All language subtitles for liv.ullmann.a.road.less.travelled.2023.1080p.web.h264-grashopr

Liv Ullmann, a goddess
of acting and directing!

Everyone talks about Liv’s eyes, and
my God you could just fall into them.

It’s because she’s always
looking out at the world

with sort of a face
of unconditional love.

Nominated again for “Face to Face”.

Ladies and gentlemen,
it’s Liv Ullmann!

There’s a very,
very short list of actors

who can affect you
the way Liv Ullmann did,

which is just as if to invite you
right into their emotional life.

I don’t know what that magic was,

but it was very hypnotic
and compelling.

I was in love with her
before I even met her.

She plays female characters
who feel human.

They’re complex,
and there can be some flaws.

She celebrates brokenness, in a way,

because when something breaks

and it’s healed,
it’s far more beautiful.

That has given me
tremendous richness in my life,

that I have never been “a star”,

and I have never had
a need to be a star.

But I’ve been in the most
incredible companies of people.

We are telling our stories,
and where we connect,

that’s what it is about
to be a human being.

I know Liv will be saying:
“Why am I getting this now?”

“I mean,
I have so much more to do.”

She should’ve won an Oscar
a long time ago.

She should have
multiple Oscars on her shelf.

For those few who claim

she would never have been called
one of our greatest actors

without Ingmar Bergman,
I would answer:

Bergman would probably never been
called one of our greatest filmmakers

without Liv Ullmann.

Thank you!

Thank you.

Liv, we are looking at something.

It’s strange, it’s...

In our family, when we were
confirmed in our religion,

mother and father
made a book together

called “Your childhood”.

And my mother finished it,
I was 15 when I was confirmed,

because my father
died when I was...

When I was...six.

And I’m shivering,
and I didn’t know then

that one day some old lady
is going to look at this

and come completely
close to who I was,

and that’s part of,
I think, to be old.

Childhood really comes back.

I was born in Japan because
my father was an engineer there.

I know when I was born
the nurses said to my mother:

“It is a girl.
Shall we tell your husband?”

And it’s still that way today.

When people ask me: “Why are
you doing what you are doing?”

“What man was Ingmar Bergman,”

“the one who kind of gave you all
your thoughts and all your fantasy?”

It’s still like that, I’m afraid.

It’s a girl, but you know
men can help her.

Before Pearl Harbour,
we got out of Japan.

In the Second World War.

And we went to
a training camp for pilots

who went back
to the war in Europe.

And my father was a teacher there.

And I’m looking at
the first page here,

and I’m writing to my daddy:

“Look at you, Papa!”

“Don’t forget me,
and keep this letter.”

And it was in 1944,
and little did I know

that half a year later
he was no longer there.

A long time ago, in 1976...

I wrote in my book “Changing”:

“When I was little,
I was fascinated by the Moon.”

“Never constant,
but faithful, it looked in on me.”

“If I woke during the night,
there it hung, pale and mysterious.”

“If I had been having bad dreams,
I would ask the Moon”

“that no one I loved would leave me.”

“Papa had. I remember sitting alone
with him before the operation”

“that was to be his last. Doctors
and nurses kept coming and going.”

“There was bustle
and preparation around us.”

“Yet, I felt as if we were alone.”

“When he said goodbye
in a strange voice,”

“I knew that we
were sharing a secret.”

“I was six, and I was
trying to be brave and not to cry.”

“My father,
who was in my life for six years”

“and did not leave me
with one real memory of him.”

“Just a great hole.”

“The void Papa’s death left in me”

“became a kind of cavity,”

“into which later experiences
were to be laid.”

I was awkward, thin and...
You know, and didn’t talk.

I wasn’t especially
interesting for people.

And I read this story

about the little girl
who had nothing,

and I wanted to tell that story to
my mother’s friends, she had a party.

And my mother was good,
and she asked her friends:

“My daughter, she wants to
tell us a story, would you like to?”

They said, they wanted to have
their drinks, but they said okay.

And then I came,
and I told them the story.

And I had beautiful music
that I put on, and I said:

“You know,
Hans Christian Andersen,”

“he wrote this story
about the little match girl.”

“And it was New Year’s Eve,”

“and it was so cold,
and she was freezing.”

But they became quiet,
and they listened,

and people are listening,
not to me, but to a story,

a story that says something about
who we are, why we are and so on.

And I thought:
“So, this is something like acting.”

“I want to be an actress.”

I went to Oslo
to try out for the theatre school,

and I was still not 18.

And I was so sure.
“I will get in.”

You know you do a try-out,
and it’s fantastic.

And then I came in, and it was
incredible what I had thought out.

It’s when she takes poison
because she hears that Romeo is dead.

And then you know I want to die, too.

And it’s my long monologue
from Shakespeare about that.

And then I start to die, and you know
I go like this towards the floor.

And I’m dying as I’m also trying

to recite Shakespeare,
but it was more about me dying.

And suddenly, while I’m doing
this incredible thing,

I was sure,
I hear from the audience,

because the jury was of six people,
and one was a very famous director,

very old,
and she said: “Thank you!”

“What was it... Liv Ullmann!
That’s enough.” I didn’t get in.

And I couldn’t understand it,
that they didn’t see I’m a talent.

I went to my grandmother and cried.

I was lying in her bed
telling her: “They didn’t let me in!”

And she embraced me, and she was...

And I felt loved.

That was so much more beautiful
than the rejection.

I was... It really was.
Again, it’s the feelings,

it’s not the knowledge of seeing
the list of people who came in,

and everybody I saw who came in,

I’ve followed
their careers until now.

None of them are sitting
doing a movie about themselves.

And then the next day,
a man called me and said:

“I heard from somebody who was
there, watching you doing Juliet,”

“he said I should call you.” He was
the head of a provincial theatre,

and he said: “Would you
come and be an actress with us?”

And I went to
a province of Norway, Stavanger,

and I had, instead of theatre school,
I had three incredible years,

being part of an ensemble,
acting immediately.

I’m so honoured to
be able to introduce – for me –

not just one of the greatest actors
of her generation,

but perhaps of any generation:

Miss Liv Ullmann.

My best friend in life,
Bibi Andersson,

we had done a movie,
a Swedish movie, in Norway.

I went to visit Bibi in Stockholm,
because we became so close.

We were walking on the street,

and there comes the genius,
Ingmar Bergman.

He had heard about me, I think,

because he stopped
and talked to Bibi,

and looked at me, you know.
“I know who you are.”

And suddenly he said: “Would you like
to be in one of my movies?”

