Persona (film)

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Movie
German title persona
Original title persona
Country of production Sweden
original language Swedish
Publishing year 1966
length 84 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (formerly 18)
Rod
Director Ingmar Bergman
script Ingmar Bergman
production Ingmar Bergman
music Lars Johan Werle
camera Sven Nykvist
cut Ulla Ryghe
occupation
synchronization

German synchronous file # 23691

Persona is in black and white twisted Swedish film drama by Ingmar Bergman from the year 1966 . The film combines the narrative style of the feature film with elements of the experimental film .

action

A carbon arc lamp is lit, film strips run through a projector , recordings from silent films, an erect penis, the slaughter of a sheep can be seen. Hands are nailed to a crucifix, motionless bodies lie on stretchers. A supposed corpse suddenly opens its eyes. The sequence ends with a boy who wakes up on a stretcher, opens a book, then he reaches out his hand to the oversized, blurred faces of the protagonists of the following film. The opening credits follow .

The nurse Alma is assigned to look after a patient. The patient is the stage actress Elisabet Vogler, who stopped speaking during a performance of Elektra . According to the findings, Elisabet Vogler is healthy, and there is no hysteria either. The chief doctor suggests that Alma take Elisabeth to her summer home by the sea for further relaxation. A few carefree days in the summer house follow, during which Alma Elisabet mainly talks about herself, about intimate, erotic experiences as well as an unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Gradually she thinks that she sees similarities between her and her patient, and even believes that she can take on their role.

One day Alma came across an unsealed letter from Elizabeth to the doctor. In this, the actress does not describe her nurse as an equal friend, but makes fun of her revelations and remarks that she enjoys studying Alma. Alma is disappointed and angry. She takes revenge on Elizabeth by draping a piece of glass in such a way that the actress steps inside and injures herself. The first part of the film ends with what appears to be a film tear that has been copied into the film.

Alma is increasingly torn between wanting to be close to Elizabeth like Elizabeth and trying to keep her distance from her. There are verbal and physical arguments between the women. When Alma threatens Elizabeth with a pot of hot water, she asks her to spare her, then remains silent again.

Elizabeth's husband appears and speaks to Alma as if she were Elizabeth. At first she refuses to accept him, but then she begins to take on the role of his wife. Both are observed by Elizabeth, also when they are lying in bed together.

Later, Alma and Elizabeth are alone in the house again. Alma meets Elizabeth with a picture of a boy (from the opening sequence of the film) that she hides under her hand. The nurse tells the story of Elizabeth's unloved pregnancy, the birth, the hatred of her son and the wish that he should die. At the end of the scene, the women's faces merge.

Alma forcibly breaks free from her dependence on Elizabeth. When Alma deliberately injured her arm, Elizabeth pressed her mouth to the wound. Alma then beats Elizabeth. In a short scene that could also be a flashback , a fantasy or a future incident, the women are seen back in the hospital; Elisabeth hesitantly repeats Alma: "Nothing." Towards the end of the film, the women pack their bags and leave the summer house without communicating with each other. There are again shots of the boy, Elizabeth's son, who reaches out his hand to the projected faces. The last meters of film are running through the projector, then the projector lamp goes out.

background

Production and film launch

Location: Fårö Beach
Location: Bergman's holiday home in Hammars, Fårö

In the spring of 1965 Bergman fell ill with pneumonia , which is why he had to postpone upcoming projects, including "The Man Eaters", which was later rewritten and filmed as The Hour of the Wolf . During his hospital stay he drafted the screenplay for Persona , which he realized relatively soon after his recovery with the help of Kenne Fant von Svensk Filmindustri . Bergman initially considered "Kinematografi" (= cinematography) as a title, but at Fant's insistence decided on " Persona ", the Latin term for the actor's mask in ancient theater.

Persona was made between July 19 and September 15, 1965 on the island of Fårö and in the studios in Filmstaden . The Norwegian Liv Ullmann appeared here for the first time in a Bergman film, the other actors had worked with the director before.

Persona celebrated its premiere in Sweden on October 18, 1966. In Germany , the film was shown in September 1966 at the Nordic Film Days in Lübeck and opened in cinemas on August 25, 1967.

Influences

August Strindberg has often been described as an important influence on persona ; On the one hand, his play Ein Traumspiel (1902), which has an open form that eliminates time and space, and on the other hand, the one-act play The Stronger (1889), which deals with the argument between two actresses, one of whom speaks while the other is silent. However Steene holds Persona not for a mere implementation ( transposition ) of Strindberg's The Stronger , since a much more complex study of psychological transference ( transference ) vorliege.

analysis

To Persona there are a number of interpretive approaches. In particular, the film's self-reflective stance has been highlighted repeatedly.

In Die Impersonliche Enunciation or the location of the film, Christian Metz describes Persona as a film that presents a “real analysis […] surrounded by layers of fiction”. On the one hand, the fictionality of the work and thus the danger of identifying with the film is pointed out in the entrance assembly , among other things by showing projectors. A danger that is also portrayed in the film itself, in that nurse Alma identifies with a silent actress. The footage is "destroyed in front of our eyes - precisely at the moment when Alma, the nurse, destroys herself and 'burns' herself because of her identification with another woman, an actress. In this way the voracious mechanism that threatens us (peacefully) in every feature film is reproduced with far greater violence ”.

