Bergman's Persona: The Metaphysics of Meta-Cinema Author(s): David L. Vierling Source: Diacritics, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer, 1974), pp.

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48

LEONARD BASKIN Anguish Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

David L. Vierling

BERGMAN'S PERSONA: The of Meta-Cinema Metaphysics

soever. By free association Persona is made to say and be about whatever the critic wishes, whether it is Vietnam and political violence (Robin Wood's reading in Ingmar Bergman. New York: Praeger, Inc., 1969) or God (Arthur Gibson's reading in The Silence of God: Creative Response to the Films of Ingmar Bergman. New York: Harper and Row, 1969-which insists on seeing God in every Bergman film desipte Bergman's denials as voiced in an interview with John Simon touching on Persona: "No, [the question of God in my films is] past. Things are difficult enough without God. They were much more difficult when I had to put God into it"; Ingmar Bergman Directs. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972; p. 28). Even conscientious critics who try to re-synthesize after they have analyzed often destroy the film by the simple act is of turning what is motion and rhythm-"Film mainly rhythm," says Bergman (Four Screenplays. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960; p. 17)-into fixity; John Simon goes so far as to run the film frame by frame on a movieola, seeing it not as film but as a series of still images. And, in dealing with Persona, all critics seem to augment, consciously or unconsciously, a problem which exists in any written analysis of a visual medium: taking the limited and particular information conveyed by the image (film, by nature, a coercive medium in its particularizing), they translate the image into a written equivalent (words, by nature, a freer language than film, conveying much more freedom of connotation) which

Late in Ingmar Bergman's film, Persona (1966), Elizabeth Vogler is looking at a copy of the famous photograph depicting the clearing of the Warsaw ghetto by the Nazis. The fame of this picture clearly resides in its power to move a viewer make the intellectual abstraction emotionally-to "Nazism" non-intellectual and apperceptive-and yet Elizabeth reacts not emotionally but in an intellective way. Staring with detached curiosity, she (and, via the camera, the audience) studies the photograph by breaking it down into sections which fill the whole screen, fragmenting the image repeatedly until, in the end, only areas of black and white grain remain. Her dissection of the photograph analyzes parts of the whole; yet, by seeing them only as parts, she fails to experience the overall synthesis of the parts-the emotion, the horror of the image. Such analysis-such typifies the "seeing"-unfortunately general critical response to Persona. The critic who believes that the key to a film can be obtained by fragmenting the film into parts discovers not the meaning of Bergman's film (indeed, there is no "meaning" per se) but finds rather, like the hero of Antonioni's Blow-up, that once parts are separated from the whole, you can make anything you want of them just as the grain in Elizabeth's photograph could be a part of any image whatDavid L. Vierling is a graduate student in Comparative Literature at Cornell University.

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allows them a continually expanding field in which to render and interpret the image metaphorically-a field limited only by their imaginations, dictates of logic (often ignored), and the need for a final period. Such reductiveness (paradoxically, unwarranted expansion) and failure to see Persona as a visual whole have allowed critics searching for their own answers to avoid hearing the questions Bergman is postulating. Just as Elizabeth's photograph is a copy of an original, so one should realize that Persona is a film of a film from first image to last (a fact usually subordinated by critics to the "story line" of the film, if it is mentioned at all); Bergman is questioning his medium in Persona, showing us what film can and cannot do. Again, like Elizabeth's photograph, Persona works primarily on an emotional level; just as the photograph meant nothing except as a totality, Persona exists as a thematic meditation upon the very idea of synthesis (primarily doubling) of two becoming, or trying to become, one, of the breakdown of distinctions and categories yielding a unity. These two views of Persona are not the ultimate answers to the critical question "What is Persona about?", especially as this question implies the critical fallacy that there is a definitive message in a work of art waiting to be decoded; Bergman once said in an interview, "I have no answers; I just pose questions. I'm not very gifted at giving answers" (Ingmar Bergman Directs, p. 33). This view of Persona as a questioning of film and as a thematic meditation on the idea of doubling, should at least allow us a legitimate avenue toward an understanding of the film. With the first image of the film-that of the two carbons of a projector's arc lamp coming toimmediately states these major gether-Bergman concerns visually. (1) We are about to see a film about film (the film soon to run through the projector's sprockets and before the lamp). (2) The phenomenological response comes prior to any intellectual response (which, if it occurs, will be largely de-emphasized by the film) as shown by the immediate burst of light (the birth of the film? creation from the void?) which we apperceive before we realize that we are watching an arc lamp, i.e., before we bracket our sight and cease to really see. Also, (3) we have a visual equivalent for the theme of doubling which will run throughout the film as the two glowing carbons join and from the two weak lights produce a single blinding light. These concerns, embodied in the image of the arc lamp, are elaborated in the remainder of the film's prologue and credits just as the entire film will continue the elaboration. Perhaps the best way to see the different directions in which Bergman will be working in the body of the film would be, therefore, to examine closely the opening montage and credit sequences. Following the images of the film starting upparafictionally echoing the start of this film which the audience watches-doubling is again implied as an old cartoon image of hands being washed is followed by an actual film of hands being washed, the two images being a synthesis of film, historically (from animation to the recording of reality), while, at the same time, we are reminded that as film both

