.gif)
Persona (film)
Encyclopedia
Persona is a film by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman
, released in 1966, and starring Bibi Andersson
and Liv Ullmann
. Bergman held this film to be one of his most important; in his book Images, he writes: "Today I feel that in Persona—and later in Cries and Whispers
—I had gone as far as I could go. And that in these two instances when working in total freedom, I touched wordless secrets that only the cinema can discover." He also said that
Bergman wrote Persona during nine weeks while recovering from pneumonia. During filming Bergman wanted to call the film A Bit of Cinematography. His producer suggested something more accessible and the title of the film was changed. Persona is a minimalist film: although five actors appear onscreen, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann are the only ones to appear for more than a minute, and Elisabet Vogler (Ullmann's character) speaks only fourteen words in the film. There are no dressing-props; only items the characters use are shown onscreen. The imagery is dominated by extreme contrast, with the cottage scenes being drenched by intense sunlight that washes the image out in a white glare, and the actors wearing solid black costumes, simple hairstyles, and no make-up.
Persona is considered one of the major works of the 20th century by essayists and critics such as Susan Sontag
, who referred to it as Bergman's masterpiece. Other critics have described it as "one of this century’s great works of art". In Sight and Sound’s 1972 poll of the ten greatest films of all time, Persona was ranked at number five.
, an erect penis
, clips from a comedic silent-film reel first seen in Bergman's Prison
(depicting a man trapped in a room, being chased by Death
and Satan
), and the slaughter of a lamb
. The last, and longest, glimpse features a boy who wakes up in a hospital next to several corpses, reading Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time
, and caressing the blurry images of both Elisabet's and Alma's faces.
Together in the administrator's cottage, Elisabet begins to relax, though she remains completely silent and non-responsive. Alma speaks constantly to break the silence, at first about books she is reading and trivial matters, then increasingly about her own anxieties and relationship with her fiancé, Karl-Henrik, who scolds her for lacking ambition – "though not with my career, I suppose in some greater way." Alma constantly compares herself to Elisabet and begins to grow attached to her. As the act closes, Alma confesses to cheating on her fiancé in a menage a quatre with underage boys. She became pregnant, and had Karl-Henrik's friend abort the baby; "and that was that". She is not sure how to process the abortion mentally. Elisabet is heard to say "You ought to go to bed, or you'll fall asleep at the table", but Alma either ignores her or dismisses it as a dream. Elisabet will later deny speaking.
When the film resumes, it is following Elisabet through the house with a thick blur on the lens. The image clears up with a sharp snap when she looks out the window before walking outside to meet Alma, who is weepy and bitter. At lunch, she tells Elisabet she has been hurt by Elisabet talking about her behind her back, and begs her to speak. When Elisabet does not react, the nurse flies into a rage and tells Elisabet "You are inaccessible. They said you were healthy, but your sickness is of the worst kind: it makes you seem healthy. You act it so well everyone believes it, everyone except me, because I know how rotten you are inside." Elisabet tries to walk away, but Alma pursues and continues to accost her. Elisabet flees, and Alma chases her begging for forgiveness. Frustrated by Elisabet's unresponsiveness, Alma tries to attack her and chases her through the cottage, but Elisabet hits her during the ensuing scuffle causing Alma's nose to start bleeding. In retaliation, Alma grabs a pot of boiling water off the stove and is about to fling it at Elisabet, but stops after hearing Elisabet wail "No!" Alma explains that Elisabet wouldn't have spoken had she not feared death.
