Somewhere in the depths of my foolish soul I nurture one conceited notion: One day, perhaps—one day—something shining and beautiful will be prised out of all this wretchedness. Like a tiny, tiny pearl out of a big, black, ugly mussel shell. And if one day something beautiful might come from me, then my calling in life will be answered.
—Ingmar Bergman, written in a notebook at the age of twenty, in 1938
















