Through close readings of Bergman's famous and lesser-known films, as well as through study of his early stage productions, untranslated essays, interviews, and scripts, Paisley Livingston elucidates Bergman's rigorous critique of the violence, persecution, and deceit in modern culture. Bergman's focal point is the dilemma of the artist in society, the nature and value of his exchanges with the public. He envisions modern art in terms of its relation to a moribund tradition: in its dependence on destructive and sterile ritual patterns, art has lost the power to influence the development of our lives. Bergman criticizes the vestiges of cult values in both popular and elite forms of art, from the idolatry of the star system to the aggressive primitivism of certain avant-garde experiments. Linking his innovations in film form to an investigation of the processes of social interaction, Bergman is able to confront the artist's relation to both the order and the disorder of culture.