So, legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman is dead. And now, just a few days after his death, the tributes on television, radio, the Internet etc. come pouring in. And while Bergman was certainly worthy of such tributes, it reminded me of something about these tributes that bothers me a little: they all come too late.

I'm talking of course about post-mortem tributes. What is it about us that makes us want to hold off until after the person has already passed on, having become unable to appreciate the tribute? It almost seems like an act of strange gloating, as if we're all pointing at the deceased and going “Hah! We really did like you, we just never told you while you were still alive!”

But, the tributes aren't really about the deceased, are they? They're about those who are still alive. We want to remember the deceased, perhaps... but then why do we insist on holding the tribute while the body still hasn't had time to cool? What is it about the sudden event of the person's death that triggers that “must hold tribute" impulse? It's as if we're suddenly wracked with guilt over not having paid the man his proper tributes while he was still alive, and suddenly feel a strong urge to do so now—in the 12th hour, as it were, the person already having signed out—as if "better late than never” could somehow cross the borders of our own mortality. It really strikes me more as vanity than anything genuine.

Maybe we just want to remember the man. And let's give Bergman the credit he deserves... if anyone is worthy of tribute, it's probably him. But the way we decide to do it now, immediately after his death, strikes me as strange. It's not as if we're now bereft of his genius; cynical as it may sound, we've been bereft of it for a while already, Bergman having stopped producing much of anything a while ago (in fact vowing to never leave the island of Fårö for the remainder of his life). Any point in time would've been suitable for a tribute, so why now? Perhaps we're afraid that our tributes wouldn't please him while he was still alive?

At any rate, the upshot of all this is that tributes to people of great importance to our culture more often than not tend to come at the point where the person is no longer able to appreciate the tribute. This strikes me as a bit sad and improper. While I understand people's desire to remember their fallen heroes, surely they would also wish for those heroes to know the high regard in which they are held, while they are still alive. We should do more tributes to live people, and perhaps fewer tributes to dead ones.