The climax of the film comes the next morning: Alma catches Elisabet in the kitchen with a pained expression on her face, holding a picture of a small boy. Alma then narrates Elisabet's life story back to her, while the camera focuses tightly on Elisabet's anguished face: at a party one night, a man tells her "Elisabet, you have it virtually all in your armory as woman and artist. But you lack motherliness." She laughs, because it sounds silly, but the idea sticks in her mind, and she lets her husband impregnate her. As the pregnancy progresses, she grows increasingly worried about her stretching and swelling body, her responsibility to her child, the pain of birth, and the idea of abandoning her career. Everyone Elisabet knows constantly says "Isn't she beautiful? She has never been so beautiful", but Elisabet makes repeated attempts to abort the fetus. After the child is born, she is repulsed by it, and prays for the death of her son. The child grows up tormented and desperate for affection. The camera turns to show Alma's face, and she repeats the same monologue again. At its conclusion, one half of the face of Alma and the other of Elisabet's visage are shown in split screen, such that they appear to have become one face. Alma panics and cries "I'm not like you. I don't feel like you. I'm not Elisabet Vogler: you are Elisabet Vogler. I'm just here to help you!" Alma leaves, and later returns, to find that Elisabet has become completely catatonic. Alma falls into a strange mood and gashes her arm, forcing Elisabet's lips to the wound and subsequently beating her. Alma packs her things and leaves the cottage alone, as the camera turns away from the women to show the crew and director filming the scene.
Lloyd Michaels sums up what he calls "the most widely held view" of Persona’s content. According to this view, Persona is "a kind of modernist horror movie" Elisabet’s condition, described by a doctor as "the hopeless dream to be", is "the shared condition of both life and film art". Bergman and Elisabet share the same dilemma: they cannot respond authentically to "large catastrophes" (such as the Holocaust or the Vietnam War
). The actress Elisabet responds by no longer speaking: by contrast the filmmaker Bergman emphasizes that "necessary illusions" enable us to live.
Susan Sontag suggests that Persona is constructed as a series of variations on a theme of "doubling". The subject of the film, Sontag proposes, is "violence of the spirit". Film scholar P. Adams Sitney
offers a completely different reading, arguing that "Persona covertly dramatizes a psychoanalysis from the point of view of a patient".
When MGM
archivist John Kirk restored Persona as part of a larger restoration project, he worked with the original, uncensored version with the brief shot of an erect penis. He also created new subtitles by commissioning several language experts to provide new, accurate translations for the dialogue; this is particularly noticeable during Alma’s graphic sexual descriptions, which some were reluctant to translate without toning down the language.
The original, uncensored version wasn’t widely available in the U.S. until 2004, when MGM’s home video department reissued Persona on DVD, utilizing Kirk’s work.
’s films. Love and Death
references Persona in its final minutes; two characters are lined up, one facing the camera, the other at a 90-degree angle, with their mouths in the same space, just as in Persona.
David Lynch
's surreal noir
Mulholland Drive
is heavily influenced by Persona; including, but not limited to, an actress character and similar questions concerning identity, as well as a visual nod to Personas famous merging of women's faces.
Robert Altman
’s impressionist film 3 Women is also influenced by Persona as Shelley Duvall
and Sissy Spacek
begin to shift roles.
awards for Best Film, Best Director (Bergman) and Best Actress (Andersson). The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film
at the 39th Academy Awards
, but was not accepted as a nominee. The film was included in The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made. In 2010, it was ranked #71 in Empire
magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema".
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
, released in 1966, and starring Bibi Andersson
Bibi Andersson
Bibi Andersson is a Swedish actress.-Early life:Bibi Andersson was born as Berit Elisabeth Andersson in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, the daughter of Karin , a social worker, and Josef Andersson, a businessman...
and Liv Ullmann
Liv Ullmann
Liv Johanne Ullmann is a Norwegian actress and film director, as well as one of the "muses" of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman...
. Bergman held this film to be one of his most important; in his book Images, he writes: "Today I feel that in Persona—and later in Cries and Whispers
Cries and Whispers
Cries and Whispers is a 1972 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann. The film is set on a mansion at the end of the 19th century and is about two sisters who watch over their third sister on her deathbed, torn...