He was going to do another movie,
and then he went into the hospital,

which he usually did when
he didn’t want to do a movie.

And there he saw a lot of pictures
of Bibi and me, and asked for them,

and he got the idea
to make this movie

about a woman who was so far
into middle age, and I was only 25.

And the nurse who helped her
to come back to life,

because she didn’t
want to deal with life anymore.

But I had no lines,
I was this middle-aged woman at 25,

but I knew one thing,

I knew that so much that Ingmar felt,
he was 21 years older than me...

That was something that he thought
my face could express.

I think I was someone
who was talking about Ingmar,

what Ingmar felt at that time,
already being the genius in films.

We never discussed it,
but I really thought that then,

and later on, the rest of his life,
and why he used me all the time,

was that I could express
so much of what he was working with,

and had troubles with.

We shot “Persona” in Stockholm
for just one week,

and he said: “No, no,
we have to go to the island of Fårø”,

“Gotland, and we continue
the movie there.”

And I could see sometimes...
When it was in the camera,

I could see he was sitting
watching me and so, but only that.

And then towards
the end of the movie,

we were walking on the beach.

And we sat down,
and then he said:

“You know I had a dream last night,
that you and I...”

“We are painfully connected...”
And that was so incredible.

And that was a meeting too,
and he was right.

For the rest of our lives
we were painfully connected.

We had some years where we lived
together because we fell in love.

And then the most beautiful
thing of course, I got a daughter,

who is incredible,
I love her so much.

And she doesn’t always realise that,
but I didn’t realise it

with my mother either,
so that’s a family thing.

And every work we did
was somehow tied to the other.

“I love close-ups.
To me they are a challenge.”

“The closer a camera comes,
the more eager I am”

“to show a completely naked face.”

“Show what is behind the skin.”

“The eyes inside the head
show the thoughts that are forming.”

“To work with Ingmar
is to go on a journey of discovery”

“within my own self.”

“To be able to realise all the things
I dreamt of as a girl.”

“Discard the mask
and show what is behind it.”

Those long, slow
camera movements into her face

that Bergman would do,
there is so much life there.

So much joy,
so much sorrow, so much pain.

We all contain that
in different ways,

but in order for it to show,

there has to be an openness

for the camera to see through.

And Liv is a master at that.

It’s almost like she has no skin.

So you feel the emotions as
she feels them, there’s no middleman.

It’s not like she’s in a scene
and she thinks:

“OK, my character is supposed to
do this.” And then it happens.

It just happens, there’s no thought.

And she works from
this place of childlike wonder

and innocence and purity.

I was to tell a man who was
in love with me, that once,

with my husband, I lived
this beautiful, beautiful love story.

And he died in a traffic accident
where I was driving the car.

And Ingmar said to me: “You know,
she’s guilty of that accident.”

I said: “No, no...”

And that’s the only time in my life
I disagreed with him,

because I didn’t feel
what she was doing after or before

had to do with her
killing her husband.

And he said: “Well, if you don’t
agree with my manuscript,”

“and you’re going to say
those words,”

“it’s going to be a long close-up...”

“Maybe 10 minutes. And I won’t
give you any instructions”

“because you were innocent, and you
are going through the whole movie”

“carrying your sorrow.”

“Then I just want to
tell you one thing.”

“In the middle of
you telling about the accident...”

“On these words I just want you
to lean back and take a long pause,”

“and think about the end
before the accident happens.”

“Give it a pause.”
And camera goes...

And I’m telling the story of
this man that I loved so much,

and I know my longing for him

and my love will always live
within me... Aha, here’s the pause.

And because it is living within me,

in that pause I get to
think about...it was actually I.

And I’m seeing myself, and
I feel it is happening in my body.

I’m driving, and my husband
has just told me

that he’s going to leave me.

And I don’t understand,
because I know he loves me,

and I feel while I’m acting
that things are happening within me,

and at the same time I feel...
“Oh my God, this is incredible.”

“What is going on?” And it’s
happening, I’m like two people,

the actress and then
the feeling happening inside of me.

And suddenly,
there are all these stones,

and I will go into those stones,

because he’s leaving me!
And I go into the stones.

And Ingmar was right,
she is a murderer.

But he allowed me
to find it out myself,

because that’s
the kind of actress he knew I was.

Once I get a pause,
and don’t just go with the feelings,

but get a pause to think,
I am seeing what he wrote.

That series of films
she did with Ingmar Bergman,

they changed the industry,

they changed
how we thought about films.

And because she was
very much Bergman’s muse,

she sort of embodied everything
that Bergman meant to people.

She was a very beautiful woman,
but it went way beyond that.

It was just something about
her openness,

and what she,
in collaboration with Bergman,

brought to the whole transaction
with an audience.

It was like a group of two people
who knew each other.

And a lot of things we knew about
each other we didn’t even talk about

because we knew it,
we recognised each other.

When you left Fårø eventually,
what brought that on?

A lot was beautiful,
we would lie in bed

and look over,
and Russia was close,

and we wondered...
“We are very close to Russia.”

And we would make stories.
We were very childish.

But then we were different, too,
because he loved it.

The stones and the barren earth,
and the trees that were like this,

and I missed my friends.

And he didn’t want visitors.

We were to have like three months
thinking about it,

and I hate departures.

But Ingmar understands departures,
because that’s part of who he is.

And I got a letter saying
maybe this is the best way for us,

and it wasn’t a goodbye, it was...

Something that was
so right for me, too.

“I found respect
when I became independent.”

“Ceased to cling,”

“ceased to rely so desperately
on others for my own happiness.”

“Sorrow turned,
if you like, into joy.”

“I no longer believe in
a constant state of happiness.”

“I think it is good to recognise
what the moment is about,”

“and accept it as a gift.”

“I give birth
to a child for the first time.”

“This boundless
event I shall never have again,”

“but it enhances
everything I will later feel.”

“Gifts are not happiness only.
I think I accept that.”

“I believe this is
my most important change.”

I was very surprised when I was asked
to do Kristina in “The Emigrants”,

because it’s such a national
book in Sweden, and I’m Norwegian.

It is what I’m seeing
even more now today,

it’s the story of the refugees.
You are in one country you love,

you have your family there, who you
love, and you still have to leave

because the earth
is not giving you the food you need.

For me it was a change because it
took a full year to make that movie.

And I often say
maybe it is my favourite movie

because it’s such a love story
between him and her.

It’s everything
that I wanted when I was young,

to have one man and many children,
and I got to live that life.

Live: The 45th annual
Academy Awards presentation!