images are an illusion, even though the living hands seem more "real"-a first blending of reality/nonreality in the film and the first statement that they are somewhat similar. Next, the old Bergman joins the new Bergman as, parafictionally, Bergman inserts a slapstick sequence from one of his earlier films: a man terrified by a devil-implying a fusion of time (Bergman's own past and his own present) while again echoing the tradition of film and the merger of reality/non-reality or illusion, dependent here on point of view; the man is terrified by what he takes to be reality; we are amused by what we take to be fiction. The film then slows its pace with images of a spider, a sheep with its throat slit, the palm of a hand with a nail driven into it, and finally faces, hands, and feet of people apparently in a morgueas if Bergman were continuing the idea he established in the rapidity of the opening shots, by showing what film can do best: creating images which hit the viewer apperceptively, emotionally rather than intellectively. These images are ominous and ponderous, the rhythm of the shots forming an incantational montage for the viewer which, as Eisenstein first realized, bypasses the intellective faculties. Subsequently, the eyes of a female corpse open, a boy awakens, reads a book (again a fusion of old and new Bergman: the boy, Jdrgen Linstrdm, and the book, A Hero of our Time-each from The Silence), and reaches out towards us. It is as if the film is trying to unite with us. The boy is not only reaching towards us but rather/also towards a projected and moving image on a wall or screen (done in reverse angle shot) which is film. The idea of fusion suggests, through the boy, in the first instance, film reaching towards us to communicate while, in the second instance, he becomes us, trying to grasp the film both he and we are seeing. Categories break down: audience/actor fuse just as later in the film Elizabeth Vogler will appear from nowhere, seeming to take our picture (of course, an impossibility), and thereby usurping our role as voyeur while reminding us of our part in the film experience and of her part as not only an image but as a real person. The projected film toward which the boy reaches is blurred and indistinct but it suggests the faces of Alma (Bibi Andersson) and Elizabeth (Liv Ullmann), the two main characters, merging and blending, foreshadowing the basic story line of this non-storying film. And, finally, the credits flash by, music echoing the disjunctiveness and rapidity of the credits and spacing shots (some from the film to follow, others almost subliminal as they flash before us), the screen fading into white against which a dark line cuts horizontally as a door opens and with it the story. In this opening sequence as in his first image of the arc lamp, Bergman has emphasized film as his own life, and as emotional response-apperceptive response-as against intellective response or categorizing, while at the same time he has played with the idea of duality becoming unity, culminating in perhaps the overriding statement of these sequences: film itself is fusion, the bringing together of static separate images and, by imparting temporality to them, causing them to synthesize into a motion pic-

