Tomas Alfredson & Sara Johnsen On Adapting Bergman’s ‘Faithless’

EXCLUSIVE: Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson, now best known as the director behind beautiful, taut features like Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, wrote to Swedish screen legend Ingmar Bergman sometime in the early 2000s with an idea. Bergman’s response was characteristically colorful. 

“What the hell is this? What do you mean?” Bergman told Alfredson. 

Alfredson had told the Persona filmmaker that he wanted to remake Faithless, the 2000 feature Bergman had written about an imaginary woman who recollects her painful experience of adultery to an aging filmmaker. The pic played in competition that year in Cannes and was directed by Bergman’s ex-wife, actress Liv Ullmann. 

“This was long before everyone was producing remakes, so it was a very unusual question, especially for Bergman,” Alfredson said. 

Fast forward to February 2024 and Alfredson is deep into an edit of a contemporary TV adaptation of Faithless he has directed from scripts penned by Norwegian writer Sara Johnsen (July 22). 

The six-episode drama series unravels across two time periods. In the present-day storyline, the renowned director David Howard, 73, is reunited with his former great love, actress Marianne Vogler, 75. Forty years prior, in the main story, a young David and Marianne fall in love and embark on a passionate love affair they must keep a secret, as Marianne is married to David’s best friend, Markus Vogler.

The series is fronted by Jesper Christensen (Into the Darkness) and Lena Endre, who play the older couple while Gustav Lindh (Queen of Hearts) and Frida Gustavsson (Vikings, The Witcher) animate their younger versions. Endre returns to the Faithless story after starring in the original Bergman edition. Also starring is German-Swedish actor August Wittgenstein (The Crown, Das Boot, Ku’damm).

The series is produced by Fremantle’s Miso Film Sweden, in co-production with SVT and ARTE, with the support of DR, NRK, YLE, RUV, and Nordisk Film & TV Fond. Fremantle is handling global sales on Faithless and will be presenting the series as one of its scripted titles during the London TV Screenings on Friday.

Below, Alfredson and Johnsen discuss their collaboration and the unique pressure of adapting Bergman as Scandinavian filmmakers. The pair also tease the form of their series, which they told us is a “free interpretation” of Bergman’s original script.

DEADLINE: Tomas, where are you with the project right now?

TOMAS ALFREDSON: We have worked on this together for two years. We shot for almost 100 days. We shot the final parts two or three weeks ago. So, we’re at the beginning of the edit.

DEADLINE: 100 days is a long time. Is that an unusual length for a limited series?

ALFREDSON: It’s normal but demanding for one almost old director. Directing television is a marathon. It’s physically demanding to do this amount of material, but I think it’s a fair amount of shooting days. The workload is normally shared between several directors, but this project has been my dream for over 20 years. So it’s a passion project.

DEADLINE: I read this production began with you contacting Bergman and sharing your vision. Can you tell me how that conversation went and what was your initial inspiration?

ALFREDSON: At the time, my private life was upside down, so I really connected with the themes in the story. Then I thought, I would love to attempt the story with my vision. So I wrote him [Ingmar Bergman] a letter. He never replied, but after six months, he called me and said, ‘What the hell is this? What do you mean?’. This was long before everyone was producing remakes, so it was a very unusual question, especially for Bergman. He liked the initial idea, and we had conversations about it. After a while, he changed his mind and started making trouble. So it evaporated. Then, a few years ago, Anna Croneman at Swedish Television called me and asked if I would be interested in working on a new version. They introduced me to Sara, we met, and she wrote a first draft that was mind-blowing. To be clear, it’s a very free interpretation of the old script. It has all the main beats and the main characters, but this is new. Sara has made a fantastic take on it without losing the initial DNA.

DEADLINE: Sara, how did you approach adapting Bergman’s text?

SARA JOHNSEN: We agreed quite early that we wanted to keep all the plot points in the text. I was reading Bergman’s text, and using that as inspiration. We wanted to keep the characters, but we wanted to make it much bigger. But the piece is perfect to adapt because there’s so much underneath Bergman’s text that allows you to pull on many interesting themes. 

ALFREDSON: Also, the original film is around two hours 40 minutes, which is long, but it also didn’t feel like it dealt with the entire story. So, in a way, the story fits very well into television. Television is an autonomous art form that can provide depth in a way that a feature film cannot because of the format. That’s what is so great about television. Feature films are much harsher. Television is a freer art form. 

DEADLINE: Have either of you spoken with Liv Ullmann throughout the process?

ALFREDSON: No, I haven’t. I hope she likes the idea that we are making a reinterpretation. She has done her version of it. And this is a different one, but I never reached out. Swedish Television has maybe spoken to her, but I hope she’s flattered.

DEADLINE: Lena Endre returns after starring in Bergman’s original film. Why did you decide to bring her back?

ALFREDSON: To clarify, in the original version, the character Lena plays is a ghost. She has died and materializes in front of this older gentleman, David. They start talking to each other, so it’s based on the conversation between this older man and this young ghost. In Sara’s version, she has not died. She is now 74 and alive, which makes the character more autonomous. Lena is one of the finest actresses in Scandinavia from her generation. She is absolutely fantastic. So it felt like a great thing to bring her on to play the same character again but with a totally new take. She was very happy to come along.

DEADLINE: Ingmar Bergman is still a massive presence in world cinema, particularly in Sweden and Scandinavia. Were either of you apprehensive about adapting his work?

ALFREDSON: It is scary, but you can’t create great storytelling while scared. You must come to a point where you say to yourself: ‘This is mine now. I’m gonna take full responsibility here.’ Bergman dominated film and television in Sweden for 40 years, so it was bold to even suggest this adaptation from the start. But now it feels as if we have made this into our own.

JOHNSEN: I also felt like the project allowed me to explore Bergman because his text was open to interpretation. We also went to Fårö where he lived and had a close relationship with the Bergman centre. Tomas also has a very good relationship with his son, Ingmar Bergman Jr. So we kept a very respectful approach to the material. 

DEADLINE: When can we expect to see Faithless on TV screens?

ALFREDSON: Early next year is the plan. I haven’t heard of any firm dates, but that is the ambition.