Liv Ullmann,
a nominee for “The Emigrants”.

I was nominated for an Oscar,
and I felt wonderful.

My mother was with me,
and my sister, and it was incredible.

And everybody said: “Oh!”

This was Hollywood...
“Oh, you’re going to win the Oscar.”

“You’re so sweet,
you’re so charming.”

And I believed every word.
“I’m really sweet and charming!”

And my sewing circle was with me,
my best friends stayed in a hotel.

And it was a party just before
we went into the auditorium,

and again everybody said:

“You will win it, you’re so lovely!
Is it possible to be so lovely?”

Liza Minelli!

And I didn’t win.

It was sad, but it wasn’t like
when I was young

and didn’t
get into the theatre school.

OK, there are winners and losers,
it didn’t matter that much.

Can I ask you a bit about your time
going to 70s Hollywood,

and doing I guess
more light-hearted films,

- trying to do something different.
-I got all film offers,

which I maybe didn’t really fit to.
A musical, “Lost Horizon”.

I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t dance.
“You’re so lovely, you do that.”

And you know “40 Carats”,

to play a 40-year-old
woman from New York,

and I was 35 and from Norway,
with this accent.

You spent one wonderful
night in Greece...

Of course, it became a comedy,
but maybe a different kind of comedy.

I did four movies
and maybe closed down a studio,

but you know, even
Greta Garbo didn’t do that.

Time Magazine called her
“Hollywood’s new Nordic star”.

Producers stood
in line to sign her up,

everybody wanted a part in creating
a new Greta Garbo or Ingrid Bergman.

But Hollywood wasn’t
quite sure how they would do it.

“You must cut your hair,
said one producer.”

“No. I’ll make you the biggest star
if you dress a little differently.”

“I’m used to dressing this way.”

“Perhaps you should
wear some more makeup?”

“Send the beauty parlour bill to me.”

“Certainly not!”

“And then they left me alone.”

“After all I enjoyed
the status of a serious actor.”

“I had soul and depth
and was European.”

“I didn’t use makeup;
I came from Norway.”

Rock Hudson... When my
sewing circle came over to Hollywood,

he took them to Disneyland
and everywhere, and he was wonderful.

And yes, a very famous actor
did ask me to come and visit him,

and Rock Hudson said:
“Don’t go there.”

“A lot of people want to
welcome you to Los Angeles.”

“Don’t go there.” I go, of course,
Rock Hudson, what does he know?

And so I go to this famous actor,
there was no one there.

What is going on?
And the doorbell rings,

and outside is Rock Hudson.
“I knew you would go, come with me.”

And he knew.
“She’s naive, she’ll do anything.”

“We’ll have to go and get her out.”

“We’ll have to go and get her out.”

A Bridge Too Far

All were men,
the most famous actors in the world.

“A Bridge Too Far”

Starring Dirk Bogarde,
James Caan, Michael Caine,

Sean Connery, Gene Hackman.

I was the only woman,
it was with Laurence Olivier.

Of course I said yes!

-Liv Ullman.
-Take cover!

My part wasn’t
the biggest part in the world,

but I was with Laurence Olivier,
and I was very nervous,

and I forgot my lines,
I never forget my lines.

He said: “I’m like that too
when I’m nervous, I forget my lines.”

And I was walking there,
and it was an important movie,

a wonderful director
and...James Bond,

and we were friends, and...
All of them! It’s incredible.

She had a great sense of humour
about her own status as a film star.

She never
thought of herself that way.

She was always kind of surprised
that people treated her that way.

I was successful, but I didn’t
really know how successful I was

because I was going
from one area of my life to another.

And I live in Hollywood,

and I have a beautiful house
and swimming pool,

and Linn learns to swim there,
my daughter. At the same time,

I go to Sweden to do “Scenes
from a Marriage” with Ingmar.

And there we are
living in very poor cottages,

and have outdoor toilets,
and I meet with Erland Josephson,

who I played with each morning
at four. So it’s that reality.

I think God was kind of good to me,
so it wouldn’t go to my head.

I think probably the one
that crystalised her incredible gift,

and her profound
generosity as a performer,

was “Scenes from a Marriage”,
because... Erland Josephson and her,

the way they worked together,
was like they were one organism.

You knew that it was filmed
literally in the corner of a set.

And the way they went through,

often in one shot
with very little coverage,

you were transported
into a relationship

that you felt lost on a foreign
island with these people,

but yet in a place
that felt so familiar.

And I think I was,
it was an acting masterclass,

and I watched it
at drama school,

and it really changed what
I thought was even possible

in terms of veracity and truth
in performance.

Women’s liberation was
starting to get really strong,

and all the very famous
women’s liberation people,

they wanted to see
“A Doll’s House”

because that is an author
who talks about women’s liberation,

who leaves the husband and children,

and goes out as a strong soldier
in the world for women.

You’re turning your back
on your most sacred duties!

And what, in your opinion,
are my most sacred duties?

You don’t have to ask me that.

Before anything else,
you are a wife and a mother.

I don’t believe that anymore.

I believe that before anything else,
I am a human being.

Just the same as you are, Thorvald.

Or at least that’s what
I’m going to turn myself into.

I loved doing Nora.

And it even made me see
that I had to change

because I wanted everybody
to be happy with me.

So instead of always
saying this is what I feel,

I said at times, quite often,

what would you want me to say,
what would make you happy.

And this is what Nora does
all the time.

The way I am now,
I’m not a wife for you, Thorvald.

I’m strong enough to change.

Maybe, if the doll
is taken away from you.

To be separated from you, Nora,
I just can’t conceive of it.

The more reason for it to happen.

“I know a woman
who walked out a door, Ibsen’s door.”

“I know what happened
to one Nora after she left.”

“She walked out and continued
to let others make her choices.”

“In search of my lost innocence,
I walked out a door.”

“At the time I believed
I was looking for a purpose...”

“But I found instead
the meaning of choice.”

If a man had done my career,
it would have been fantastic,

even if he had a child at home.
But me doing it,

it’s always stressed that...
“Oh, she leaves her child,”

“It’s not good for the child that
her mother is working so much.”

We can never do everything,
we can never be perfect mistresses,

mothers, women, human beings,
never all that perfect.

Well, I wrote a lot in newspapers

and publishers saw it and said:
“You have to write a book.”

I wanted to show
that life is so full of changing,

I’m part of the changes,

And beware Liv, be aware of
what kind of choices you make.

“I sit in a basement
hammering on my typewriter”

“until bad conscience
drives me up to the kitchen.”

