© TASKOVSKI FILMS
He has asked, as Bob Hope did, for no celebrations of a birthday where “the candles cost more than the cake.” There can, however be no doubt that glasses will be raised across the world on 5th November for his 90th birthday by those who have worked with John Berger. There are certainly hundreds, maybe even thousands of them because Berger has always managed to live several lifetimes at once. Some of his collaborators are well known: Arundhati Roy in Delhi, Geoff Dyer in Los Angeles, Mike Dibb in London, Sebastião Salgado in Paris, Jean Mohr in Geneva, Tilda Swinton in Nairn. But there are many others who are less famous, who have known the joy and equality of collaborating with him.
Berger was always committed to both criticism and creation: to the production of painting and fiction. His television programmes made modernist art completely contemporary. And nearly half a century on, the culmination of the on-screen aspect of his career is still revered.