Persona

[Anthony]

"It demands interpretation but it seems it also challenges us to resist the temptation to over-interpret it."

Precisely. To be honest, Persona frustrated me, a lot. I feel checkmated, in a cerebral deadlock, struggling to relocate and subsequently organize every internal allusion, relation and causal explanation throughout the film into some coherent, articulable whole. For instance, in that scene just before Alma [appears to] sleep with Elisabet's husband, we see the husband refer to Alma as Elisabet despite her protests, "I'm not your wife," which the husband responds to in the same exact understanding way that he did in his letter to Elisabet to much earlier(Elisabet's silent protest may be received by the husband also as Elisabet saying "I'm not your wife"). Then Alma resigns, Elisabet's face is only inches away (filmed in extreme close-up), and at 1:05:50 we see Alma basically exclaim "I'm cold and rotten and indifferent. It's all lies and imitation," which is exactly what Elisabet is accused of being at the beginning of the film by both Alma and the psychiatrist. Is this whole scene Alma's psychic merging as demonstrated near the beginning of their stay? Does the scene happen in Elisabet's imagination, and Bergam is hinting at that via the extreme close-ups and dreamlike aspect of the entire thing? Regardless of whether or not either of these interpretations is true, to be able to deduce what "really" happened at this point, you'd have to track the allusions, internal relations, and explanations(while maintaining chronological consistency), and then contextualize these things within the film holistically. There are more allusions and interrelations in that scene alone than the ones I just pointed out, and throughout the whole film; it's all hard to even write about.

[Anthony]

Fwiw I had also independently typed Alma and Elisabet as 297 and 925, respectively.

[Roshan]

This contrasted with Elisabet massaging Alma'a shoulders earlier, where she seemed more 'nurturing' (which by the end of the movie you realize she doesn't identify with that role)...Elisabet herself when she's confronted with who she really is.

How do we know she doesn't identify with that role? Or even that she's confronted with who she really is? Should we, for instance, accept Alma's entire account of what happened with Elisabet and her baby as literally true?

[Roshan]

"It demands interpretation but it seems it also challenges us to resist the temptation to over-interpret it."

Does the scene happen in Elisabet's imagination, and Bergam is hinting at that via the extreme close-ups and dreamlike aspect of the entire thing?

Why do you care so much?

There are a few interpretations of what really happened with the husband that really are plausible. That he showed up in the flesh on the island is perhaps of midrange plausibility; that he showed up unexpectedly and had sex with Alma thinking she was Elisabet with Elisabet all the while watching and never saying a word--that what we actually saw on the screen happened the way we saw it--is probably the least plausible interpretation.

It seems to me far more important with this film to establish what we can know about 'what really happened' than to come to conclusions about what we can't. Imo we can be fairly certain of pretty much everything up to when Alma reads the letter. Except for whether Elisabet really spoke and entered the room. That this was ambiguous seemed clear watching a second time, because of its placement right after Alma said she could become Elisabet, with her being drunk, her not being sure herself right after whether Elisabet spoke, and Elisabet saying the next day that she didn't speak or enter the room. (It's also possible that Elisabet didn't remember, she may have been for instance sleepwalking, and one plausible interpretation btw is that Alma heard Elisabet's thoughts AND Elisabet didn't speak).

But other than that, before the rift over the letter, everything seems reliable enough, at least after two viewings. So, we know that two women, a famous actress who'd gone mute without ostensible physical cause or insanity, and a young nurse who became very loquacious because of it, were alone together on an island and developed a very strong bond, but the actress betrayed the nurse by repeating a confidence about her past to a third woman in a letter. The third woman was the actress' psychiatrist, who'd set up this scenario in her own house to cure the actress, so the actress was supposed to talk to her about her experiences, and her experience with the nurse comprised all her experience with the world. But the psychiatrist was also the nurse's boss, which exacerbated the sense of betrayal. That the betrayal of confidence came to light through a betrayal of confidence-- the snooping of a "L6 Intrusive Intimate 2"--mattered not to the nurse; both the bond and the power dynamics intensified, and we the audience were privy to events real, imagined, and/or telepathically shared. What we can be sure of by the end is that passion between them has been real, there has been some level of psychic bonding (women who live together menstruate together...), and also that this situation has been temporary.