“I read to Linn, and I’m
polite on the telephone,”

“and I talk to the nanny and tell her
she should be free tomorrow”

“because she needs rest.”

“As if I had all the time
in the world to have rest.”

“The whole time
I’m seething with anger.”

“I doodle on a piece of paper,
and my conscience bothers me”

“because I’m a bad mother.”

“Because I’m inadequate,
don’t answer letters,”

“don’t mend the faucets,”

“but allow them to go on dripping
for months on end.”

“Have coffee with the neighbour
and make excuses”

“for everything I’m doing because I
know that she will never understand”

“why this is important for me.”

“This terrible female guilt.”

And suddenly,
all over the world,

I don’t know,
25–26 countries printed it.

And I sat in every bookstore
in the United States,

everywhere,
and the lines were enormous.

I’d never even thought about it,
never, never.

I became a famous writer.

The only place where
they didn’t come like that,

that was in Trondheim in Norway,
where I am from.

And they put me
in the window of the bookstore,

so I sat in the window, and
people passing on the streets

they would see
me sitting there to sign books,

and nobody came with any books.

Then I heard, because
I was sitting in the window,

I heard from the desk
in the bookstore

a lady did come and buy my book,

and then the lady of
the bookstore said:

“She’s sitting there in the window,
you can go and get her signature.”

“No, I don’t want her signature.”

And at that time,
of course I got sad,

but a month after
this is a wonderful story.

I always had Norway...

They said: “You were on the list of
the worst dressed women this year.”

Or I sit in a car, and then
there’s a parody on the radio,

who always is crying and
going on in films and like that,

and I knew it was me.

I had such an incredible
success outside of Norway,

but somehow,
sometimes in Norway,

it’s difficult, because we have
something called the law of Jante.

“You must never
believe that you are anyone,”

“and don’t think you are anyone.”

“And don’t believe
you are wiser than us.”

You know what,
I don’t want to read it all.

It’s ten negative things to you
to think about yourself.

It has never helped me.
And actually, the last one is:

“You may think I don’t know
something bad about you.”

This is known
by everyone in Norway,

so be a little careful
with your success.

They came
with a big magazine in Norway

for women’s liberation. For once
I was on a cover in Norway,

but it was this
“unliberated Liv Ullmann”.

They wrote that article because
I had also done an ad for Lux soap.

That’s not what liberates you or
unliberates you, that you do ads.

Sometimes, if you don’t have
that much money, you do ads as well,

I actually thought it was an honour
to do something for this soap.

But that was enough to
say “the unliberated Liv Ullmann”.

And in the United States
I was accepted, this liberated woman,

I did interviews and I did
Nora in “The Doll’s House”,

and I was part of that group;
I knew that group.

Another extraordinary thing about
Liv is that she been able to have

such an enormous
international cultural impact

in a time where women
were just muses,

or their careers where confined.

She’s kept moving
and changing and evolving,

not only as an artist,
but as a human being.

Ingmar wrote “Fanny and Alexander”,
the big masterpiece, for me.

And then I, when I got it, I said:

“But you said it would be a comedy,
and this isn’t a comedy.”

“And by the way,
I’m going to do a Norwegian film.”

And for the only time in our life,
we weren’t friends.

He wrote to me and called me
“Miss Ullmann” and said:

“You have given up
your first-born rights.”

It sounds very dramatic,
but he did write that.

And for almost a year that happened.

And then, when Ingmar had
one of his first private showings

of “Fanny and Alexander”,
I sat by his side,

and I cried during the whole thing,
because it was a masterpiece.

I would have loved to be part of it,

but it was also
important for me to...

“OK, I can make my own choices.”

I was asked
to do a script in Denmark,

and write it on
a well-known novel by Nathansen.

And I wrote the script, and it wasn’t
so much only about that book,

it was really
so many thoughts I’d had,

and this love story, and why are we
here on Earth? And what is love?

I went to Denmark and gave them
this script, and said:

“This is the script, there’s a lot of
me in it too, but it is Nathansen.”

And then they phoned,
and they said:

“Thank you.
Would you like to direct this movie?”

So it came to me. I didn’t even
know, and they didn’t know either,

but suddenly they thought:
“Maybe she should direct it.”

And I called Ingmar,
and I said:

“Ingmar, I was writing this script,
and they’re asking me to direct it.”

“It’s a big movie. Ingmar,
do you think I can direct?”

And Ingmar said:
“Yeah, Liv. You can direct.”

Oh! It came to me,
and I was so happy.

But then, you see I have problems,
sometimes I feel I’m a nobody.

So the first day of shooting,

I came and I went to
the cinematographer and I said:

I’m going to have some coffee,
shall I get you some coffee?

And I went to the script
and I said:

Tell me, you have a lot to do
reading your script,

maybe do you want some cake?
I will go.

And then my wonderful
colleague, Erland Josephson,

I have done so many
movies with him, and he’s an actor,

and he said: “Stop it.
You’re a grown-up woman.”

“Direct, and know what your place is.
Direct!” So I tried to direct.

“At times, my conscience
no longer bothered me”

“because of all that I did not do
and did not know.”

“I found pleasure in my newfound
ability to make my own decisions,”

“even if they were bad. Took
delight in my work in being angry,”

“in weeping,
in laughing, in living.”

“Joy in allowing myself to be me;”

“positive or negative.”

I love the story
that Sigrid Undset has written.

I wrote the script,
I had great happiness with that.

I had Sven Nykvist
as the cinematographer,

and I had all
the actors that I wanted,

and they were
all magnificent and wonderful.

I was very, very happy
doing the movie,

specifically when
we were up in the mountains.

Not so much in the studio because
I didn’t have a place to really be.

I didn’t have my own office.
Can you imagine that?

I’m doing this multinational movie,

and it’s my second film,
and I didn’t have an office.

I was treated as a woman.

We got a new leader of Norsk Film.

He wanted me to edit it and cut it,
and I didn’t want to.

And every director
who has to cut their movie,

they feel somehow they cut out some
of the bloodlines that are important.

When we talk about it now, we
remember two very different stories.

Today he’s one of my best friends
in the world, that’s Tom Remlov.

She’s demanding.

When I tell her
that she is, she says:

“Why? No, not at all!”
But she is demanding, and she knows.

She is literally a prima donna.

In the actual sense of that word.

In other words,
the first among equals, if you like.

The one who has the courage
to insist on her sense of quality,

on her sense of what matters.

And as a producer working
with that is a challenge,

because you have to really believe
that even that little small request,

which puts everybody at...

