Persona is a 1966 Swedish psychological drama film written, directed, and produced by Ingmar Bergman and starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. The story revolves around a young nurse named Alma (Andersson) and her patient, well-known stage actress Elisabet Vogler (Ullmann), who has suddenly stopped speaking. They move to a cottage, where Alma cares for Elisabet, confides in her, and begins having trouble distinguishing herself from her patient.
Characterized by elements of psychological drama, Persona has been the subject of much critical analysis, interpretation, and debate. The avant-garde film's exploration of duality, insanity, and personal identity has been interpreted as reflecting the Jungian theory of persona and dealing with issues related to filmmaking, vampirism, homosexuality, motherhood, abortion, and other subjects. The experimental style of its prologue, storytelling, and end has also been noted. The enigmatic film has been called the Mount Everest of cinematic analysis; according to film historian Peter Cowie, "Everything one says about Persona may be contradicted; the opposite will also be true".
Bergman wrote Persona with Ullmann and Andersson in mind for the lead roles and the idea of exploring their identities, and shot the film in Stockholm and Fårö in 1965. In production, the filmmakers experimented with effects, using smoke and a mirror to frame one scene and combining the lead characters' faces in post-production for one shot. Andersson defended a sexually explicit monologue in the screenplay and rewrote portions of it.
When first released, Persona was edited because of its controversial subject matter. It received positive reviews at its initial release, with Swedish press outlets coining the word Person(a)kult to describe its enthusiastic admirers. It won Best Film at the 4th Guldbagge Awards, and was Sweden's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The censored content was reinstated in English-language restorations in 2001. Over time, Persona has received widespread critical acclaim, especially for Bergman's direction, screenplay, and narrative, Nykvist's cinematography, and Andersson's and Ullmann's performances. Many critics consider Persona one of the greatest films ever made, Bergman's magnum opus, and a work of art of experimental cinema. Andersson's and Ullmann's performances are considered two of the best female performances in movie history. It was ranked the 5th-greatest film of all time in Sight & Sounds 1972 poll, and 17th in 2012. Persona influenced many directors, including Robert Altman, David Lynch, and Denis Villeneuve.
Plot A projector begins screening a series of images, including a crucifixion, a spider and the killing of a lamb, and a boy wakes up in a hospital or morgue. He sees a large screen with a blurry image of two women. One of the women may be Alma, a young nurse assigned by a doctor to care for Elisabet Vogler. Elisabet is a stage actress who has suddenly stopped speaking (while playing Electra onstage) and moving, which the doctors have determined is the result of willpower rather than physical or mental illness.
In the hospital, Elisabet is distressed by television images of a man's self-immolation during the Vietnam War. Alma reads her a letter from Elisabet's husband that contains a photo of their son, and the actress tears the photograph up. The doctor speculates that Elisabet may recover better in a cottage by the sea, and sends her there with Alma.
At the cottage, Alma tells Elisabet that no one has ever really listened to her before. She talks about her fiancé, Karl-Henrik, and her first affair. Alma tells a story of how, while she was already in a relationship with Karl-Henrik, she sunbathed in the nude with Katarina, a woman she had just met. Two young boys appeared, and Katarina initiated an orgy. Alma became pregnant, had an abortion, and continues to feel guilty.
Alma drives to town to mail their letters and notices that Elisabet's is not sealed. She reads the letter, which says that Elisabet is "studying" Alma and mentions her story about the orgy and abortion. Furious, Alma accuses Elisabet of using her.
In the resulting fight, she threatens to scald Elisabet with boiling water but stops when Elisabet begs her not to. This is the first time Alma is certain the actress has spoken since they met, though she thought Elisabet previously whispered to her when Alma was half-asleep. Alma tells her that she knows Elisabet is a terrible person; when Elisabet runs off, Alma chases her and begs for forgiveness. Later, Elisabet looks at a photograph of Jews arrested in the Warsaw Ghetto from the Stroop Report.
One night, Alma hears a man outside calling for Elisabet; it is Elisabet's husband. He calls Alma "Elisabet" and, though the nurse tells him he is mistaken, they have sex. Alma meets with Elisabet to talk about why Elisabet tore up the photo of her son. Alma tells much of Elisabet's story: that she wanted the only thing she did not have, motherhood, and became pregnant. Regretting her decision, Elisabet attempted a failed self-induced abortion and gave birth to a boy whom she despises, but who craves her love. Alma ends the story in distress, asserting her identity and denying that she is Elisabet. She later coaxes Elisabet to say the word "nothing", and leaves the cottage as a crew films Elisabet and the projector from the prologue stops running.