The details don't matter. It all happened on some level and it was also all destined to end.

[Roshan]

So, for instance, we can be sure that Elisabet tore up the picture of her own son, and also that she didn't tear up nearly the whole thing and that she kept it. We can be pretty sure that Alma sat and told her the story of the pregnancy and birth of her son. But we cannot know whether Alma surmised what happened and felt sure she was right, or whether she actually "read Elisabet's mind"; we don't know whether it was all literally true. But we can assume it was on some level profoundly true--but both of these women hold a deep-seated hatred of maternity. Both are possessed by that peculiar sort of Holy Will cocooned with passive-aggressive resilient Sloth of the 2/9 nurturance combo. This is both time-contingent (post-war change in women's roles) and eternal: it is the 2/9 women who are most nurturing and who kill their kids; that's also part of why Elisabet was playing Electra when she stopped speaking. Electra convinces her brother to kill their mother, to kill The Mother. (Though I don't think that's the only reason it was Electra by far, and let it be said this was also to avenge the killing of the father by the mother, and this for the killing of the sister by the father, and all this was the curse of the House of Aetreus, subject to mysterious forces stronger than them--which is what Elisabet told her husband about marriage--subject to the will and to the internecine power struggles of the Gods....).

[Roshan]

Persona notes:
- Bleak manic like visuals foreshadowing death (?)
- The movie is directed in a way that you become centered on the character, and wanting to understand the individual rather than any action going on around them

Right. The realm of action is not primary.

Hence, Elisabet 'stops acting'. And speaking is also 'an act'.

- Okay so I’m realizing this movie is in Swedish. I did put on CC, though I may miss some dialogue while taking notes (though the visuals speak for themselves I’m sure)
- So, the leading question is why does she choose* not to speak, and why can she sometimes only laugh?

Are these questions answered?

- At one scene after the silent woman (not sure if they said her name – never mind it’s Elizabeth Vogler) laughed at the radio (can’t understand at what exactly).

At an actress melodramatically asking for forgiveness.

She seems endeared by the nurse’s attempt at connection with her, and how art is necessary, especially for those struggling. She takes back her somber look when the nurse says that she probably wouldn’t want to be reminded of that. Was it a painful memory that came back, or does she feel the nurse no longer understands her like she thought she did?
- The scene where Elizabeth is stunned and horrified by the news covering riots and a man burning himself alive stands out. Like it’s a reminder to her of why she continues to shut the pain of the world out (?)

Or perhaps a reminder of how shallow, (to use -Sarah-'s word, her own silent protest is by comparison. It's probably not a coincidence that the one time we can be sure Elisabet speaks (the time Alma 'wins' the power struggle), it's when she begs not to be burned.

- Tying into the theme of truly seeing someone, the letter starts as an attempt of Elizabeth’s (ex?) husband asking her if he ever did anything (because of her no longer speaking) but implies that he saw nothing wrong and thought they were happy (we don’t know their history as an audience, but she likely didn’t feel truly happy or seen, at least in my opinion so far). The letter continues, with a quote from Elizabeth, “I’m only just beginning to understand what it means to be married. You’ve taught me (…) that we must see each other as two anxious children full of goodwill and the best of intentions but governed by forces we can only partially control”. From the quote I wonder if I should see this as a moment of purity and vulnerability. Or naïve and possibly codependent. Either way Elizabeth is again stunned and wants seemingly nothing to do with that point in her life as she tears a photo of her own son.

- Okay so there’s a lot here, but I feel that the older nurse covers the heart of Elizabeth and the theme so far of the movie really well.

