The author of this blog is Keke, a young filmmaker.
When we talk about Ingmar Bergman, the first word we think about is probably a film master. The Chinese famous director Ang Lee idolizes him and cried with emotion when he met Bergman for the first time. Alejandro González Iñárritu states if films are religion, Faro Island would be Mecca or the Vatican because it is the island where Ingmar Bergman lived. Lars von Trierkeeps complaining that how many writers he has written to Bergman but never gets a response is jealous of Bergman working with a person who only watched his film Dokument Fanny och Alexander(1984), and thinks Bergman as like his relationship with his father (Costigan, Magnusson & Pallas, 2013). Besides these famous film directors, most common film viewers will usually compare Ingmar Bergman to Federico Fellini and Andrei Tarkovsky and meanwhile provide a quite high evaluation to them.
Nevertheless, while his films are highly acclaimed, they are considered to be difficult to understand, especially the film Persona (Bergman, 1966). The nonappearance of visual codes to recognize what is dreamed and what is actually happening in the film, the montage of irrelated footage and images, and the discontinuity of time and space all cause confusion and increase the threshold of understanding. Therefore, the context beyond the film becomes more important and necessary for the audiences to understand the film. And this blog will focus on some behind-the-scenes stories and Ingmar Bergman’s personal experience before the film and provide a possible perspective to understand the film Persona. The elements from Bergman’s life and former experience contribute to the abstract and nonobjective sense of the film.
According to Bergman’s biographical The Magical Lantern(2007), when he wrote the screenplay, he had a terrible virus infection and had to live in the hospital. Before that, Bergman has written a screenplay named cannibals which last four hours. Then he realized it can not be made, then he told the film company manager he wanted to film two women are sitting side by side, in big hats, comparing their hands (Blanc, 2018). That image is the beginning of the film. Then he received a photo of Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. Bergman found they looked alike, but on closer inspection, they don’t and therefore he came up with the imagination of the famous tandem shot (Bergman, 2007). “The two women merge into one, reflects Bergman’s attempt to portray a blurred and enigmatic vision of female identity and, in extension, human subjectivity, which he perceives as a ‘fluid entity’” (Karkani, 2019, Pg53). The fluid entity is exactly the same feeling when Bergman saw Andersson and Ullmann’s photo. If the photo is the image source of the film, the experience before and in the hospital is the emotional source of the film. In the documentary person, the film that saved Ingmar Bergman (Blanc, 2018), Liv Ullmann shared the mental state of Bergman at that time: “the part I was playing was Ingmar. My reactions, the fact of staying silent, shut up, not wanting to talk to anybody…that was Ingmar” [00:08:27-00:08:37]. Ingmar Bergman incorporates his experiences in the hospital and his state of mind into the character Elizabeth Vogler. The gloomy and mysterious temperature is based on illness and death.
The most difficult points in this film may be the montage of several irrelated footages and images and the two repeating parts when Alma reveals Elizabeth’s true thoughts. At the beginning of the film, Bergman cut some shots about an old lady, a boy, and an old man who are lying in the bed. According to Bergman’s biographical (2007), he had a special experience in a morgue in his childhood, which deeply provides him a sense of mortality. A long stay in the hospital brings him some similar feelings. Therefore, he uses it at the beginning of the film. The montage at the beginning also embodies the theme of death and quietus. The most basic reason for the montage is Bergman has just gone through these. Furthermore, according to Liv Ullmann’s interview (Lustgarten, 2019), she explains the reason Bergman uses the same monologue twice. Bergman has taken the close-up shots of two characters and is about to use shot and reserve shot. However, when he saw it in the editing room, he doesn’t know where to cut this. Thus, he put two whole scenes together, one whole Elizabeth and one wholeAlma, which makes a special and meaningful result. When the audiences consider and confuse about the repeating, it is hard to realize the basic reason is the director doesn’t know how to edit it they don’t know the behind-the-scenes stories.
All these elements make up several essential parts of the film. The film Werk ohne Autor (Berg& Donnersmarck, 2018) can be a good example. The protagonist’s work is made up of his childhood memories, painting skills learned in youth, Ellie’s love, his father-in-law’s secret, and even the wind that blows open the window. As his lines say, a random set of numbers is meaningless. But if it is the winning lottery number, it is meaningful. Every great work is made up of random experiences, images, feelings, and conceptions. The idea of the filmPersonacomes from the image of two women comparing hands, the photo of Andersson and Ullmann, the experience in the hospital, the memory in the mortuary, the unique solution of several shots, and so on. All these elements are random numbers. But when they are combined with reasonable or causeless order, the random experiences will create fantastic work. Therefore, knowing the background stories and the director’s biographical can strongly help understand the birth and development of a film.
Reference
Berg, Q.(Producer), Donnersmarck, F. H. V. (Director). (2018). Werk ohne Autor [Motion picture]. Germany: Pergamon Film
Bergman, I.(Producer & Director). (1966).Persona [Motion picture]. Sweden: AB Svensk Filmindustri
Bergman, I.(2007). The magic lantern: an autobiography (University of Chicago Press ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Blanc, M.(Director). (2018). Persona, le film qui a sauvé Ingmar Bergman [Videopodcasts]. Retrieved from: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/070812-000-A/persona-the-film-that-saved-ingmar-bergman
Costigan, L. (Producer), Magnusson, J. & Pallas, H. (Director). (2013).Trespassing Bergman [Video podcasts]. Retrieved from: https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzY4NTM0MDA0MA==.html?spm=a2h0c.8166622.PhoneSokuProgram_1.dposter&s=ad71b9ff713843758659
Karkani, I. (2019). Bergman’s women: Female gender representation in summer with monika, persona and scenes from a marriage. Film International, 17(1),50–56. https://doi.org/10.1386/fiin.17.1.50_1
Lustgarten, A.(Producer). (2019).The Fårö Island Years [Video podcasts]. Retrieved from: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1dz411i74N?p=8