You know, the sharp
end of a wedge, matters.

Maybe if I could do it once more,

I’d know things that I would
have taken maybe better care of,

but I’m proud of the movie.

These experiences also teach you,

and then you become better,
or do things differently.

I’m not a good pupil
on those things,

because if I’m humiliated,
I’m not a good pupil, unfortunately.

Because it continues
to stay within me,

and it grows, and I make it worse,
and it doesn’t enrich me.

-Do you get angry?
-Yes, I have a lot of anger in me.

A lot of anger.
And when it comes out, it’s big.

The last time we met
we were talking about this industry,

and motherhood and being a woman,

I mean all of these
incredible insights she has.

For example, we talked
about “A Doll’s House”,

and I told her I was working on it.

And I said something
about how Nora,

famously at the end
of the play leaves Thorvald,

and it’s this door shutting
and how controversial it was,

and what
a feminist act of theatre it was

at the time when it was written.

And Liv’s response was to me:
“Oh no, she doesn’t leave.”

It was... I was like: “What do you
mean? She leaves, it’s written,”

“it’s a very famous thing;
Nora leaves Thorvald, walks out,”

“and she leaves her children,
and she goes to find out who she is”

“separate from
this life she’s lived.”

And then she looks at me,
and she goes: “She comes back.”

Even though this idea has been
written about by great minds

who say: “The slam of the door
was heard all around the world,”

Liv offers up:
“She comes back for her children.”

I don’t agree
with this women’s liberation:

“She’s strong, she leaves,
leaves her children and...”

“Walks out and becomes
a free woman.” No, not this Nora.

I would have to leave
the husband or leave the whole...

appearance of who I am
and who I have been in this family.

But I will come back, and
I will have my office in this house.

That is true, you will
have your office, I’m convinced,

it will be a good one as well.

People who don’t know her work
as a director or as a writer,

or haven’t meet Liv, can think about
her as being Bergman’s muse.

But I mean she is
a force of nature unto herself.

No woman has ever directed
an Ingmar Bergman script,

- and you have done two.
-Yeah.

until I had edited it.

Then I went over to his island
with my editor

and showed him the finished film,
and he liked it. He said:

“But I have some suggestions.”

And of course, he had written the
script, of course he has suggestions.

And then he wanted to change
the ending, and I loved the ending.

And I wanted it to be like that.

And then he said: “Well, this is not
like it was in the script,”

“that she’s walking down a street
and thinks about the life that was,”

“and suddenly
she’s this young girl.”

“But Ingmar, that’s really
how I want to have this ending.”

He said: “Well... I wrote it,
and you have to listen to me.”

And then I did what many
women have done before,

I started to cry. And I cried,
and he said: “OK then, OK.”

And I got the ending that I wanted.

He felt he had done one
bad thing in his life, only one,

that he had not
been faithful to a woman,

long before Ingrid and me
and Käbi and everybody.

And I said: “But Ingmar,
this movie is about you.”

-“No, not at all.”
-“But you have called him Bergman.”

“Yeah, a lot of people are called
Bergman.” OK, so it was Bergman.

Lena Endre,
she was fantastic in this movie.

She falls in love.

And she decides to leave her husband
and live with this lover.

And she has a little
child that comes into her bed.

And when she had done
this scene, Lena Endre,

the whole floor applauded.

And I said: “You are incredible...
But I just want you to know”

“that when you’re telling
this story to other people,”

“there’s one thing that will
always be part of your memory,”

“and that’s the sight
of that thin, little girl,”

“jumping down from your bed
and walking on the floor.”

“You never tell the story
without that glimpse”

“that we have
already seen with your daughter.”

And then she did it again.

When you see that,
and you don’t tell them what to do,

how can you tell them
what to do or what to feel?

You just give a suggestion.
And they take it and make it real.

And I go home, and I think: “This is
even better than being an actress.”

“Because they can do,
sometimes, what you can’t do.”

She taught me a lot, like:
“Be brave. Go your own way.”

“Don’t think about
the consequences too much.”

“Because otherwise
you will stop yourself through life.”

With Liv, when you look at her,
she’s so carefree.

In a way she’s like...

Wait now, how?
Everything you went through...

You’re standing here
with such love and happiness

and...no problems?

How? What are you made of?

In the movie it’s the old Ingmar
Bergman, which was Erland Josephson,

and then the young Bergman.
He looks back at his life

and looks back at the time
when he was bad to this woman.

And then there’s a long monologue,

and he said
it to a mirror in the script.

And then when I did the scene,

he didn’t say it to a mirror,

he came into
Ingmar’s working room,

where the old Ingmar is sitting...

And he tells
the old Ingmar: “I did this.”

“And I feel so bad about this,
I feel so bad about this.”

And then the old Ingmar
stretches out his hand...

And he forgives himself.

And I loved it.

When he saw it, he said:
“It’s going out!”

“No, it’s not going out, I’m
the director.” And so, it stayed.

I was in Norway,
and I heard he’s not well.

And for the first time in my life,
I took a private airplane from Oslo

and came to the island,
and I came into his house.

And there were two nurses there.

I went into the bedroom,
and he was lying there in the bed,

and he was already on his...way.

And I just sat there, and he talked,
I don’t know what he talked about.

Then I thought: “Maybe he wonders
why I’m here, if he knows I’m here.”

And I said: “Ingmar, I’m here
because you called for me.”

And he was still there,
and I left, and it was night.

And he died that...late, late night.

I feel people
that have gone from this Earth,

they are not there as people
the way we know them...

But their energy, who they are,
I don’t feel I’m unseen.

My father died
when I was six years old,

and then I said
as a joke on the stage:

“He’s still sitting there
in the gallery, watching.”

And now I can say:
“That gallery is so full of people.”

No, people don’t leave us. They are
not there in the same way anymore.

“I do not want to
arrive at the end of life”

“and then to be asked what I made
of it and have to answer: I acted.”

“I want to say that I loved,
and I was mystified,”

“it was a joy sometimes,
and I knew grief.”

“And I would like to
do it all again.”

My husband and I, Andrew Upton,
took over the Sydney Theatre Company,

and we were talking about
directors we’d love to work with.

And obviously I wanted to
work with Liv for a long time,

but it’s so hard to approach someone
you’ve admired for so long, saying:

“Would you work with me?
Would you work with us?”

And we were in London, I think,

and we were talking about plays,
and of course about Ibsen,

who has a lot of weight and depth.

Then all of a sudden, me and
my husband just had this inspiration.