The psychiatrist has in a way a role analogous to 'the director'--Bergman as director of the film but also the role he would assume and was already concocting in these two women's lives, having been involved with Bibi Andersson and now having his eye on her best friend and making her the cryptic centerpiece of this script. The owner of the house

So I’m going to put her monologue with my thoughts in brackets. “You think I don’t understand? That hopeless dream of being. Not seeming to be, but being. Conscious and awake at every moment. At the same time, the chasm between what you are to others and what you are to yourself (there’s the excruciating distance between who you are, or really your self-perception, and how others perceive you that you can never really tie together, at least not fully without these ‘different selves’ coming undone again from the true you of it all. It seems very 9 wanting to desperately stay existing in the womb without moving to the perceptions and roles of 3 or the uncertainty in defining what something or someone is at 6).

It's all incredibly Nine. And it's making me think Gray may have been right after all that the 9 leads with Bergman.


The feeling of vertigo, and the constant hunger to be unmasked once and for all. To be seen through, cut down… perhaps even annihilated (if you can’t return to ‘the womb’, to yourself, then how else do you unravel to the truth?). Every tone of voice a lie, every gesture a falsehood, every smile a grimace (again roles at 3 and distrust at 6). Commit suicide? No, too nasty. One doesn’t do things like. But you can refuse to move or talk. Then at least you’re not lying. You can cut yourself off, close yourself in, then you needn’t play any roles, wear any masks, make any false gestures. So you might think… but reality plays nasty tricks on you. Your high place isn’t watertight enough. Life oozes through all sides. You’re forced to react.

Which is what happened with the scalding water and its threat of disfigurement of the face.

No one asks whether it’s genuine or not, whether you’re lying or telling the truth (again all very 9, stubbornly not wanting to deal with the outside world, not wanting to react. The womb doesn’t come with an airtight seal). Questions like that only matter in the theater, and hardly even there (funnily enough the lace of acting is expected more honestly and follow through then in day-to-day interactions. It makes sense why Elizabeth seemed touched when the younger nurse was speaking to her about the importance of art), I understand you Elizabeth. I understand that you’re not speaking or moving, that you’ve turned this apathy into a fantastic setup. I understand and admire you. I think you should play this part until it’s played out, until it’s no longer interesting. Then you can drop it, just as you eventually drop all your other roles (this part hits especially because it’s like after all that talk about how Elizabeth strongly does not want to be moved by the outside world and forced to be insincere in a world where there’s no time to find sincerity. Even her silence and her apathy is a role itself. She left the theater, and she still can’t escape it).”

She left the theater and then the psychiatrist set up a new stage, where she would have to be alone relating with one other person. And the psychiatrist chose that person.

- The theme continues with the younger nurse reading, “All the anxiety we carry within us, all our thwarted dreams, the inexplicable cruelty, our fear of extinction, the painful insight into earthly condition have slowly crystalized our hope for an other-worldly salvation. The tremendous cry of our faith and doubt against the darkness and silence is the most terrifying proof of our abandonment and our unuttered knowledge”. The earthly children have been abandoned from the womb once more.



The overall feeling of hopelessness that can only maybe be fixed through such drastic measures (‘salvation’/ savior, ‘faith’, ‘doubt’ at 6).

Yes.

We have been abandoned and have abandoned our own minds. There’s a subtle but sharp contrast here in Elizabeth and her nurse when the nurse asks Elizabeth if she agrees with the above statement (Elizabeth nods, the nurse says she disagrees).

But most likely comes to agree more by the end.

- Even the Elizabeth’s nurse (I’m sure they said her name before. I’ll try to catch it later) has been told she ‘sleep walks’ (9 non-participation).

Hmmm...I missed that (there and here). I'll have to catch it on the next round.

However, she also admires the nurses (and people in general) who aren’t just alive, but truly live in their beliefs (but ‘who’s more sincere?’ is another question. Either way this seems like ‘faith’ at 6. Including wanting to ‘mean something to other people’. A meaning here is desired, certainty, but so is genuine connection deeper down).

