Changing
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. Item #05870
One of Three Hundred Specially Bound Copies Signed by Liv Ullmann
The Celebrated Actress Reflects on Bergman, Motherhood, Love, and the Divided Life of an Artist
ULLMANN, Liv. Changing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
First Signed Limited Edition. One of 300 numbered copies printed on special paper, specially bound, and signed by Liv Ullmann, this being copy no. 87.
Octavo (8 1/4 x 5 5/8 inches; 210 x 143 mm.). [x], [1]-241, [5] pp.
Publisher’s silver boards, front cover decorated in white, spine lettered in white, decorative endpapers, top edge stained gray. In the original printed dust jacket and publisher’s slipcase. A fine copy.
The limitation leaf reads: “Of the first edition of Changing three hundred copies have been printed on special paper and specially bound. Each copy is signed and numbered.” Signed “Liv Ullmann” and numbered “87.”
Published when Liv Ullmann was at the height of her international reputation, Changing is an unusually candid and introspective memoir by one of the defining actresses of postwar European cinema. Rather than offering a conventional chronological autobiography, Ullmann presents a sequence of memories, observations, and reflections upon childhood, motherhood, celebrity, acting, love, loneliness, and the compromises demanded by a life lived partly in public.
Inevitably, a central presence is Ingmar Bergman, Ullmann’s director, collaborator, and former partner. Their personal and artistic relationship became one of the most celebrated creative partnerships in twentieth-century cinema. Ullmann writes with remarkable openness about their life together, the birth of their daughter Linn, and the emotional complexities of maintaining an independent identity while working so closely with a filmmaker whose artistic world had become inseparable from her own public image.
Yet Changing extends considerably beyond Bergman. Ullmann considers the peculiarities of international fame, her encounters with figures including Henry Kissinger and Hugh Hefner, the demands of constant travel and film making, and, above all, the tension between her professional ambitions and her desire to be present as a mother. Throughout the book she returns to the idea suggested by its title: identity not as something fixed, but as something continually altered by experience, relationships, work, and the passage of time.
Liv Johanne Ullmann (b. 1938) is a Norwegian actress, director, and author and one of the most distinguished figures in modern European cinema. Her extraordinary association with Ingmar Bergman began with Persona (1966), in which her performance as the actress Elisabet Vogler established her internationally. She subsequently appeared in such major Bergman films as Hour of the Wolf (1968), Shame (1968), The Passion of Anna (1969), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), Face to Face (1976), and Autumn Sonata (1978).
Ullmann was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for The Emigrants (1971) and Face to Face (1976), and later established a distinguished career as a film and stage director. In 2022 she received an Academy Honorary Award in recognition of a career whose “bravery and emotional transparency” had given audiences deeply affecting screen portrayals.
An attractive example of the scarce signed issue of Ullmann’s first memoir, preserved in fine condition with both its original dust jacket and slipcase.
Price: $300.00