He said to Liv: “You would have
made an extraordinary Blanche.”

That was fantastic. “A Streetcar
named Desire” by Tennessee Williams.

With Cate Blanchett.
We finally got to work together.

She’s got this wonderful belief that
you shouldn’t sit around a table,

you must get up and do it and exist
in that humiliating, embarrassing,

often hilarious space, where no one
knows what they’re doing, so you can

find your way together. Her focus
is connections between people.

From the first minute
we were up on the floor,

it was important. It was life
and death, and we had to live.

Liv wanted us to live each moment.

So that was a very
profound memory for me,

and one huge takeaway
for me about just...

You have to have the courage
to throw yourself against it.

And then the courage
to think you’re enough.

We did it in Sydney,

and then we went to New York,
the place of Tennessee Williams,

and it was sold out, you couldn’t get
a ticket, and people talked about it,

and they would sell a ticket
for a thousand dollars.

It was incredible.

Amazingly well done.
Really moving.

-The whole cast is so perfect.
-I loved it.

Nothing will ever be
like working with you.

You gave me this opportunity
I wouldn’t have had

if you didn’t want to
work with me. I am so...

Isn’t it amazing,
you’re going through life,

and suddenly you have Liv Ullmann
saying that to you.

People say: “Beware of
working with your heroes.”

“What is you fall out or have an
argument, or you’re disappointed?”

Liv never disappoints.

But I feel like the creative
conversation is not over.

And... It’s not over, Liv!

I felt quite intimidated. I was
trying to pretend that I wasn’t.

So to be with Liv for two weeks,

in the rehearsal room with
Liv and Colin and Samantha,

it was a very exciting experience.
That was probably my favourite part.

I was doing something,
and I remember I just kept thinking:

“Liv Ullmann is right there
watching me.”

I went to talk to her, and I said:

“I’m getting distracted that you’re
there.” She was so sweet, she goes:

“I want to be with you,
and I want you to feel my energy.”

Thank you!

Lovely!

For a long time,
Miss Julie had been played

in a way that she was observed
by this masculine culture

rather than being
inside of the character.

And I think Liv has done that
in her storytelling,

the parts that she’s chosen to play,
and the way she plays them.

And also, in the things
that she’s directed.

She celebrates brokenness, in a way,
because when something breaks

and is healed,
it’s far more beautiful.

Did you ever feel like giving up
or feel like: “This is enough.”

No. But that is maybe
because I’m a woman,

and I’m not used to always getting it
my way. In work or in any place.

But life for me has always
been to create something,

and until I don’t even
know what I’m doing anymore,

which happens sooner or later
if I live that long,

there will be something I know,

because I will never, never leave

this wonderful opportunity

to create and to be a storyteller.

“I want to express something
about humanity in my work,”

“something with which
one can identify,”

“and which will convey the message”

“that it is possible for people
to belong.”

“That it is possible
to long for that, to belong.”

“So that those who have
always felt on the outside,”

“can understand
that we experience it together.”

In this area, more than
2,000 Viet Cong guerrillas

were killed only three months ago.
The fighting today...

I knew about it, and I was on
the side of those who protested,

but I wasn’t active.
I had so much to do,

and I felt I’m doing
what is important in life.

And I had forgotten a lot of
what I’d learnt when I was a child,

and I saw Vittorio De Sica’s movies.
That we are not alone in this world.

It was a big party,

and they called me and said: “Would
you like to go with Kissinger,”

“because he says
he wants to go with you?”

I was the big thing
in Hollywood then,

and he was
the Foreign Minister of Nixon.

And I even got
a telegram from the Prime Minister

of Sweden saying: “We know
you are going to meet Kissinger.”

“Say I didn’t mean
what it said in the paper.”

Something about Kissinger,
I don’t even know what that was.

It was so fun, because
then suddenly he stopped being

whatever he was with Nixon,

and I stopped being
the famous film star,

and we started to talk.

And he told about his father who had
a scrapbook with all his pictures

and was so proud of him.
And I said:

“My mother just went home,
and she was here for my Oscar.”

It was so lovely.

And I was invited to the White House,
and Brezhnev was there.

And Brezhnev said:
“I love all your films.”

Which wasn’t true, I don’t
think he’d seen any.

“Oh, what I am experiencing in life!”

Liv is incredibly naïve.

At the same time
she’s extremely perceptive.

Even though she doesn’t
understand politics,

she understands
human beings very well.

He couldn’t stand my politics,

because it was very
different from his politics.

She sometimes has
unfeasible ideas

of what should be done.
But that isn’t interesting,

I meet many people who have
feasible and unfeasible ideas.

She has a clear perception
of what the nature of the problem is,

and there she is not naïve,
and I can learn from her.

Because she has a range
of human sensitivities

that eludes me very often.

And I knew
I could ask him things,

political things
that I needed to know.

And once when I was asked
to go on that Freedom March

for International Rescue Committee,
my agent said: “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“I think they are CIA.”
“Oh,” I said.

“I think I will call Kissinger
and find out.”

I called, and apparently
my number always went through,

and he took the phone,
and he was with Mao in China!

He was with Mao!
I... “Hello!” And he was laughing.

And he bragged, because he could be
like a normal person with me.

“I’m with Mao
and looking at his pictures.”

And I said:
“OK, I’m just calling to find out”

“if International Rescue Committee
is with CIA.”

He laughed and said:
“Only you can be so stupid”

“that you’re asking Nixon’s
Foreign Minister if they are CIA.”

First of all, that was like
giving me a decoration.

Because if it had been
a CIA front organisation,

I would have been just about
the worst person normally to ask.

On the other hand,
I was the right person to ask.

Because if it had been,
I would have told her not to do it.

He said I’m completely naive,

but of course for him I’m naïve,
because I don’t agree on

anything that he talks about,
except that he’s also human.

“And then
I wrote ‘Choices’, my second book.”

“In English first, not Norwegian.”

“Linn and I still
lived in the United States.”

“I was simply
an immigrant from Norway.”

“Am I a human being
only through my work?”

“Is there something I give in acting
that I’m unable to possess”

“as a private person?
Allowing others through me”

“to recognise
what they have known before?”

“Is that Liv leading her human life?”

“Too often recently I find
what I’m doing in the theatre,”

“or in a film studio, a cheat.”

“It has become an effort
just to move my feet”

“from one side of the stage
to the other.”

“Laurence Olivier once told me he had
a similar feeling when saying lines.”

“It became a strain,”

“and he started to dread
not remembering the next line”

“while still saying the line before.”