It's Holy Faith at 6, but it's also Holy Love at 9, but I think we also need to start thinking about 3 Holy Law.

- The nurse is searching for connection in her own way “no one’s ever bothered to listen to me”.

A very common theme for sp 2 (and one of the things that bolsters my confidence in my typing of Tori Amostyping of Tori Amos). And in contrast to 9 qua 9, this silence, this allowing other people to talk over them, gives the 2 a privileged perch to snoop from, to spy on, and to have a negative 'power over', one that they won't admit.


Earlier she talked about how her love, and her pain, despite being inside her and sincere, wasn’t enough for her to be ‘real’ (to hold the meaning she desires) to a man she was once in an affair with.

- The raw intimacy of the story about the beach (the dialogue is all very alluring, not so much the story itself, but how she tells it,

In 1966 the story was alluring.

and I feel it speaks for itself emotion wise, so I’ll be brief) contrasted with the nurse’s daily life and that agony once more about feeling split into multiple people and never reaching that level of ecstasy again.

And then they went their separate ways, as she and Elisabet are destined to. But the thing is, what happens on this island is the same level of intensity.

- “I think I could turn into you if I really tried”. There’s less distance between who the nurse is and who Elizabeth is now (9 merging). At this point Elizabeth feels truly seen, or at least empathetic (in my opinion) because she finally speaks. Or at least that’s my impression of what’s happening.

It's the impression but if you rewatch it you should see that objectively, given what ensures, we can't be objectively certain of this.

Elizabeth’s head is nearly entirely out of the shot, but you can tell it isn’t the nurse talking to herself. However, the nurse doesn’t acknowledge her speaking, so I guess it makes sense why the audience doesn’t see her speaking either. She does however utter the same thing as Elizabeth about not falling asleep at the table. Which reflects their growing similarity to each other inside.

- Okay so the nurse kind of realizes Elizabeth did speak, even if she isn’t fully sure of it, but why didn’t she remember the scene where Elizabeth was in her room?

Doesn't Alma ask Elisabet both if she spoke and if she was in the room and Elisabet shakes her head no?

Where does the symbolism end from the reality? Is Elizabeth lying or was that part a dream?

Or did Alma hear and repeat Elisabet's thoughts and was Elisabet then sleepwalking?

- Younger nurse = Alma

- Alma reads Elizabeth’s letter seeing her view and how she ‘studies her’ about how Alma’s subconsciously smitten and her cries about how her past sins don’t align with her current actions. Alma is silent right when she returns home and Elizabeth utters an ‘ow!” (Almost subtlety switching roles/ becoming each other).

Next comes similar/same imagery that was seen in the very beginning of the movie,

Because now we're in a new movie. One where you can never be too sure what is and isn't real.

and then Elizabeth is a blurred figure (lack of identity?) before becoming clear to the audience again, so I feel this is leading to something more important.

- The nurse passively confronts Elizabeth by slamming a door by the serene sea after saying she misses the city. Then when she tells her she needs her to sleep and eggs her on implying ‘real artists have compassion for other people, and that they create out of that compassion’. Alma no longer feels ‘smitten’/ attached but unreciprocated and used by Elizabeth in the life they live. The silence is no longer peaceful to both. She finally tells Elizabeth she angry and hurt about the letter that Elizabeth wrote about her (Alma’s) private issues to the doctor. Betrayed even that she Elizabeth could make herself so easy to talk to and then go behind Alma’s back and continue her silence to Alma’s face. Elizabeth does finally say something when the confrontation gets physical, and Alma nearly throws a pot of scalding hot water on Elizabeth.

- Elizabeth begins to smile and even laugh a little to Alma’s dismay when Elizabeth says how she was ‘genuinely scared of death when she saw her act crazy’.

? ? ?

This links back to near the beginning when Elizabeth said ‘all (she) could do was smile’.