Cast Bibi Andersson as Alma, the nurse Liv Ullmann as Elisabet Vogler, the actress Margaretha Krook as The Doctor Gunnar Björnstrand as Mr. Vogler Jörgen Lindström as The Boy, Elisabet's son
Themes and interpretations Persona has been subject to a variety of interpretations. According to Professor Thomas Elsaesser, the film "has been for film critics and scholars what climbing Everest is for mountaineers: the ultimate professional challenge. Besides Citizen Kane, it is probably the most written-about film in the canon". Critic Peter Cowie wrote, "Everything one says about Persona may be contradicted; the opposite will also be true". Academic Frank Gado called Cowie's assessment "patent nonsense", but agreed there was "critical disarray"; editor Lloyd Michaels said that although Cowie exaggerated somewhat, he welcomed the "critical license" to study the film.
Michaels summarized what he calls "the most widely held view" of Persona: that it 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". Film scholar Marc Gervais has suggested several possible interpretations: "a metaphor of the subconscious or unconscious", "one personality consuming the other", "the fusing of two personalities into one", or "the different sides of the same personality fleetingly merging". Gado suggested that Persona was "an investigation of schizophrenia, a story about lesbian attraction, or a parable about the artist".
Bergman said that although he had an idea of what the story meant, he would not share it because he felt that his audience should draw its own conclusions. He hoped the film would be felt rather than understood.
The "silence of God" is a theme Bergman explored extensively in his previous work. According to author Paul Coates, Persona was the "aftermath" of that exploration. Gervais added that Persona and other Bergman films between 1965 and 1970 were not "God-centred". Gervais also quoted philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche as a guide to understanding Persona: "Belief in the absolute immorality of Nature, in lack of purpose, and in meaninglessness, is the affect psychologically necessary once belief in God and an essentially moral order is no longer supportable".
Identity and duality
Analysis has focused on the characters' resemblance, demonstrated in shots of overlapping faces in which one face is visible and part of another is seen behind it, suggesting the possibility that the characters are one, and their duality. Critic John Simon commented, "This duality can be embodied in two persons, as it is here, but it has a distinct relevance to the contradictory aspects of a single person". If they are one person, the questions exist of whether Alma is fantasizing about the actress she admires, Elisabet is examining her psyche, or the boy is trying to understand his mother. Susan Sontag suggested that Persona is a series of variations on the theme of "doubling". According to Sontag, the film's subject is "violence of the spirit". Professor Irving Singer, examining the shot in which Alma and Elisabet's faces are combined, compared its repulsive effect to that of seeing Robert Louis Stevenson's character Mr. Hyde instead of his benign alter ego, Dr. Jekyll. Singer wrote that Bergman expanded on Stevenson's exploration of duality, the "good and evil, light and dark aspects of our nature", depicting it as "oneness" in the shot.
Gado saw Persona as a "double-threaded process of discovery involving motherhood". Elisabet's withdrawal into silence could be her rejection of motherhood, the only role the actress could not slough off. The nurse realizes that she has done what Elisabet tried and failed to do: erase a child from her life by abortion. Psychiatrist Barbara Young viewed the boy in the morgue in the film's prologue as a stand-in for Bergman, in a morgue he remembered, reaching out to his mother. Young compared Bergman's relationship with his mother, Karin, to Alma ("hungry for someone to listen to her and to love her") and Elisabet ("ravenous for precious time").
About the theme of duality, author Birgitta Steene wrote that Alma represents the soul and Elisabet is a "stern" goddess. Theologian Hans Nystedt called Elisabet a symbol of God, and Alma symbolic of mortal consciousness. Coates noted the "female face" or "near-Goddess" succeeding the God previously studied by Bergman, referring to Jungian theories to examine the themes of duality and identity; two different people, with a "grounding in oneself", trade identities. Coates described Elisabet as a fusion of the mythological figures Thanatos and Eros, with Alma as her "hapless counterpart", and a close-up suggesting death.
Psychology
Persona title reflects the Latin word for "mask" and Carl Jung's theory of persona, an external identity separate from the soul ("alma"). Jung believed that people project public images to protect themselves, and can come to identify with their personae. An interviewer asked Bergman about the Jungian connotations of the film's title, acknowledging an alternative interpretation that it references persona masks worn by actors in ancient drama, but saying that Jung's concept "admirably" matched the film. Bergman agreed, saying that Jung's theory "fits well in this case". Coates also connected masks to themes of identity and duality: "The mask is Janus-faced".
Alma's secret is revealed in her orgy monologue, and critic Robin Wood related it to a combination of shame and nostalgia perhaps indicating the character's sexual liberation. According to Wood, the incident touched on unfaithfulness and juvenile sexuality; in Swedish, the young boys are called "pojkar" and are in need of coaching. Arnold Weinstein wrote that Alma's story is the hardest-hitting example of the "cracks" in the character's mask, belying her persona of a nurse and leading to a "collapse of self". Her monologue is so intense that it verges on pornography, although there is no depiction of the sexual escapade.
Cinema historian P. Adams Sitney summarized the story as following the course of psychoanalysis: a referral, followed by the first interview, disclosures, transference, and the discovery of the patient's root problem. According to Sitney, the story seems to begin from Alma's point of view; after Elisabet compares their hands, her point of view is revealed as the source of the story.