Erland Josephson

Född 1923 i en välkänd Stockholmssläkt växte Erland Josephson upp i en annan tid, kluven mellan skrivandets ensamhet och ett teateryrke som inleddes med Ingmar Bergmans första pjäser och snart kom honom att stå Bergman närmare än någon annan gjorde. Josephsons memoarer är osockrat kvicka och anekdotiska, spirituellare än det mesta på svenska. Två teman dominerar. Det ena är Josephsons utfrågning av sig själv och sin bakgrund, det andra är de skådespelare och regissörer som lever upp på sidorna, så som de en gång gjorde på scenen. Allesammans var omtalade i sin tids teaterintresserade kretsar. De flesta arbetade på Dramaten där Josephson småningom blev chef: Alf Sjöberg, Gunn Wållgren, Margaretha Krook, Anita Björk Georg Rydeberg, Lars Hanson … Denna volym ingår i serien Svenska klassiker utgivna av Svenska Akademien. Texterna är hämtade ur Sanningslekar (1990), Föreställningar (1991), Vita sanningar (1995) och Svarslös (1996). Urvalet har gjorts av akademiledamot Per Wästberg som också skrivit bokens inledning.

Since his release of The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries in 1957, Ingmar Bergman has been one of the leading figures in international cinema. In a career that spanned 60 years, he wrote, produced, and directed 50 films that defined how we see ourselves and how we interact with the people we love, through works like Persona, Scenes from a Marriage, and Fanny and Alexander. Before his death in 2007, Bergman gave TASCHEN and the Swedish publishing house Max Ström complete access to his archives at the Bergman Foundation as well as permission to reprint his writings and interviews, many of which have never been seen outside of Sweden. Picture researcher Bengt Wanselius, who was Bergman’s photographer for 20 years, scoured photo archives all over Sweden, discovered previously unseen images from Bergman’s films, and selected unpublished images from many photographers’ personal archives. This re-edition draws from our out-of-print Bergman Archives, the most complete book on the director to date. For this award-winning production, TASCHEN Editor Paul Duncan gathered a team of Bergman experts who have researched and written a narrative that, for the first time, combined all of Bergman’s working life in film. Such is the depth of Bergman’s writings that most of the story is told in his own words. This book also features an introduction by Bergman’s close friend and collaborator, actor Erland Josephson. On November 24, 2008, Paul Duncan and Bengt Wanselius won the 2008 August Prize for the Best Non-Fiction Book published in Sweden. This is the most prestigious literary prize in Sweden, voted on by booksellers and librarians throughout the country.

En stor rysk regissör spelar in en film någonstans i Sverige. Medan han envetet söker den perfekta bilden, står produktionen stilla och skådespelarna blir allt mer uppgivna. I denna både filosofiska och roliga pjäspärla - som har sin startpunkt i inspelningen av Andrej Tarkovskijs sista film "Offret" - fångar Josephson filmskapandets eviga väntan och frågor om livet, konsten och språket.

Erland Josephson is perhaps best known as an actor celebrated for his work in Ingmar Bergman films. But he is also a noted novelist: A Story about Mr. Silberstein is the fourth novel of the eight he has published so far. His first book to appear in English, it shows him to be a master of narrative form and style: inventive, witty, economical. Through the central figure of Emanuel Silberstein, the novel draws the reader into an exploration of identity and the futile attempt to define a self ""independent"" of others. With a sharp eye on the Swedish milieu, Josephson probes the roots of anti-Semitism and thus of prejudice and self-deception in general. He creates his characters with the help of a keen ear for dialogue and interior voices, and deploys them with the skill of one who has long experience in the theater. A Story about Mr. Silberstein is a moving saga about an unusual and unforgettable character. The translation by Roger Greenwald recreates the subtleties of Josephson's style with a light hand.