Peter Cowie's book chronicles the life and the 60-year film and stage career of Bergman as he wrestles of themes of love, sex and betrayal with the figure of Death hovering overhead. Blending biographical information with critical comment, Cowie presents a man whose life and work were intimately fused. 'Bergman's films stand alone as beacons in film history.' Wim Wenders

Peter Cowie began writing about the cinema while at Cambridge University in the early 1960s. In 1963 he founded the annual "International Film Guide", which he edited for four decades. His more than thirty books include studies of Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola, and Akira Kurosawa, as well as more than a dozen commentaries on classic films for The Criterion Collection, and has lectured in four continents.