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50

ture. The black and white medium is itself a fusion of opposites which blend to create the gradations which make up the unity of the film image-all the various tones between black and white. The white frame cut by black, which becomes the film's opening scene, thus stands as Bergman's final visual statement on both his medium and the theme of doubling. The film's final title (chosen over the working titles of Filmnand The Cannibals) further states the theme of doubling and fusion which subsequently yields the film's story line-the relationship between Elizabeth Vogler and Sister Alma-a story line, however, which functions less as a story and more as a pretext for Bergman's variations on the theme of doubling as introduced in the opening sequences. The word persona, originally referred to an actor's mask, his role; later it came to be identified with the actor himself. In psychoanalytic terms, these two ideas have fused, persona being the mask we all wear in social contexts, our role and identity at the same time. Thus, using the idea of persona (aptly demonstrated by an actress and a psychiatric nurse), Bergman is able not simply to show the merging of two definitions into one, but to concentrate on the idea that one's role and identity are one and the same and that to lose one's mask is catastrophic, parallel to the loss of self. The "story" of Persona, simplistically stated, is of two people who are unmasked by their relationship with each other and who, in the end, apparently retreat to the security of their respective roles as actress and nurse. But, as mentioned previously, such a story line is more central as catalyst than as story. Within the story, the major problem (fusion of the individual, of identity) joins the problem of communication which Bergman began examining in the opening sequences: Persona begins to focus most centrally on the problem of communication as a means of defining self, a problem not only for the fictional character but for their creator as well. From the very beginning of the film's "story," Bergman has gone beyond the normal concern of of the Doppelgiinger, of the double theme-that characters who reflect each other-by introducing the issue of communication and tying it to the problem of identity. Elizabeth, apparently from force of will (if we are to accept the psychiatrist's reductive diagnosis), has decided not to speak, thereby throwing off her role as actress, wife, and mother, in order to become to some degree free of her persona, her mask. She first appears as the non-communicative one, using lack of communication to define herself. Yet, ironically, those who do communicate in the story fail to achieve identity (fail to define themselves), their communication being in fact a failure to communicate. This is shown most notably in Alma, the embodiment of the failure of verbal communication. Alma, although constantly talking, only mouths banalities throughout the opening part of the film, as she tells Elizabeth that she is young, engaged, secure, and enjoys her work. We see and hear only the surface Alma-a film image surface. Later in the film, Alma will begin to relate her true self, as during her sexual orgy on the beach and subsequent abortion; still, even such communication does not

allow her to grasp her identity. Rather, she feels that identity dissolve in the very act of speaking. She says about herself, after her talk: "Can you be one and the same person? I mean two people?"-an interesting phrasing since, both in her communication with Elizabeth and what she interprets as Elizabeth's silent communication with her, she ceases to be the fixed entity Alma ("soul" in Latin) and realizes her other side-the hurter alongside the healer, the lesbian alongside the heterosexual, the hater alongside the lover. When she finally begins to become aware of her other nature (beautifully echoed visually by Alma's reflection in a pool of water after she has read Elizabeth's letter to the psychiatrist), she experiences difficulty in defining her relationship with Elizabeth. Finally, in surrealistic sequences reminiscent of Bufiuel, Alma succeeds in having Elizabeth utter a word: the word is "Nothing." Verbal communication, then, collapses, and with it Alma's ability to define herself. "Many words and then nausea," she says during a breakdown scene with Elizabeth in which her words and phrases become incoherent sounds. After the "Nothing" of Elizabeth there is no more talking in the film. Alma returns to her role (in uniform-she had spent her time with Elizabeth out of uniform, her clothing resembling Elizabeth's as the story developed) but the question whether she has regained her identity is unanswered. Through Alma, Bergman has shown the inherently close ties-the unity-between communication and identity. Bergman dispenses with Alma's resolution: she has fulfilled her functional role by suggesting this variation on the theme of doubling. Alma's failure to unify identity and communication is echoed in other scenes where communication is directly tied to the question of identity. Early in the film, Elizabeth listens to the radio and hears a play to which she reacts with laughter and then disgust-relaxing in and accepting only music, as if music, in its direct emotional contact, were able to bypass the problems created by other language systems (such as speech) which rely on the intellect. The problem of the mind blocking communication is shown not only as it relates to the question of character identity but, more importantly for Bergman, as it relates to the problem (Bergman's, specifically) of conveying his vision to us-the "how to tell" with which Bergman is concerned along with all other exponents of meta-cinema (most notably, Godard, Fellini, and Antonioni).. The mind, by its very inability to note apperceptively, to remain open, is seen as the immediate cause of the breakdown between Alma and Elizabeth. After reading Elizabeth's letter, Alma uses it to bracket Elizabeth as an unfeeling monster that feeds on her parasitically-a reaction expressed by Alma's predecessor in Strindberg's play The Stronger, an obvious source for Persona: "Your soul bored itself into mine as a worm into an apple, and it ate and ate and burrowed and burrowed till nothing was left but the outside shell and a little black dust" (Plays. New York: Scribner's Sons, 1913; p. 175). A major point of Strindberg's play, as here, is a to catwarning not to jump to conclusions-not egorize-since the speaker of these lines has no proof of maliciousness on the part of the silent Mrs. Y,