“Maybe it is a midlife question.”

“Maybe it has no name.”

“Maybe it is simply
awareness of choice.”

I was doing a musical
on Broadway, “I Remember Mama”.

And it was a lot of great plays
on Broadway at that time,

and we were asked to collect money
from the audience,

because Pol Pot in Cambodia did
great horrors to the people there,

killing, murdering them.

Nobody came over the borders,
but a march would go there.

They needed money and would have 50
truckloads of medicines and doctors.

Fantastic.
So we all collected money,

and I was the one to
give it to the head of IRC,

one of my mentors later in life.

And his name was Leo Cherne,
I’d never heard of him before.

And I’m the Broadway person
who gives it to him,

and he was kind of an old man.

And I say: “This is for you, and it’s
going to be a wonderful march,”

“and congratulations.”

Then I said, because
my mother taught me that,

you know a good girl says:
“Is there something more I can do?”

He’s standing with
a star of Broadway.

And then he just looked at me,
Leo Cherne, and he said:

“Yeah. Why don’t you come with us?”

Oh... And I said:
“Is it going to be a long travel?”

“Yes. For the rest of your life.”

And we tried to get into Cambodia,
and they started to shoot at us

when we came close to
the border of Cambodia.

We had to stop,
and Bayard Rustin,

who walked at
the side of Martin Luther King,

just went even closer to the border,

and he sang:
“We shall overcome.”

And it was fantastic.

And we continued to travel.

It’s a march for freedom.

And for once in my life,

I’m not talking about theatre
or film or Ingmar or anybody,

for once in my life I felt...

“This is where I am.”

And this is where I still am.

A new teacher came into my life,

and he was the head
of UNICEF, Jim Grant.

And he said: “We would really like
you to be an ambassador for UNICEF,”

“and we’ve never had
a woman ambassador for UNICEF.”

I looked at misery in the world
sometimes as statistics,

or outside of my borders.
Not because I’m a bad person,

just because my life was
filled with so much happiness

and excitement and whatever.

This is really what Liv
is supposed to do,

to meet these people who have
nothing, and they are statistics,

and it’s my opportunity.

People are listening to me.
They didn’t always listen to me,

but now they were listening to me
because I got stories.

With UNICEF I think I was in
forty different countries,

and incredible things happened.

But the incredible things that
happened were beautiful, generous,

wonderful people
who had no choice in life.

And children,
who were incredible children,

but who had no future in life.

And children were dying by the
thousands and thousands every day.

“I see her standing lost in agony
with a tiny baby in her arms.”

“The area of her camp
is severely affected by drought.”

“Her child
is dying quietly of thirst.”

“In front of her, a waterhole
with thick, polluted water.”

“She has a choice to let
her only baby die from dehydration”

“or to let him
drink of poisoned water.”

“I watch her make the choice.”

“She bends, her hand is cupped
and filled with mud.”

“She lifts it
slowly to her baby’s mouth.”

An artist is a citizen
with a megaphone.

So, I don’t think it’s that an artist
has a special obligation.

I think it’s that everybody
has an obligation.

So, if anybody was given
an opportunity and had a megaphone

and had seen something
that needed to be attended to,

they’d be crazy
not to use the megaphone.

When you have seen suffering

or hideous injustice first hand,

then you can’t unsee that,
you can’t unsay it.

And so therefore,
you have the responsibility,

in whatever way you can, to try
and bring that to public attention.

I have brought...
It’s only four lines.

And it’s not something I said,
but it’s something that I read.

It’s almost my favourite
writer, Leo Tolstoy.

He wrote this:

“I sit on a man’s back,”

“choking him
and making him carry me.”

“And yet assure myself and others”

“that I am sorry for him
and wish to lighten his load”

“by all possible means,
except getting off his back.”

I think it can’t be said better,

and it goes for all of us,
it goes for all of us every day.

Before I met Liv, I was living

in a home for disabled children

called Freetown Cheshire Home,
in Sierra Leone.

And I was one of the few kids

whose parents literally left them
there and never visited them again.

I was like four years old,
my parents dropped me at the home,

and I never saw them again.

We were in an orphanage
for disabled people

that had trouble with walking,
or for other reasons.

And I met somebody called John,
and he was

sitting there on the floor.

He was lonely.

And I somehow recognised
that loneliness.

He didn’t tell me,
what I learned later,

that nobody
came and visited him.

But I knew he was lonely.

I identified with him
because I’m lonely myself often.

It was my one in a billion chance.

I’m an orphan.
I have no one.

But I have this dream of actually
studying technology in the UK.

I had this booklet from a college.

And I heard myself saying:

“Would you like to leave?”

“Are you going to have an education?
Maybe I can help you?”

I don’t know why I said it.
I was kind of young myself.

The whole idea of actually
getting into this college

was bordering
on ridiculous, you know.

Yeah, it was
never going to happen.

So, there Liv was,
and she asked me,

and I just told her: “This is
what I want to do.”

Maybe I just thought
he needed a mum.

Maybe I had bad conscience because
I was here in Sierra Leone,

and it was a revolution there
and people were in agony.

I made him come to England.

He went to school
and he was incredibly brilliant.

The only time I realised
that she’s a celebrity

was when I came
to Gatwick Airport.

The immigration officer said:
“You are a very lucky young man.”

And that’s when I knew that
“Oh, maybe Liv is somebody”,

because I didn’t know, obviously.

I mean I’d never heard of her,
and we don’t watch Bergman movies

where I come from.

She’s been by my side since 1987.

My kids call her Grandma Liv,
and my daughter is called Liv too.

How many
black African kids are called Liv?

But we didn’t spent hours
looking through baby books.

We knew. It’s a girl.
It has to be called Liv.

So, there you have it.

It was just meant to be. It wasn’t
that I stretched out my hand to him

and helped him and so on.
No, it’s... He just needed a mum.

“The question is not:
Are we guilty for their plight?”

“Although the silent bystander is
often as guilty as the offender,”

“but guilt is a prison for emotions,”

“and stops the process of
change and commitment.”

“The question is: What opportunity
exists for those of us”

“who witness misery?”

“I want to know more, I want to
find out what life is to all of us”

“and how we use it, and
whether there is joy in having it,”

“and what we are for,
and what friends are for,”

“and why there are lonely people?”

“I want to discover
the feeling of life as it begins.”

“I want to discover the feeling
of life as it approaches its end.”

“I want to discover because
we want to be discovered.”

First of all, she’s my aunt.

She’s a warm person
who loves her family.

My mother is her only sibling.