Paul Newman Campbell, in his essay The Reflexive Function of Bergman's Persona , wrote that the self-reflective attitude that relates film and audience to one another is expressed not only through the initial montages, but also through numerous moments, "warnings," in which it appears as if the characters were speaking to the audience.

For Susan Sontag the beginning and the end or (in her words) the “frame” of the film were “one of the clearest expressions of the motif of aesthetic self-reflection that runs through the entire film. […] On a formal level it marks the theme of doubling or duplication, which is found on a psychological level in the interaction between Alma and Elisabeth ”.

Bergman himself neither wanted to confirm nor deny these interpretations. When asked by interviewer Charles Samuels whether Bergman wanted to show the limits and artificiality of his art with the opening sequence, he replied that its purpose was to deal with his serious illness at the time: “I thought that I would never create anything again ; I was completely burned out, as if dead. The montage at the beginning of the film is just a poem about this personal situation. "

Reviews

For the magazine Cahiers du cinéma , Persona was Bergman's most beautiful film, because here the cinema thinks about itself.

Der Spiegel saw Bergman again in the “ Strindbergwerk of fears, doubts and the lie of life; what he finds in the shafts of the soul he projects onto the screen in key images. [...] The tormenting visions and speculations of the pastor's son Bergman, cinéastically of high perfection, can be explained by anyone as they wish. Bergman «invites the viewer's imagination to freely dispose of the material» “.

The lexicon of the international film summed up: "Formally strict and ascetic, content rich in metaphysical and psychological speculations, the film varies the basic motifs of Bergman in a fascinating way - the absence of God and the loneliness of man thrown back on himself."

The evangelical film observer judges somewhat ambiguously : "Formally, excellently solved as psychiatry transformed into sparse game, but, as is often the case, somewhat inexplicable in the choice of material."

Awards (selection)

drama

At the beginning of 2009 the German-language premiere of Persona as a play took place at the Deutsches Theater Berlin . It played Margit Bendokat , Gabor Biedermann, Valery Tscheplanowa and Almut Zilcher , directed by Philipp Preuss .

literature

Movie

  • Persona: The film that saved Ingmar Bergman. (OT: "Persona", le film qui a sauvé Ingmar Bergman. ) Documentary, France, 2017, 53:02 min., Book: Maria Sjöberg, director: Manuelle Blanc, production: Camera lucida productions, arte France, series: Ein Evening with Ingmar Bergman , first broadcast: February 7, 2018 on arte, synopsis by ARD .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for persona . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2005 (PDF; test number: 36 969 V / DVD).
  2. ↑ a b Persona. In: Nordic Film Days Lübeck , accessed on July 10, 2012.
  3. ↑ The Hour of the Wolf. In: Ingmar Bergman Foundation , accessed on February 8, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b c d Persona. In: Ingmar Bergman Foundation , accessed on February 8, 2018.
  5. ↑ a b Persona in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  6. ↑ Birgitta Steene: Bergman's Persona through a Native Mindscape , in: Llyod Michaels (Ed.), Ingmar Bergman's Persona , Cambridge University Press 2000, ISBN 9780511624315 , doi : 10.1017 / CBO9780511624315.002 , p. 33, excerpts in Google books .
  7. ^ Frank Kessler , Sabine Lenk, Jürgen E. Müller : Christian Metz and the enunciation. Introductory remarks on the translation. In: montage AV. Journal for Theory and History of Audiovisual Communication , (PDF; 2.6 MB), 3/1/1994, accessed on February 8, 2018.
  8. ↑ Christian Metz : The impersonal enunciation or the place of the film , Nodus Publications, Münster 1997, ISBN 3-89323-357-1 , p. 72.
  9. ^ Paul Newman Campbell: The Reflexive Function of Bergman's Persona , in: Cinema Journal 1, 1979, pp. 73 f., Doi : 10.2307 / 1225421 .
  10. ↑ "[...] this so-called 'frame' of Persona is, it seems to me, only the most explicit statement of a motif of aesthetic self-reflexiveness that runs through the entire film. […] It states on the formal level the theme of doubling or duplication - that is present on a psychological level in the transactions between Alma and Elizabeth. ”- Susan Sontag : Persona , in: Sight & Sound , Fall 1967, ( PDF; 11 p., 88 kB , English), accessed on February 8, 2018.
  11. ↑ "I thought to myself that I would never create anything anymore; I was completely empty, almost dead. The montage at the beginning of the film is just a poem about that personal situation. ”- Interview with Ingmar Bergman ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Charles Samuels: Encountering Directors , Capricorn Books, New York 1972, pp. 179-207. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bergmanorama.webs.com
  12. ↑ Quoted from Ulrich Gregor : Geschichte des Films ab 1960 , Bertelsmann, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-570-00816-9 , p. 222.
  13. ↑ Review: Silence by the Sea. In: Der Spiegel , August 28, 1967, No. 36.
  14. ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband Munich, Review No. 354/1967
  15. ↑ Elena Philipp: Persona - Philipp Preuss directs Bergman's film and Almut Zilcher as Elektra. The silence after nothing. In: nachtkritik.de , January 8, 2009 and review news.