Fanny and Alexander - Production

Production

Bergman intended the film to be his last feature, although he wrote several screenplays afterward and directed a number of TV specials. This most personal of his feature films was to some extent based on his and his sister Margareta's unhappy childhood under their extremely strict father, a Lutheran priest.

The film simultaneously documents many of Bergman's earlier star actors and a wide array of prominent Swedish film and stage actors of its era. Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow who, as leading Bergman actors, are conspicuously absent in this respect, had been his original intended stars as Emilie and Bishop Vergerus, but Ullmann was eventually unable to join due to other work obligations, while von Sydow didn't receive notification in time, apparently through mismanagement by his American agent. Bergman instead recruited newcomer Ewa Fröling and Jan Malmsjö, who is more widely known in Sweden as a highly gifted song and dance man, but who has also done many serious character parts on stage and on the screen. Bertil Guve, who gave a widely acclaimed performance as the boy Alexander, did not choose to pursue acting, but instead became a doctor of economics. However Pernilla Wallgren (later known as Pernilla August), who played the attractive nanny Maj, went on to star in other films, including The Best Intentions which Bergman wrote (but did not direct), and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace as Anakin Skywalker's mother.