So of course they were very
close and very connected.

That made us be very close to
her from the beginning, I would say.

When I was 23, I came out
as a gay young man.

And she was the first one
in my family I told I was gay.

And I remember we were sitting
in her car on the way to the airport.

I was really upset, and I cried,

and I think it took us five minutes
and we laughed and we laughed.

Because I have the same name
as my father. She said:

“Just imagine when the rumour starts,
they’ll think it’s your father.”

And then we laughed
and laughed.

She was the one that actually...

Made me realise
that first moment that...

I don’t know why I get so emotional.

She made me realise that I had
a future with love and happiness,

and people that supported me.

And that was of course crucial

and very important for
a young, insecure guy.

And it must have helped,
I became the leader

of the gay movement in Norway, so
somehow that gave me a flying start.

When you read Liv’s books,
it’s apparently clear

how much compassion
and empathy she has for everyone.

And that she
fights for everyone.

We are together, there is
no difference, there is no other.

And we can’t do a lot of things,
but we can always be together

and know that what I choose
has to do with what they are given.

Without my choice, since they have
no choice, they are given nothing.

We women sometimes see things that
men don’t see in in camps.

Four of us went to Hong Kong, and
there was a big refugee camp there,

and there was a lot of talk
of what was going on there.

And this was while the English
still were in charge of Hong Kong.

They didn’t want us there.
They didn’t want people in there.

They looked at us: “Looks like
innocent women, we’ll let them in.”

And that’s when we saw it. Sometimes,
when they had to say hello

to the chief of the staff,
the women had to kneel down.

All kinds of orders were there.

If you had your menstruation,

you had to show the old thing
before you could get a new.

Things that are very
humiliating and very bad.

And if you are to have a baby,
you have to tell them

when you are seven months pregnant.
Then they will take you in a car,

out of the camp
and take you to a prison,

and you will be in that prison
and you will give birth.

That is the ritual for a woman
who is pregnant

and has done nothing wrong in
her life except being a refugee.

While we were there,
she must have forgotten it.

She was probably more than seven
months pregnant. Eight months, maybe.

Then she starts to give birth,
and we see that.

And instead of doctors coming,
they’re all coming.

And they are tying around her legs,

so she will be closed.

And then the car comes and gets her.
It’s a two-hour drive to the prison.

That child never got a number
because that child never escaped.

We went to the Senate
and to the Congress

and other places in the United States
and talked about it.

I have seated to my right
one of the people

who has been most impassioned
and has worked hardest

to bring to the world’s attention

the particular
struggles of refugee families.

It’s my pleasure to
introduce Liv Ullmann.

Then I did something that
I’ve never done in my life,

I was one of the founders
of a new organisation called

“Women for
refugee women and children”.

We started it. In the beginning,
we were 4–5 people having this idea,

and today it’s incredible,
it’s all over the world.

And I’m not practical,
but I was part of founding something.

And I feel very proud of that.
That’s personal pride.

I’m allowed to do that, too.
So, that’s what I did.

There are millions of silent children
who never make the headlines.

There are voices of children
who in their short lives

lack not only food and health care,

but love and touch
and dreams and eagerness

and faith and happiness.
They lack it all.

“During these days my anger grows.”

“I want to be angry.”

“Anger allows action.
The possibilities of change.”

“The choice to protest. Why is it
that I, like many other women,”

“have been brought up to deny my
right to express anger?”

“Why is anger
considered unfeminine?”

“Small wonder that so many women are
afraid of presenting their beliefs”

“exactly the way they feel them”

“or even frightened
by their own feelings of anger.”

“I am angry. I am furious
watching children suffer”

“while I know
that billions of dollars are going”

“to the machinery of
war and designs of destruction.”

“I am learning that if I just go on
accepting the framework for life”

“that others have given me,
if I fail to make my own choices,”

“the reason
for my life will be missing.”

“I will be unable to recognise that
which I have the power to change.”

“I refuse to spend my life regretting
the things I failed to do.”

I love the colours of America.

Not just the red, white and blue,

but the red, white,
black, brown and yellow.

I love this rainbow that is America.

Except for the Native Americans,

we are all immigrants or descendants
of immigrants or abolitionists.

It’s his first day
as a president,

I’m sure he hoped
to be a good president.

And the energy that we draw from
our diversity can light up the world.

I had some beautiful words to say,

and while I said those words, that we
are all alike and we belong together,

I thought: “How wonderful,
I get to say this.”

And the incredible gratefulness.

Everything that I
had been doing that also allowed me

to say these words that
are so important, and that is art.

When you talk to people,
and they understand it

and you are part of a whole thing.

And then I was proud
that I could do my art.

Everybody couldn’t do that. I could.

Liv has an incredible authority

because she’s had a lifetime’s work
of baring her soul to people

and speaking honestly
and directly to cinema audiences.

There’s a trust in Liv’s authenticity
and her desire to tell the truth.

Congratulations on the Oscar,
by the way.

You should
have gotten it a long time ago.

You’ve been
my favourite actor all my life.

Thank you very much,
it’s an honour.

I’m trying to become an actress
and I just love your films.

-Wish you all the best.
-Thank you.

There comes a time, I think,
when the Academy feels:

“Now, who are the great actors
who have had great careers,”

“who have given so much to cinema,
who have never won an Academy Award?”

And of course,
Liv’s name should be there.

And I hope it fires her to do more
and more interesting and great

humanitarian and cinematographic
work, because she is a jewel.

Liv has
heightened awareness of the plight

of refugees all over the world.

In this cause, she has never
ceased to follow the concise rule

she has forged for herself:
don’t turn away.

It’s a phrase that could be used
with equal accuracy

to describe
the profound artistry of Liv Ullmann.

Thank you.

Thank you.

“During our short time on earth,
we exercise and follow choices”

“with all their ambiguities.”

“We learn that little is clear cut.”

“A long time ago, I played in
Brecht’s ‘Caucasian Chalk Circle’.”

“My name was Grusha.”

“I’m sitting beside a baby
whose mother has abandoned it.”

“I’m very poor and very frightened.”

“As I bend down to pick up the child,
I’m filled with doubts.”

“The child would be
a hindrance in my life.”

“I barely have food
and clothing for myself.”

“I walk away, then I stop.”

“I return.”

“Reluctantly I sit down close
to the infant again.”

“I look at it, then look away.”

“Finally, I pick it up,
rebuke it for the difficulties”

“I will now be faced with,”

“laugh to it, because it is
so pitiful and helpless.”

“I am the one who passed by
and was able to help.”