- Alma questions the idea of having to live an honest life through silence. Honesty and being genuine is important, but so is the need to speak, and so are the ‘lies, evasions, and excuses’ that come with speaking for long enough. So, in a way ‘silly dishonesty’ is a more human and genuine way to be then what Elizabeth is choosing to do. She feels out of touch with Elizabeth, and that despite doctors saying she’s healthy, that she knows Elizabeth is rotten for her act and keeping each other in such a state. She then frantically tries to apologize to Elizabeth as she walks away from her, saying once again she was mad about the letter. In some ways Alma betrayed herself by projecting the type of person (a ‘good listener’, ‘kind’, ‘understanding’, ‘a great actress’) Elizabeth was to her. Even to the point of wanting to be of use to Elizabeth on a personal level and feeling discarded when Elizabeth exclaimed no such thing. Alma cries once again when she exclaims how Elizabeth is ‘too proud’ to stoop to her level. The need to be needed, and pride all seem like very 2ish themes as well.

Yes, and it is Alma who IS the actual Two. Archetypally, her falling on the rough beach of the island can be seen as her 'humiliation', with its root in 'humus', lowering oneself, returning to the soil.

The primary passion/feature of Sloth between Deceit and Doubt is Elisabet's. Alma's is Pride between Shame and Revenge.

- To add to the last part, Robin made note of how Elizabeth is likely envious of Alma’s ‘zest for life and her normalcy’ as well. Pride and envy. 2 and 4.

- There’s a postcard of citizens surrounded by military (police?) that seems related to the news Elizabeth saw earlier at the hospital.

It's the roundup of Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, Amy. Presumed to be immediately identifiable in 1966.

- Okay side note I just checked the movie summary again (doesn’t spoil much of anything). Elizabeth’s name (said as Elisabet technically in CC) is well, Elisabeth, but the nurse’s name is apparently Anna. I could have sworn I read ‘Alma’ in the subtitles. So, I’m not going to change what I have above right now, but Alma/ Anna/ young nurse are all referring to the same person.

So far I watched with Spanish and English subtitles and both said Alma?

Okay, I won't comment on the rest of it. Why don't you revisit it yourself, Amy?

- Elizabeth’s ex-husband (?) visits (unless Anna’s seeing things) and speaks to Anna as though she’s Elizabeth (merging of identities). Then you realize that he is blind, and so Anna tells him that she loves him as like she’s a vessel for Elizabeth. Or is he literally blind? I’m flipping back and forth her a lot, but I wonder if that’s the point or if that matters so much, because either way the line between Elizabeth and Anna are more and more blurred. Anna lives like Elizabeth’s husband is truly hers and Elizabeth just sadly lets it all play out. She even lives out the feeling of indifference and shame of lying the actual Elizabeth must have felt, so it’s like eerily watching a play by play of Elizabeth’s past relationship. The nurse confronts Elizabeth about the recent photo, with the one boy being her son, just like from the earlier photo she ripped in half. I’m beginning to wonder if that scene with her husband was only in her mind.

- Elizabeth’s reaction to seeing her son is better explained as Anna talks about how Elizabeth tried to overcome her fear of being ‘unmotherly’ as a woman by having a child. Only to be overcome by the new fear of losing herself, her freedom, her body, and yet continuing ‘the act’ anyways. Elizabeth’s confronted with how much she didn’t want her child, even going so far to wish it was a still born, even after birth, despite fitting into the new mother role and being told kindly that she’s ‘never seemed more beautiful’ by the public. Maybe part of the reason Elizabeth went silent is because she knows firsthand how cruel spoken honesty can be. ‘The boy loved his mother, but she (Elizabeth) felt she couldn’t’ also seems very 9ish with the fear of being unlovable, of not being able to love, or not being enough, no matter how much you try to reach into the heart of the issue (something I need to sit with myself).

- The above scene was all in Elizabeth’s mind to show the audience her true fears, Anna is only now seeing the photo for real (?). The scene continues the same as before. However, this time Anna exclaims like she once did earlier, that she is not like Anna, that she does not relate, as though she’s untethering herself from their merged identities. Not sure if the next scene is being translated properly, or if she’s just making less and less sense at this point, but you see the frustration return to Anna, to say the least.