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just as Alma has no proof of Elizabeth's maliciousness. Failing to realize that the letter was not written to her but to the psychiatrist-failing to be flexible in her point of view-Alma over-reacts and spoils what peace she had found at the seaside cottage, her love turning to hate. Thus, the mind-inhibited communication can be seen as the main cause for the breakdown between Alma and Elizabeth and as a prime reason for Alma's inability to define herself. On Bergman's level, intellective responses like Alma's on the part of his audience would not only preclude seeing any fusion of Alma/Elizabeth in the film; they would prevent the film from communicating-defining itself-as Bergman would wish it to. The viewer who tries to story the film, keeping its parts tied together causally and logically, will experience difficulties from the start. Even in the film's first half, which is relatively conventional as narrative form (Bergman saying as much, playfully, by inserting a short explanation of a change of setting through a narrative voice, his own), there is a blurring of dream and reality in the scene where Alma and Elizabeth embrace in the night. To describe this as a dream, or reality, rather than to leave the question in flux (in unity) will cause the viewer to specify the story in a way that will be contradicted later when he ultimately comes to the surrealistic dream sequences of Alma. However, in his very confusion, the intellectualizing viewer, although he misses the thematic statement of the film about the fusion of apparent opposites, will become aware nevertheless that his own form of bracketing was a failure; in the end Bergman is able to make his point for a phenomenological apperception however the picture is "seen" or "mis-seen." Still, Bergman is not interested in communicating after the fact. He would rather remain, with his viewer, at the emotional level (immediate communication). In an essay on the differences between literature and film, Bergman confirmed his views: Film has nothing to do with literature;the character and substance of the two art forms are usually in conflict. This probably has something to do with the receptive process of the mind. The written word is read and assimilated by a conscious act of the will in alliance with the intellect; little by little it affects the imagination and the emotions. The process is different with a motion picture. When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings. (Four Screenplays, p. 17) For Bergman, then, film is to be experienced; it is not thought about (at least not while the viewing occurs). The film breakdown that occurs after Alma places a piece of glass in Elizabeth's path (her first act of violence and hatred after reading Eliz-

abeth's letter) cannot be confused in any way with Brechtian alienation; it shows best Bergman's affinity with emotion rather than with intellect. The splitting film, the burning emulsion, the figures of terror, both comic (the slapstick scene again) and tragic (the hand nailed through the palm), do not serve to distance the viewer but rather to render a filmic equivalent of an emotional state. We are made aware of film as a medium, but also as a form of emotional communication which breaks down under emotional overload and, like a person trying to get ahold of himself, laboriously refocuses and returns to the story. There is no intellectualizing and no distancing since such actions tend only to pull us away from the film-a film into which Bergman drew us initially through the figure of the boy who fuses with us in the prologue. Above all, communicating is, for Bergman, the means of asserting his identity and it is only in failing to communicate at all, or in misunderstanding communication (bracketing and intellectualizing), that identity fails both for Bergman and his characters. Ingmar Bergman's Persona is more than just the story of the inter-relationships of two women who come together at one point and who then separate and disappear at the end; and it is more than any small incident in the film separated from the whole. In Persona, by dealing with the problem of fusion, especially as it relates the fusion of parts to an emotional work of art (film), Bergman has made a statement about his art and his own ability to communicate. The fact that the film continues past the word "Nothing" may seem to imply that film is superior to the word-is the new "Hero of our Time" to whom the boy/audience turns for communication. But at the end of Persona, the film runs off its sprockets and the carbons of the arc lamp move apart; fusion ceases and individuation occurs again as the audience, no longer tied to the screen emotionally, rises to go: film too has limits and seemingly proves itself to be an inadequate means of communication. Indeed, there is no absolute means of communication. Bergman is most certainly aware of this problem, a problem which he shares with any artist: "I am caught in a conflict," he writes, "a conflict between my need to transmit a complicated situation through visual images, and my desire for absolute clarity" (Four Screenplays, p. 18). And yet, although the film ends with a question not only about the outcome of the story (do Alma and Elizabeth return to their roles, reaccept their identities as defined by their respective modes of communication, healing and art?) but also about the fate of film as medium (has it too broken down?), the work of Persona in its very unity (its ending echoing symmetrically the opening shots) stands as a statement of integration, a success and affirmation of its form.

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