Movies - Persona

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	Movies - Persona

Persona is a movie by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, released in 1966, and featuring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann.

The film discusses what makes a person a person and if all our roles as humans are just as exchangable. It is highly open to interpretation and features many memorable moments. It is considered a major artistic work by arthouse cinema fans and many filmmakers, and is of particular interest to psychologists.

Plot

The movie takes place mostly at a seaside summer residence, where actress Elisabeth Vogler has been sent to recuperate by her psychiatrist after remaining silent for a long time. Her nurse Alma is sent to accompany her.

The main plot is about the two personalities exchanging places, switching from one body to the other, so at the end, the nurse is Elisabeth Vogler and Elisabeth Vogler is the nurse (this is just one of many interpretations).

Brechtian alienation technique

Persona is one of the first films to make use of the Brechtian alienation technique (verfremdungseffekt); destroying the fantasy-world of your movie. Some notable uses of the technique in Persona are at the beginning and end, where you see a reel of film being loaded; in the middle, when Vogler steps on glass and the film appears to burn; and later on, when the camera turns around to display the entire crew.

Possible interpretations

The movie can be interpreted in many ways. Following are some of the most popular ideas about the film.

First theory

Elisabeth and the nurse are one and the same person. They are "split" when the actress does not want to act any more, and retires to her own self. The term "does not want to act" depicts two things: firstly, she does not want to act as a job, and secondly, in a more distant, but more appropriate interpretation, she does not want to act to the outside world (e.g. in the movie the nurse part of the personality says this: "But you played the part. The part of a pregnant, happy mother.") The nurse is nothing more than the outside appearance of the same person—this is why Mr. Vogler recognises her (and not Elisabeth) as Mrs. Vogler. Elisabeth is the inner self of the same person: she is a quiet, strong personality. This interpretation is suggested by the director when the two half-faces of the nurse and Elisabeth are put together into one picture, one face (Note also that the nurse says during the beginning that she thought that Elisabeth is very similar to her).

Second theory

Alma is the nurse who is supposed to be treating Elisabeth, but this is gradually reversed. Simply by talking to Elisabeth, Alma develops a feeling of closeness to her and comes to divulge intimate secrets, even though Elisabeth has not reciprocated. This transference effect is shattered when Alma reads Elisabeth's letter to her doctor, mentioning that Alma has childishly fallen in love with Elisabeth and that it is interesting to study Alma. Suddenly, Alma realizes that she has been only an object for Elisabeth, and lashes out against her. Yet the film progresses to a complex confusion of Elisabeth's and Alma's characters, felt perhaps most strikingly when Elisabeth's blind husband visits and mistakes Alma for Elisabeth; Alma hesitates at first, but then embraces the role, beginning by saying the things to him that Elisabeth cannot or will not say, and then "breaking down" much as we can imagine Elisabeth did. This recalls the notorious psychoanalytic style of Jacques Lacan, who would sometimes remain silent for an entire session.

Censorship

Two scenes are frequently cut from versions of the film; a brief shot at the beginning depicting an erect penis (removed in the American DVDs, but not the Accent release), and a piece of Alma's monologue where she says her lover "made her come with his hand" and implies they were children or teenagers.

Other films

David Lynch's film Mulholland Drive
(2001) shares strong similarities with Bergman's "Persona", and this has led many film scholars to speculate that Mulholland Drive may have been either wholly or partially inspired by this classic Bergman film.

Woody Allen's film 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.

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