In the late fifties.

lngmar Bergman assaulted and occasionally astonished our newly-

christened an houses-with The Seventh Seal , Wild Strawberries. The Magician, and
The virgin Spring , Ever since, he has attracted the kind of stro ng. part isan responses
that few major directors provoke . He seemed an arti st with a singular style and set
of concern s, Some found these fil ms philosophi cally invigorating, "probing." and
artisticaJly honest ; to others they were theological fol-de- rol. pret entious , heavy-hand-
edly literary and tbeatn cat-ceven specio us, But to all he was a recogniza ble phenome-
non. one who could. for example , be tellingly parodi ed in The Dove,
Gradually, other-equally distinct-"Bergmans" arrived . The beachhead estab-
lished. a retrospecti ve searc h discovered the "is land" pictures. tales of slimmer lover s
mevitabl y forced to return, come autumn. to the grisly. inhibiting. dark city. Then
ca me the religious or chamber films. the tri logy that wondered whether God was really
a spider who descended from a helicopte r and refused to tal k (verbosely); at least this
is how the unconverted might well have rendered Through A Glass Darkly, Wimer
Light. and The Silence ,
After The Silence ( 1963). Bergman became the " Bergman" of psychoanalytic intro-
spection. His form. his style. his thrust all conspired to present the image (If a latter-day
Dostoev sky. a relentless pursuer of psychic realities. For very good reason. Ber gman
gai ned the reput ation of being part icularly absorbed with the psychological recesses
and underpinnings of his characters. Obviously, none of these "phases" was hermet-
ically isolated from its siblings; characters. motifs. settings, images, and even names
had a way of spi lling across per iods . But in such distinct and unequal fil ms as flour
of the Wolf, Face to Face . Cries and Whispl'rs. Scenes From A Marriage. and even
in the recent (and declaredly " final") Fanny and Alexander, the common preva iling
concern is the perso nal psychol ogies and psycho logical interactions of the characters.
Sometimes the results are undistinguished and eas ily enough dismissed as a mixture
of histrioni cs and pop-Freud (Face to Face is. I think . bUI a poor player that struts
and frets in the shadow of its betters). Somet imes the tapestry is particul arl y well and
richly wrought: Scenes and Fanny . In the case of Persona, my especial interest here .
the result is a supreme contribution to the art of psychological observat ion, dissection.
and analysis (or impli cat ion).
Persona , more completely than Cries ami Whispers and Scenes From A MllrriaKe-
and certainly more successfully than Face to Face . undert akes to explore and hopefully
to Fathom the nat ure of a person and even of human identity. Whereas Cries W ill
Whispers and Scenes, with exquisite care and subtlety. anatomize thei r protagonists
and are satisfied to stop there. Persona extends its inquiry . creating sufficie nt momen-
tum to quest ion the inquiry itself. By the end of this felicitous hybrid of ci nematic
123
I 241Persona
magic and psychological leger-de-main, we are urged to give up as implausible our
struggles to decode the personalities or psychologies of either Elizabeth or Alma.
Bergman establishes an elaborate systemof doubles that discredits any facile distinction
between the two women, one "her" and the other her:' We may at first seem to be
closing in on (understanding) one of them, but in fact we end up with a drama whose
focus is more general and theoretical . Persona docs not so much ferret out an individual
being as use two characters to call into question theexistence of discernible individual
human identities.
Persona can be entered as a work of an in a number of apparently diverse ways .
Literally from thefirst shots to the final ones it is concerned with itself as a film, or ,
as more than a few have commented, it is a film about filmmaking. This involves or
leads to another major subject: the role of art and artists in our society. Elizabeth
Vogler's profession, Alma 's reflections on it, and at least one important denotation
of the title occupy the center spots in such a discussion of the film.
Persona, likewise, could persuasively be viewed as a film where illness is a principal
issue-mental illness. The first realistic sections of the story take place in a hospital .