—I had gone as far as I could go. And that in these two instances when working in total freedom, I touched wordless secrets that only the cinema can discover." He also said that
Bergman wrote Persona during nine weeks while recovering from pneumonia. During filming Bergman wanted to call the film A Bit of Cinematography. His producer suggested something more accessible and the title of the film was changed. Persona is a minimalist film: although five actors appear onscreen, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann are the only ones to appear for more than a minute, and Elisabet Vogler (Ullmann's character) speaks only fourteen words in the film. There are no dressing-props; only items the characters use are shown onscreen. The imagery is dominated by extreme contrast, with the cottage scenes being drenched by intense sunlight that washes the image out in a white glare, and the actors wearing solid black costumes, simple hairstyles, and no make-up.
Persona is considered one of the major works of the 20th century by essayists and critics such as Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
, who referred to it as Bergman's masterpiece. Other critics have described it as "one of this century’s great works of art". In Sight and Sound’s 1972 poll of the ten greatest films of all time, Persona was ranked at number five.
Prelude
Persona begins with images of camera equipment and projectors lighting up and projecting dozens of brief cinematic glimpses, including a crucifixionCrucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
, an erect penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
, clips from a comedic silent-film reel first seen in Bergman's Prison
Prison (1949 film)
-Cast:* Doris Svedlund – Birgitta Carolina Soederberg* Birger Malmsten – Tomas* Eva Henning – Sofi* Hasse Ekman – Martin Grande* Stig Olin – Peter* Irma Christenson – Linnea* Anders Henrikson – Paul* Marianne Löfgren – Mrs. Bohlin* Bibi Lindqvist – Anna...
(depicting a man trapped in a room, being chased by Death
Death (personification)
The concept of death as a sentient entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In English, Death is often given the name Grim Reaper and, from the 15th century onwards, came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood...
and Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
), and the slaughter of a lamb
Domestic sheep
Sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries...
. The last, and longest, glimpse features a boy who wakes up in a hospital next to several corpses, reading Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time
A Hero of Our Time
A Hero of Our Time is a novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839 and revised in 1841. It is an example of the superfluous man novel, noted for its compelling Byronic hero Pechorin and for the beautiful descriptions of the Caucasus...
, and caressing the blurry images of both Elisabet's and Alma's faces.
Act I
A young nurse, Alma (portrayed by Bibi Andersson), is summoned by the head doctor and charged with the care of stage actress Elisabet Vogler (portrayed by Liv Ullmann), who has, despite the lack of any diagnosed impairment, become mute. The hospital administrator (portrayed by Margaretha Krook) offers her own seaside cottage as a place for Alma to nurse Elisabet back to health. Though Elisabet is nearly catatonic when the film begins, she does react with extreme panic upon seeing Thích Quảng Đức's suicide on television, and laughs mockingly at Alma's radio soap opera. As the two women leave the hospital together, Sister Alma reads aloud a letter Elisabet's husband has sent her, which includes a photograph of her thin son.Together in the administrator's cottage, Elisabet begins to relax, though she remains completely silent and non-responsive. Alma speaks constantly to break the silence, at first about books she is reading and trivial matters, then increasingly about her own anxieties and relationship with her fiancé, Karl-Henrik, who scolds her for lacking ambition – "though not with my career, I suppose in some greater way." Alma constantly compares herself to Elisabet and begins to grow attached to her. As the act closes, Alma confesses to cheating on her fiancé in a menage a quatre with underage boys. She became pregnant, and had Karl-Henrik's friend abort the baby; "and that was that". She is not sure how to process the abortion mentally. Elisabet is heard to say "You ought to go to bed, or you'll fall asleep at the table", but Alma either ignores her or dismisses it as a dream. Elisabet will later deny speaking.
