girl who perished in holocaust. Obviously, this could have been another piece of mythology, but it’s also very Moon in Virgo behavior.
What’s provably not right is that Erik Bergman was a Nazi. Apparently, he was appalled by Kristallnacht, incorporated it to a sermon and gave shelter to a Jewish refugee.
Having married to a family with a very complicated Lutheran and Nazi history, I think this sounds plausible. Out of my husband’s great uncles, four received education or parts of education in Germany. Two received a military training in Germany and were fighting against Russian Imperial forces in WWII – a treasonous act before the independence. Qhile the German scientific hegemony in the early 20th century would have been sensed all around the World, the cultural hegemony in Lutheran countries was unrivalled. While many people would adapt unfiltered Nazi views, many would have much more conflicted views. People could be some what antisemitic and in the same think treatment of the “civilized” Jews they knew from Berlin was thuggish. This certainly divided my husband’s great uncles. Given Finland then became allied with Nazi Germany in 1941, and had the Wehrmacht defending/occupying Northern Finland turn to an enemy overnight in 1944, the complexities were multiplied.
The hideous shock also highlights his IC. Cancer Saturn, Sun near IC highlighting his natal Cancer Sun 3h (him), Leo Neptune (shipwreck), Mercury (brother/schoolteachers), Saturn (father).
Neptunian shipwreck. His Leo Neptune loosely cj IC. Taurus on the 12h cusp. The shipwreck of your stability. Pisces & Taurus mixtures should wipe out your foundation. There is an interesting effect too, once your foundation incorporates some sort of deception, self or otherwise, the Piscean deception manifests materially. That which was untrue has become true because it has become the material foundation. At least 12 years he lived one way, he found it impossible to get rid of the guilt and self-contempt. The deception had become part of his foundation. He probably couldn’t destroy his foundation so he had to live with the deception woven in.
P. S. Louisa’s comment made me check it: Bergman is another Moon in Virgo we are talking about.
Thank you.
I wanted to chime in because this line “At that point tr Uranus was crossing his Ascendant…” made me think if you could perhaps one day write what happens when the slower planets move across an axis in a chart.
Interesting read, thank you. Coincidentally, he has Mars closely conjunct Black Moon Lilith as Constance Marten, different sign.