When Elizabeth and Alma move to the doctor's island home, Bergman cunningly and
wittily simulates the diode of psychoanalyst and analysand. Tbe touchy boundary
distinguishing dream or illusion from waking reality pervades the film. TIle images
rhernselves-cof personae, of doublings and reflections, of light and dark , of glass,
clothing. of city versus country and private versus social worlds, of seasons, and of
blood and pain are so developed that they also could provide a "full" study of Persona.
But pursuing any of these inviting avenues is likely to befrustrating andunsatisfying.
Concentrating, for example, on the clever way that Bergman replicates the classical
psychoanalytic situation unhappily ignores more than it illuminates. A modernist
disquisition of the setf-reflexivity of the film (as David Vierling orrerS
I)
slights the
rich drama of character. And so on. . . . The dangers of one -sided interpretations
are of course familiar; they distort and di minish that which they purport to illuminate.
What makes the issue and the warning pertinent here is that the separate facets of
Persona are particu larly seductive and the totality seems so hazardous to venture .
Let me offer as the most useful and encompassing view of PtrSOM that it is a film
about the enigma or "perplex" of human identity. Ostensibly setting out to unravel
an abnormal , "acting-out" individual , Persona soon enough questions our endeavors
to comprehend discrete identities. Many critics. John Simon most notably among the
film's admirers, have asserted that it is a very difficult film ("indeed. it is probably
the most difficult film ever made"
2)
. I suggest that surely this is a gross exaggeration,
that it is not really very difficult-neither in the sense that Finnegan's Wake is difficult
because of its intricate, dense texture nor that Don Quixote is troublesome because
of its equivocal tone . What males Persona seem difficult is the tenacious pursuing
of an inadequate perspective or the refusal to accept the film's inextricable fusion of
the real and the fantastic or subjective. Finding. first, that its protagonist (either one )
is essentially unknowable in any ordinary or classical sense , and , subseq uently, that
the pursuit of an individual's personality (or persona) makes suspect the very idea of
human identity as a distinct. fathomable quality, only compounds the sense ofdifficulty.
We habitually assume that Oedipus and even Hamlet are comprehensible, that they
(or that Othello and (ago) are distinguishable, and that the quest for such comprehension
is a meaningful and vital undertaking. That these verities might be questioned is not
difficult to grasp so much as it is irksome to accept . (Likewise. we customari ly assume
a real and determinable distinction between what is factual or realistic and what is
subjectively conceived or fantasy . Bergman's denying or ignoring this is not intellec-
tuall y difficult, just awkwardly disorienting.)
Persona can be usefully imagined as an artistic map or globe of separate blocks.
Each seems an in-tact entity or aspect (so much so that critical expositions can justifiably
unravel it); and the bridges between " islands" are obscure enough to discourage any
comprehe nsive cartography. See n together, thoug h. rhe islands fonn a larger, more
complete and satisfying artistic chain .
It is initial ly tempt ing to see Persona as a distilled comment by Bergman on the
process of filmmaking and on the medium itself. Susan Sontag. for nne, finds the
movie "is not just a representation of transactions between the two characters , Alma
and Elizabeth, but a meditation on the film whi ch is ' about' them." (1 at first conceived
of describing Persona as a film about the di fficulties of dep icting a fully-dimensional
figure on film. This promised to joi n two of its obvious subjects: itself as a film and
its charact er analysis. ) Bergman anticipated entitl ing it Kinematograph) or Film. The
images from film technology and irs self-reflexivity comfortably place it in the company
of such other modernist films as 8'1, and Day f or NiKhl (perhaps even with Mall Wi,h
a Movie Camera and Beckett ' s Film)-all of which allude 10 themselves and portray
the making of a film. Vernon Young, in his general impatience with Persona, deplores
as unnecessary this calling attention to itself:
the whole range of the new (in 1972) cosmopoli tan film sernanu cs: the bcpscot ch a
la Godard. a disjunctive explosion of thematic images before the introductory titles.
frequently interspersed glimpsesof a moviecamera and sounds of the ' silence ' hom
that announces a lake . a narrator who abruptly introduces the single change of selling,
simulations of (rayed Of burning celluloid in the projector. and stray fcc -age (rom
films. principally his own ."
