Ingmar Bergman on “severe standards”

In my family there was an atmosphere of hearty wholesomeness that I, a sensitive young plant, scorned and rebelled against. But that strict middle-class home gave me a wall to pound on, something to sharpen myself against. At the same time my family taught me a number of values—efficiency, punctuality, a sense of financial responsibility—which may be “bourgeois” but are nevertheless important to the artist. They are part of the process of setting for oneself severe standards.