- Some previous imagery returns, we see a bus come as Elizabeth is shown in makeup with cameras. As if to say the performance is finally coming to an end.

[Anthony]

"It demands interpretation but it seems it also challenges us to resist the temptation to over-interpret it."

Does the scene happen in Elisabet's imagination, and Bergam is hinting at that via the extreme close-ups and dreamlike aspect of the entire thing?

Why do you care so much?

The details don't matter. It all happened on some level and it was also all destined to end.

Sure, that's correct, but,

Regardless of whether or not either of these interpretations is true, to be able to deduce what "really" happened at this point, you'd have to track the allusions, internal relations, and explanations(while maintaining chronological consistency), and then contextualize these things within the film holistically. There are more allusions and interrelations in that scene alone than the ones I just pointed out, and throughout the whole film; it's all hard to even write about.

I was primarily attempting to illustrate what Bergman had seemed to achieve while also establishing grounds for discussion about HOW he achieved it--a discussion which, as far as I'm concerned/aware, it is necessary to get into the nitty-gritty of what 'really happed [in Bergman's head]' and ATTEMPT fully understand the film in the manner I laid out. Also, concerning HOW he achieved this effect, the cinematic technical details are also really important; for instance, in that scene I mentioned, if Bergman had altered both Alma's precise language after [maybe!] she had sex with Elisabet's husband and Elisabet's precise physical positioning in the scene, it is highly likely that we as viewers would've formed a whole different set of interpretations. That probably isn't the best example, but anyways, I care to the extent that I want to discern how Bergman achieved what he did.

[Roshan]

And how do I know so much about Electra? Well, wikipedia, of course, but I wouldn't have needed it if I had a better memory, but an educated Swede interested in film in 1966 would have been expected to be steeped in the Greek classics. A very educated Swede would have been expected to also know that there are three extant Electra tragedies by all three of the great tragedians, Aeschylus, Euripedes, and Sophocles, as well as a written account in Pindar, and that there are differences between them. But Aeschylus' Electra appears in a trllogy, the Oresteia (Orestes being the brother), and Bergman also references his own trilogy at the very beginning by using the spider from Through A Glass, Darkly.. This trilogy also includes Winter Light and The Silence, and this silence involves Elisbet's silence but also the silence of God at the time of Revelation, at the end times, the time of the breaking of "The Seventh Seal", (which film preceded the trilogy). Again, Elizabeth means Oath of God, or Oath TO God.

So there are two seminal western myths here, one Greek and one Christian, and I can't stress enough how little literal accuracy of interpretation ultimately matters, because it is endless. What matters is to accept that they are both always present. There is a third myth, a psychological one, both Freudian and Jungian, which includes "The Electra complex", and this one is focused on a lot, and a fourth, which is the story of cinema, but these two seem less powerful than the other two, and why wouldn't they be, they're so recent? They seem to me to be the most superficial layer. Bergman seems to me to be either NiFe or FeNi extreme creative subtype. All time is converged and so are all interpretations; the Te one, the sequential one of 'protocol', is ultimately the least important, and this is why the 'order of things', the 'what really happened', the 'who DID what?" is also superficial.

[Roshan]

I care to the extent that I want to discern how Bergman achieved what he did.

Bergman didn't even tell the composer the details of the plot or let him see what shots the music would go with. And in one public interview with Liv Ullmann on the fiftieth anniversary of Persona, she started off by saying don't ask me what it means. She doesn't know. And then parts of the script were changed during the filming. How do we know he even knows exactly why he did what he did? Or cares to? You expressed a frustration over not being able to make sense of it. This assumes it should make sense but there's no reason why it should make that kind of sense.

[Roshan]

'what really happened [in Bergman's head]'

But this film is as much about finding Se as anything else. It wasn't made with the head.