Act II
Alma drives into town, taking Elisabet's letters for the postbox, but parks by the roadside to read what she wrote. She discovers in Elisabet's letters that Elisabet has been analyzing her and "studying" her. Alma returns distraught, breaks a drinking bottle on the footpath, and leaves the shards there to cut Elisabet. When Elisabet's feet start to bleed, her gaze meets Alma's knowingly, and the film itself breaks apart: the screen flashes white, scratch marks appear up and down the image, the sound rises and screeches, and the film appears to unwind as brief flashes of the prelude reappear for fractions of a second each.When the film resumes, it is following Elisabet through the house with a thick blur on the lens. The image clears up with a sharp snap when she looks out the window before walking outside to meet Alma, who is weepy and bitter. At lunch, she tells Elisabet she has been hurt by Elisabet talking about her behind her back, and begs her to speak. When Elisabet does not react, the nurse flies into a rage and tells Elisabet "You are inaccessible. They said you were healthy, but your sickness is of the worst kind: it makes you seem healthy. You act it so well everyone believes it, everyone except me, because I know how rotten you are inside." Elisabet tries to walk away, but Alma pursues and continues to accost her. Elisabet flees, and Alma chases her begging for forgiveness. Frustrated by Elisabet's unresponsiveness, Alma tries to attack her and chases her through the cottage, but Elisabet hits her during the ensuing scuffle causing Alma's nose to start bleeding. In retaliation, Alma grabs a pot of boiling water off the stove and is about to fling it at Elisabet, but stops after hearing Elisabet wail "No!" Alma explains that Elisabet wouldn't have spoken had she not feared death.
Act III
That night, Alma watches Elisabet sleep, analyzing her face and the scars she covers with makeup. She hears a man yelling outside, and finds Elisabet's husband, Mr. Vogler, in the garden. Mr. Vogler mistakes Alma for his wife, and despite her repeatedly interjecting with "I'm not your wife", delivers a monologue about his love for her and the son they have together (repeating words he wrote to Elisabet in the opening act – "We must see each other as two anxious children"). Elisabet stands quietly beside the two, holding Alma's hand, and Alma admits her love for Mr. Vogler and accepts her role as the mother of Elisabet's child. The two make love with Elisabet sitting quietly next to the bed with a look of panic on her face, and afterward, Alma cries. The image of Elisabet becomes blurry.The climax of the film comes the next morning: Alma catches Elisabet in the kitchen with a pained expression on her face, holding a picture of a small boy. Alma then narrates Elisabet's life story back to her, while the camera focuses tightly on Elisabet's anguished face: at a party one night, a man tells her "Elisabet, you have it virtually all in your armory as woman and artist. But you lack motherliness." She laughs, because it sounds silly, but the idea sticks in her mind, and she lets her husband impregnate her. As the pregnancy progresses, she grows increasingly worried about her stretching and swelling body, her responsibility to her child, the pain of birth, and the idea of abandoning her career. Everyone Elisabet knows constantly says "Isn't she beautiful? She has never been so beautiful", but Elisabet makes repeated attempts to abort the fetus. After the child is born, she is repulsed by it, and prays for the death of her son. The child grows up tormented and desperate for affection. The camera turns to show Alma's face, and she repeats the same monologue again. At its conclusion, one half of the face of Alma and the other of Elisabet's visage are shown in split screen, such that they appear to have become one face. Alma panics and cries "I'm not like you. I don't feel like you. I'm not Elisabet Vogler: you are Elisabet Vogler. I'm just here to help you!" Alma leaves, and later returns, to find that Elisabet has become completely catatonic. Alma falls into a strange mood and gashes her arm, forcing Elisabet's lips to the wound and subsequently beating her. Alma packs her things and leaves the cottage alone, as the camera turns away from the women to show the crew and director filming the scene.
Cast
- Bibi AnderssonBibi AnderssonBibi Andersson is a Swedish actress.-Early life:Bibi Andersson was born as Berit Elisabeth Andersson in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, the daughter of Karin , a social worker, and Josef Andersson, a businessman...
as Alma the Nurse - Liv UllmannLiv UllmannLiv Johanne Ullmann is a Norwegian actress and film director, as well as one of the "muses" of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman...
as Elisabet the Actress - Margaretha KrookMargaretha KrookMargaretha Krook was a Swedish stage and film actress. She won the Eugene O'Neill Award in 1974. In 1976, she won the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress for the film Release the Prisoners to Spring.-Selected Filmography:...
