Ingmar Bergman's 'Persona' is one of the most iconic films from the European Art Cinema of the 1960s. The unique and enigmatic style from Bergman has led the film to diverse interpretations over the years. On surface reading, Persona appears to be a film about the intimate relationships of the two female characters. That is in tune with Bergman’s turn from a more spiritual perspective in the 1950s to a focus on human relationships from the late 1960s. The film suggests companionship can be therapeutic when one is confronting existential angst and alienation that are inherent in human nature.
Yet if one looks beyond the surface of this apparent narrative, one will likely discover a more immanent meaning offered by Bergman. Along with Antonioni, Resnais, Godard, Straub and others, Bergman belonged to the cinematic Modernists from the 1960s to the 1970s, whose idiosyncratic films often defy straight-forward readings. In order to discover the new meanings, we have to two of Bergman’s influences, who have shaped the Modernist Drama in the early 20th century – Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg.
It is well known that Bergman has been heavily influenced by Ibsen and Strindberg. Other than the films he has directed, Bergman has been involved in a number of theater productions, including the most iconic plays from Ibsen and Strindberg. To Bergman, cinema is a distilled essence of his theater work, and the two art forms intertwine with each other. After all, who is a more suitable candidate to direct Ibsen's 'Ghosts' than someone like Bergman?
Ibsen x (Bergman x Strindberg)
Starting from a theatre grounded in realism, both Ibsen and Strindberg moved towards on symbolic and expressionistic style over their careers. The late plays by Ibsen can be considered the precursor of chamber plays, for which Strindberg has both reacted against and further developed at the same time. The chamber plays became a very popular type of theater at the early 20th century in Europe, popularized by Max Reinhardt and other theater directors. The popularity coincided with the rise of German Expressionism, and one can easily connect the dots of this towards Strindberg’s artistic tendency in his late plays. For a number of Bergman’s films, such as ‘Through a Glass Darkly’, ‘The Silence’, ‘Cries and Whispers’, ‘Autumn Sonata’, and ‘Persona’, can be categorized as cinematic ‘chamber plays’. If one watches a televised version of Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’ from UK (1987, directed by Elijah Moshinsky and starring Judi Dench), one will not find it to be too different from a typical Bergman film.
Many critics have noted that Strindberg’s plays, with their apparent naturalism, cannot be accepted at face value. A common technique adopted by both Strindberg and Bergman was to use characters in a non-realistic way, where they symbolized conflicting psychological drives from the same ego. From Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’ to the aforementioned Bergman films, they also served as nice examples. One can rationalize why chamber play is a great candidate to portray this kind of theme : because the ‘chamber’, usually a manor or a house, can symbolize a mental landscape, like the psyche as a totality; and the characters represented the differing psychic drives that battle for control and dominance. The 4 female characters in ‘Cries and Whispers’ symbolized 4 types of human sentiments, conflicting with each other in the red mental chamber until the end of one’s existence. An example in American cinema, likely influenced by ‘Persona’, is Robert Altman’s ‘3 Women’. The film possesses an allegorical style and it certainly attracts a lot of different perspectives about its ‘meaning’ from the audience.
(Ibsen x Bergman) x Strindberg
Bergman has also been influenced a lot by Ibsen, and ‘Persona’ shared a number of themes from the Norwegian playwright. Elisabet Volger, the mute actress in ‘Persona’, can be seen as a continuation of Ibsen’s heroine. Ibsen, similar to Antonioni in cinema, has created some of the most iconic female characters in theater – From Hedda Gabler, Nora Helmer to Mrs. Alving, while his perspective could not be labelled as ‘feminist’, these female characters were instrumental because they reflected the problems of the society and culture they found themselves in.
Elisabet ceased to talk, not only as a pathological condition, but that served as a revolt. That represented Bergman’s modernist critique of language and the quest for stable meanings in the world. Alma, who was responsible for caring Elisabet, kept on asking ‘why’: Why are you not talking to me? Why don’t you response to anything? What is really on your mind? Alma tried to make sense of things and looked for reason. Yet from the start, Bergman has already taken sides. Much like Ibsen, who was critical of Romanticism and Platonic Idealism, Bergman has to defeat Alma – that represented the symbolic defeat of Idealism by Modernism. Ibsenism would prevail.
It is the realization that Alma (Idealism) and Elisabet (Modernism) are really the Yin and Yang of a unity, and they represented the 2 fundamental drives of the psyche. As a reversal of fortune, Alma the nurse turned into the patient herself. Reminiscent of a psychoanalytic therapy, Alma observed that she has told everything to Elisabet, which she has never told anyone before. She understood that Elisabet would not have the slightest indication of response, yet this was a therapeutic experience for her. She developed a self-knowledge for herself after all these confessions. This again reconciled with Ibsen’s belief, that you can only gain full understanding when you look into the psychological makeup of the individual, not deceived by the persona by culture and society at large.
It is the realization that Alma (Idealism) and Elisabet (Modernism) are really the Yin and Yang of a unity, and they represented the 2 fundamental drives of the psyche. As a reversal of fortune, Alma the nurse turned into the patient herself. Reminiscent of a psychoanalytic therapy, Alma observed that she has told everything to Elisabet, which she has never told anyone before. She understood that Elisabet would not have the slightest indication of response, yet this was a therapeutic experience for her. She developed a self-knowledge for herself after all these confessions. This again reconciled with Ibsen’s belief, that you can only gain full understanding when you look into the psychological makeup of the individual, not deceived by the persona by culture and society at large.
by Ed Law
1 Feb 2020
Film Analysis
