The director that Woody Allen has described as "probably the greatest film artist ... since the invention of the motion picture camera," died July 30 at the age of 89, at his home in Faro Island off the coast of Sweden.

To those outside the realm of the cineaste, the name Ingmar Bergman is unfamiliar territory. For a generation raised on the pap and pulp of '80s shoot and destroy sentiment and '90s mega-fast MTV style editing, his films appear plodding, methodical and, for lack of a better word, boooooooring. Even the great director himself admitted his own movies depressed him and that he couldn't watch them any more.

His films - not movies - were deliberate ruminations on spirituality, personality, and death and, very often, women. There are countless films and shows that have taken inspiration from the work of Bergman, from themes to setups to visual homage.

For now, though, we take a look at his most renowned works and spotlight their impact and influence upon some of today's popular art.

Woody Allen and 'The Seventh Seal'

Bergman's allegorical tale set during Europe's Black Plague follows a knight playing chess with the shrouded figure of Death and is one of filmdom's legendary entries that has been the subject and inspiration for countless films.

Director Woody Allen has said "The Seventh Seal" is his favourite movie and many of his serious films, such as "Interiors" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors," are conscious tributes to Bergman's style and subject matter. Allen has used Bergman's cinematographer Sven Nykvist on numerous occasions, most famously on "Crimes."

'LOST' and the 'Seventh Seal' theory

An extremely credible theory has been circulating on the net for a while now suggesting that the plot of "LOST" is actually a contemporary take on "The Seventh Seal." The world has been the victim of a cataclysmic plague and the wealthy have taken refuge on the Island.

It's a compelling theory. You can read more and check out a shot-by-shot treatise by visiting http://eptadros.com/lost-seventh-seal-theory/

'Persona' colours the work of Altman and Lynch

Centreing on a despondent actress and her care-giving nurse whose identities seem to merge, "Persona" considers the relationship between intimacy and personality.

Both Robert Altman's "3 Women" and David Lynch's "Mullholland Drive" focus on allegorical female-female passion dreams with such intensity that two women become one. In "Persona" it is Liv Ullman and Bibi Andersson in "Women" it is Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek and in "Mullholland" it is Naomi Watts and Laura Harring.

Wild Strawberries teach a bitter lesson

In this 1957 movie an elderly medical professor travells to pick up an award but finds his journey interrupted by dreams of his youth. After leading a cold and empty life devoid of real meaning he begins to appreciate the fragility and finiteness of being.

In Woody Allen's 1997 "Deconstructing Harry" an author with writer's block awaiting a writing award is haunted by characters from his books as he remembers events from his pill-popping, cheating past.

In "Strawberries," the character's last name is Borg, which was used as the humanoid and lifeless android race in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Coincidence? Possibly.

The horror of the 'Virgin Spring'

Horrormeister "Wes Craven's" 1972 "Last House on the Left" is an overt homage to, if not remake of, Bergman's "Virgin Spring." In both films, a young girl is raped and murdered and her assassins then take refuge with their victim's parents.

Scenes from a Marriage

While fictionalized, this six-episode television mini-series that was later repackaged for cinema is often cited as the earliest source that eventually gave life to the notion of reality television. In this film the demise of a relationship of couple is chronicled in great detail. Without "Scenes" we may not have had "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica."

More closely aligned however is Paul Mazurky's "Scenes from a Mall" (starring Woody Allen, no less), which recounts the day in the life of a couple in which the husband reveals his infidelity to his wife in a shopping plaza.

Let's not be quick to forget that the seriousness of Bergman has also long been a target for parodists:

  • "In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey the two teenage heroes play Death, not at chess, but at Battleships, Twister and Clue
  • The Monty Python troupe also referenced "The Seventh Seal" in "The Meaning of Life," when Death, arriving at a party, announces: "You're all dead! I am Death!" The host replies: "Well, that's rather cast a gloom over the evening."
  • Even the children's TV series "Sesame Street" had its fun with the "Seventh Seal." A 1984 segment featured a despondent Swedish fisherman in search of his lost seal, who was named Sven. Sven was the seventh seal.

Despite the impact of Bergman there is a lament we can quote from Roger Ebert as a fitting conclusion: "Films are no longer concerned with the silence of God but with the chattering of men. We are uneasy to find Bergman asking existential questions in an age of irony."

What do you think? Was Bergman's work pretentious fare or the work of a genius auteur?