As Time Goes by: The Life of Ingrid Bergman

The problem with Ingrid Bergman, it seems, is people think someone so dazzling, so beautiful, such a consummate actress, must be a saint. But she was human, just like ourselves, and this book brings her to life in all aspects-the good and not so good-so well it's possible to feel much closer to her, even though she's been gone so many years. Often uncertain, even timid in personal relations, crying easily, she could turn gutsy and adventurous as in the artistic and personal jail break she made in going to Italy to be with Rossellini and make a new kind of movie. But when she realized how much she'd devastated her oldest daughter Pia she tried at first awkwardly, sometimes insensitively and then at last successfully after 7 years to get back on good terms. To me, this effort shows her essential goodness. As Pia said after her mother died "We just wish we had more of her." Professionally, after winning 3 Oscars, to finish her career with the Oscar nomination for Autumn Sonata and the Emmy for Golda while dying of cancer is testament to her guts and intensity. A great read.

This so-called book is not about Ingrid Bergman. It's about her first husband who must have paid a lot of money to the writer. While I was reading it I had the feeling that Leamer wanted to show how great a person lindstrom was by trying to make us believe that Miss Bergman was a selfish and cold person who didn't care about anything but her career. The 'book' is based mostly on lindstrom's perception of the truth and on the 'writer's' speculation about Miss Bergman's behaviour during her life. It is pathetic. There were parts where I couldn't help laughing out loud because it was sooooooo obvious that what was written was a delusion of the writer. Sometimes Leamer used experts from Miss Bergman's autobiography just to make us believe what he was writing was true.It doesn't deserve any star and I'm really sorry for the trees that were chopped out because of printing this. Complete waste of money and time.

In language and humour that belongs to an adolescent, the author has all but declared Ingrid Bergman a beautiful but manipulative whore,a consummate liar and psychologically unbalanced, while the heroes of the book are obviously Ingrid Bergman's loser-lovers who probably contributed to it.The author finds pleasure in culling out the "contradictions" in everyone's versions of facts in spite of never having interviewed Bergman himself.This is no book to be read by either fan or foe. It is the most undignified piece of writing I have ever read.