Persona (1966)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Persona (1966) – I. Bergman

This time through Bergman's Persona left me a little cold. Perhaps I wasn't quite in the mood for its experimental approach to analyzing human relationships and needs that depicts a steadfast denial of verbal communication from one party. That said, I fully appreciate the magnitude of Bergman's achievement here. I found an old review (circa 1990s) and I include an edited excerpt here:

“The film opens with a montage of images (a bare lightbulb, various cinematography equipment, corpses in a morgue, a young boy reading and then reaching up to touch a giant image of Liv Ullman/Bibi Andersson) that clearly evokes the idea that we are about to watch a "film"--there is even a a portion of the "leader" before a film begins. Then, the movie turns to traditional narrative structure. A young nurse (Andersson) is assigned to the case of an actress who has decided to become mute. I say decided because it is made explicit that there is no clear psychological or physical ailment that has caused the muteness. Nevertheless, the nurse is assigned to care for the actress (Ullman). Even from the start, the nurse is worried that she might not have the psychological strength/stamina to handle this odd case--she should have listened to her inner voices. After a short time, the head of the sanatorium decides that the nurse and the patient should remove themselves to a country house to improve the treatment. Once there, the nurse becomes incredibly voluble--as anyone would when faced with a silent companion. She begins to reveal intimate details of her life, and although I perceived her to be a pleasant and un-self-analytical person at first, she begins to express doubts and anxieties. Since these are met with resounding silence, she becomes flustered. When she reads an unsealed letter by Ullman that mocks her and defines her as an object for study, she begins to get resentful. Throughout all this, Ullman gives a masterful performance of reserved observation and occasional emotion. The focus is upon Andersson and the changes she must go through because of her contact with this willful mute. Much has been made of the "reversal of personality" that takes place. Andersson becomes much more cynical and  alienated but, for me, there is not too much evidence that Ullman is significantly altered by her contact with Andersson. We do learn, after they part, that Ullman returned to her stage career--and she does seem more connected to life and the real world, but she fails to speak more than a word (when forced) throughout the  film. Needless to say, Andersson breaks down as a result of this "silent treatment" and Bergman evokes this by having the film itself break in the middle and the images become much more experimental and bizarre toward the end of the movie.

Several themes became apparent to me during my watching of this film. For example, "life as theater". Many images and much of the dialogue in the film reveals Bergman's conception that life is predominantly acting. First of all, Ullman is an actress herself and she is plainly "studying" Andersson, perhaps for use in a future role. The fact that the film is obvious about the fact that it IS a film makes us aware that these self-presentations have been designed for us ( much like everyday self-presentations?). A documentary style (in which one person is never shown during a conversation) makes an appearance early in the film, making our spectator status even more obvious. Later when the style switches to intensely personal, we are unable to shake this conception of the "objective" portrayal of reality--although clearly many images are parts of dreams (but even Andersson is unsure of their status as reality/unreality). Regardless, the film portrays human motives for behavior as largely designed to create a certain impression/identity. Ullman is accused of having a child to counteract a general perception of her as unmotherly, but Andersson, too, seems to be fighting the desire to maintain a helpful "persona" required of a nurse despite resenting her patient. This forces us to ponder from whence our desired identities come from--from within? from others' impressions of us (the looking glass self)? an interaction of the two? One scene even features a camera which exemplifies this construction of impressions theme. In the same way, the nurse's seeming intense need for feedback from Ullman provides clues as to just how important other people's responses are for our own identities.

But it gets much more complicated than that. If life is merely shadows played out on a stage, then what is the role of honesty or sincerity? This evokes Sartre's concept of bad faith, basically the state of acting as though you have a certain motive or certain types of knowledge when in fact you have very different motives or knowledge that might call such action into question or at least complicate it. Sartre uses the (sexist) example of the woman who allows her hand to be held, pretending that all is innocent and declaiming such when asked, despite really knowing that her male escort will take it as a sign that affection is assured. Bergman plays on this theme by having the nurse explicitly ask whether there can be two selves: one that does certain things and another that is one's general impression of oneself that does not allow for such actions (the nurse has engaged in an orgy spontaneously but still thinks of herself as faithful to her lover who was not involved). What is to be done and thought when "ideas don't tally with acts"? This is a state we all must be in if we treat life as theatre and those who are actors even more so. Thus, Ullman's retreat into reticence is framed as an escape from the continual lying of her career (and our existence). If we are all constantly in bad faith, how must this be dealt with? When Ullman realizes it, she becomes mute. When Andersson begins to realize it, she becomes somewhat insane. To what standard must we hold ourselves? When are we allowed to be inconsistent?

On top of all this, the film is laced with horror film type imagery that evokes a constant forboding--lots of eerie closeups and dreamlike black and white cinematography ( I should mention Sven Nykvist). Overall, an intense and thought provoking picture."

Not much more to add to that!