Liv Ullmann – A Road Less Travelled: an artist’s life
In Liv Ullmann – A Road Less Travelled, screened at Cannes Classics, the documentary maker Dheeraj Akolkar explores the extraordinary life potential of the Norwegian artist. Here’s his interview with the Festival de Cannes.
Did you know Liv Ullmann?
I’ve known Liv Ullmann since 2008 and we’ve worked together on three films. We first made Liv & Ingmar (2012) which looks at her 42 years and 12 films with Ingmar Bergman, which had success worldwide. Liv Ullmann – A Road Less Travelled is our fourth collaboration. Starting this project was very organic, in a certain way.
What angle does this documentary take?
I would say that this film is accessible to everyone. We got rid of the word biopic because this film is really made with the help of Liv and through her life to reach something deeper, to get insights into what it means to love and lose and dream and disintegrate and rebuild and what it means to unlock one’s potential, to access life, say yes to life.
“It’s a film about humanity, and values and integrity.”
What part did you want to dedicate to her life with Ingmar Bergman?
They were lovers for five years. They worked on so many films where he directed and she was the lead actor. And she is the only woman to have ever directed an Ingmar Bergman script, too. So their collaboration is multi layered: as artists, as friends, as soulmates, as parents of Lynn Ullmann. It is a very beautiful relationship. But this film is also about before Ingmar, and a lot of it is after Ingmar, too.
You brought together a lot of testimonies. How did you choose them?
Well, I really wanted to understand Liv from her close companions. One of the things is when you are working on a film or in theatre, on something intensely personal, you expose yourself to each other in very unique ways, you really are very naked emotionally in front of each other. So I thought it would be a very good idea to talk to some close companions of Liv: actors that she has directed, who have worked with her or other collaborators. And we were very lucky that Cate Blanchett, Jessica Chastain, Jeremy Irons, Sam Waterston, Pernilla August, Lena Endre, and many others participated and gave wonderful insights not only about Liv but also about life and values.
What were the values they talked about?
They talked about the importance of using your voice for those who are voiceless, for example. They talked about art being sacred and how important integrity is. They talked about various aspects of the lighter side of Liv, her humour, the fact that she never took her stardom very seriously, the fact that she always helped and offered a lot of kindness. So there were some very beautiful values that we got to understand. And then she herself offered up a lot of her reflections from two of her wonderful books, Changing and Choices that she wrote and that were bestsellers worldwide, which offered a window into her soul, really.
