Persona By Ingmar Bergman Essay
Ingmar Bergman’s film, Persona, allows for a plethora of interpretations, none of which can really be said to be correct. The film is overflowing with symbolism just within the credit sequence that is later repeated throughout the movie. Within the structure, the elements continue being related to each other. It is easy to become disoriented in flash backs, dream sequences, and personality confusion that characterizes the action of the film. This makes it hard to create a clear picture of the action within the story.
There is a lot of sexual imagery in the opening and ending sequences, mostly at a subliminal level. Bergman shows many phallic symbols, one being the thrusting hot metal rods. The end sequence shows the same …show more content…
close up shot of hot metal easing back as though spent. It was as though the creative process of making the movie was paralleled to the sex act.
The montage at the beginning of Persona plays homage to the montage that came at the beginning of the groundbreaking surrealist film Un Chien
Andalou, by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali.
Persona begins with darkness. Then two points of light gradually gain in brightness, until we see that they're the two carbons of the arc lamp; after this, a portion of the leader flashes by. Then follows a suite of rapid images, some barely identifiable: a long shot chase from a slapstick silent film, an erect penis; a close up of a nail being hammered into the palm of a hand; a close up shot from the rear of a stage of a heavily made-up actress declaiming to the footlights and darkness beyond, we see this image soon again and know that it's Elizabeth playing her last role, and assorted dead bodies in a morgue. All these images go by very rapidly, mostly too fast to see; but gradually they're slowing down, as if consenting to adjust to the time in which the viewer can comfortably perceive them. Then follows a final set of images, run off at normal speed. It turns out that these symbols directly relate to the upcoming action of the movie. We see a thin, unhealthy-looking boy, Elizabeth's son (Jörgen
Lindström), lying under a sheet on a hospital cot against the wall of a bare room; the viewer, at first, is bound to associate him to the corpses just seen. The phone that wakes him up is a key instance in someone’s life that makes them realize that all is not as it seems, that even the life you are living and the character you display are merely lies. His feeble attempts at falling back asleep are our own failed efforts at denying reality and trying to crawl back under the sheets. Eventually, you come to accept that your previous fictional being and perceptions about life no longer make sense, so the best you can do is to look for answers and try to understand.
But the boy stirs, awkwardly kicks off the sheet, puts on a pair of large round glasses, takes out a book and begins to read. Then we see that ahead of him is an indecipherable blur, very faint, but on its way to becoming an image. It's the face of a beautiful woman. As if in a trance, the boy slowly reaches up and begins to caress it, it is perceived as a movie screen.
The use of symbols not only helps us to comprehend particular themes in the film; they also aid us in discerning the complex plot. Given the obscurity of the action within the film we require the aid. The use of symbolic images in this way suggests that there is a story going on. However, this is not the only level of symbolism operating in Persona.
There is a lot of sexual imagery in the opening and ending sequences, mostly at a subliminal level. Bergman shows many phallic symbols, one being the thrusting hot metal rods. The end sequence shows the same …show more content…
close up shot of hot metal easing back as though spent. It was as though the creative process of making the movie was paralleled to the sex act.
The montage at the beginning of Persona plays homage to the montage that came at the beginning of the groundbreaking surrealist film Un Chien
Andalou, by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali.
Persona begins with darkness. Then two points of light gradually gain in brightness, until we see that they're the two carbons of the arc lamp; after this, a portion of the leader flashes by. Then follows a suite of rapid images, some barely identifiable: a long shot chase from a slapstick silent film, an erect penis; a close up of a nail being hammered into the palm of a hand; a close up shot from the rear of a stage of a heavily made-up actress declaiming to the footlights and darkness beyond, we see this image soon again and know that it's Elizabeth playing her last role, and assorted dead bodies in a morgue. All these images go by very rapidly, mostly too fast to see; but gradually they're slowing down, as if consenting to adjust to the time in which the viewer can comfortably perceive them. Then follows a final set of images, run off at normal speed. It turns out that these symbols directly relate to the upcoming action of the movie. We see a thin, unhealthy-looking boy, Elizabeth's son (Jörgen
Lindström), lying under a sheet on a hospital cot against the wall of a bare room; the viewer, at first, is bound to associate him to the corpses just seen. The phone that wakes him up is a key instance in someone’s life that makes them realize that all is not as it seems, that even the life you are living and the character you display are merely lies. His feeble attempts at falling back asleep are our own failed efforts at denying reality and trying to crawl back under the sheets. Eventually, you come to accept that your previous fictional being and perceptions about life no longer make sense, so the best you can do is to look for answers and try to understand.
But the boy stirs, awkwardly kicks off the sheet, puts on a pair of large round glasses, takes out a book and begins to read. Then we see that ahead of him is an indecipherable blur, very faint, but on its way to becoming an image. It's the face of a beautiful woman. As if in a trance, the boy slowly reaches up and begins to caress it, it is perceived as a movie screen.
The use of symbols not only helps us to comprehend particular themes in the film; they also aid us in discerning the complex plot. Given the obscurity of the action within the film we require the aid. The use of symbolic images in this way suggests that there is a story going on. However, this is not the only level of symbolism operating in Persona.