as the Unnamed Doctor - Gunnar BjörnstrandGunnar BjörnstrandGunnar Björnstrand was a Swedish actor known for his frequent work with writer/director Ingmar Bergman. He was born in Stockholm. He appeared in over 180 films....
as the Unnamed Husband - Jörgen Lindström as the Unnamed Boy
Analysis
The film has been interpreted in many different ways and has been the subject of long-standing debates among film fans as well as critics.Lloyd Michaels sums up what he calls "the most widely held view" of Persona’s content. According to this view, Persona is "a kind of modernist horror movie" Elisabet’s condition, described by a doctor as "the hopeless dream to be", is "the shared condition of both life and film art". Bergman and Elisabet share the same dilemma: they cannot respond authentically to "large catastrophes" (such as the Holocaust or the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
). The actress Elisabet responds by no longer speaking: by contrast the filmmaker Bergman emphasizes that "necessary illusions" enable us to live.
Susan Sontag suggests that Persona is constructed as a series of variations on a theme of "doubling". The subject of the film, Sontag proposes, is "violence of the spirit". Film scholar P. Adams Sitney
P. Adams Sitney
P. Adams Sitney , is a historian of American avant-garde cinema.-Life:He was educated in his hometown, at Yale University...
offers a completely different reading, arguing that "Persona covertly dramatizes a psychoanalysis from the point of view of a patient".
Censorship
Two scenes are frequently cut from versions of the film; a brief shot at the beginning depicting an erect penis, and segments of Alma’s nighttime monologue about her abortion and menage a quatre (the American print makes no reference to ages; in the original, it is implied that they are twelve or thirteen).When MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
archivist John Kirk restored Persona as part of a larger restoration project, he worked with the original, uncensored version with the brief shot of an erect penis. He also created new subtitles by commissioning several language experts to provide new, accurate translations for the dialogue; this is particularly noticeable during Alma’s graphic sexual descriptions, which some were reluctant to translate without toning down the language.
The original, uncensored version wasn’t widely available in the U.S. until 2004, when MGM’s home video department reissued Persona on DVD, utilizing Kirk’s work.
Influence on other films
Bergman features prominently in Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
’s films. Love and Death
Love and Death
Love and Death is a 1975 comedy film by Woody Allen. Starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, Love and Death is a satirical take on Russian epic novels. Coming in between Sleeper and Annie Hall, Love and Death is in many respects an artistic transition between the two...
references Persona in its final minutes; two characters are lined up, one facing the camera, the other at a 90-degree angle, with their mouths in the same space, just as in Persona.
David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
's surreal noir
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...
Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive (film)
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch, starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, and Laura Harring. The surrealist film was highly acclaimed by many critics and earned Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival...
is heavily influenced by Persona; including, but not limited to, an actress character and similar questions concerning identity, as well as a visual nod to Personas famous merging of women's faces.
Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
’s impressionist film 3 Women is also influenced by Persona as Shelley Duvall
Shelley Duvall
Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
begin to shift roles.
Awards and honors
Persona won the 1967 National Society of Film CriticsNational Society of Film Critics
The National Society of Film Critics is an American film critic organization. As of December 2007 the NSFC had approximately 60 members who wrote for a variety of weekly and daily newspapers.-History:...
awards for Best Film, Best Director (Bergman) and Best Actress (Andersson). The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
at the 39th Academy Awards
39th Academy Awards
The 39th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1966, were held on April 10, 1967 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California...
, but was not accepted as a nominee. The film was included in The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made. In 2010, it was ranked #71 in Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema".
See also
- List of submissions to the 39th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of Swedish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
External links
- Roger Ebert’s review
- An essay on the film by P. Adams Sitney
- Blog posts by Peter LeithartPeter LeithartPeter J. Leithart is an American author, minister, theologian and Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature as well as Dean of Graduate Studies at New Saint Andrews College and holds a doctorate from Cambridge University. He was selected by the Association of Reformed Institutions of Higher...
, prominent Reformed Theologian