John Orr’s proposal for a text on Swedish director Ingmar Bergman first came to Berghahn in 2009. In September 2010, however, the prominent film scholar passed away with a manuscript in peer review. It was Professor Orr’s wife, Anne, who took up the finalization of the book, shepherding it through stages of review, revision and production to its publication. Now, this month, The Demons of Modernity: Ingmar Bergman and European Cinema will be published. Following, Anne Orr, who wrote about her experience in the volume’s Afterword, briefly introduces the book and what it meant to help bring it to fruition.
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When my husband John Orr died suddenly during the writing of The Demons of Modernity, it was comforting to be assured by two of the foremost experts on Ingmar Bergman – Peter Cowie and Maaret Koskinen – that they considered the manuscript as it stood an original and worthwhile contribution to studies of Bergman.
Continue reading “The Author and Ingmar Bergman: Two Legacies Endure”