Persona almost yells out to be noticed ali a film. The very first shot is of the two
carbon arcs of a projector's lamp coming together . No doubt this suggests the bringing
to light Bergman's fictional cosmos or the dark underbelly of our emotional existences .
Possibly , it even carries the hint of a biblical al lusion to a god-l ike cree-or's bringing
of light 10 the darkness that was originally "upon the face of the deep: ' Specifically,
however , this image insists that we are watching a fil m, that Persona will have
someth ing to do with film as a medium. In quick succession, we see a reel of fil m
whining along the sprocket , a spotlight , frames of leader countdown. a came ra lens ,
and the carbon arcs again. At the concl usion of Persona. Alma appe ars upside down
through a viewfinder. Svcn Nykvist and Bergman himsel f are on an overhead camera
set- up fil ming her. The last shots are of the film running off of the sprocket, the arcs
separati ng and running down, and of the dark dominating. The se opening and closing
sequences function as a kind of frame for the enclosed fiction. Midway between them,
the action is interrupted by what seems to be a picture of the film's burning and
breaking apart . Also . Elizabeth. while playing Electra on stage, is being fi lmed. Since
the story of Elizabeth and Alma could easil y exis t without these "meta-fil mic" incl u-
sions, would in fact probably seem more coherent without them, it is tempti ng to
decide that Bergman' s primary interest is in depicti ng-or at least suggesting-a-the
process of constructing a film. The actual content. the two women and tteir situation ,
would accordingly be the prop or vehicle that makes it possible for him to talk about
filming a partic ular subject .
A very closely related series of shots further refines this approach: the references
to Bergman himself as a filmmaker. The by-now notorious pre-credit and credit
sequence, all of which is initially puzzling and much of which is nas h with almost
subliminal abruptness. includes a number of allusions to previous Bergman films.
John Simon has catalogued most of these connections..5 The cartoonish sequence of
a frightened man running from a skeleton and a devil comes from the very earl y
Prison. The boy who rises as jf from a morgue slab to wipe a glass and pick. up a
hook is played by Jbrgen Lindstrom, who played the son, Johan. in The Silence. The
space-age spider reca lls Karin' s image of God in Through A Glass Darkly; the nail
bei ng dri ven through a palm is at one with the images of pain and cruci fixion in The
Seventh Seal and The Virgin Spring (Mereta ' s mort ifying her flesh by dripping hot
wax on her wrist) . Elizabeth Vogler ' s name and mut eness, as well as he r black stage
wig, echo traits of Vogler in The Puce (the more accurate British renderi ng of Amibet
I 261Persona
than The Magi cian). NOI only does Bergman appear with Sve n Nykvist behind the
camera toward the end , but it is his own voice that delivers the only lines of narration
in Persona, a"the scene shifts from the hospital to the island . (Other, more spec ulative
paral lels are possible: characteris tic themes and anticipations of subsequent films-the
fasci nation with drea ms that haunt an arti st' s psyche in Hour of the Wolf and the
slaughtered sheep in A Passion.v
Not only, then , does Persona seem to be about that mars h-like subject, the nature
of art , but the evidence tempts us to acce pt it as a film about Ingmar Bergma n's
creative history, As Simon suggests. in his reconditel y winy reworking of Ionesco' s
"Lesson," "these preliminary shots ontogenetically recapitulate the phyl ogeny of film.
BUI . .. these shots may also beemblemat ic of Bergman' s previous ci nematic output,
of the main themes of his oc vre.?" Perhaps, to extend this argument, the perspective
of the boy who surrounds the story proper is that of Bergman himself (as several have
suggested), a persona representing the artist as a sensitive youth. It is, moreover, the
arti st at work on one of his favored themes: the uncovering of a human persona .
But such an approach , though provisionally usefu l. is ultimately unsatisfying. Most
obv iously. its emphasis sits wrong. It gives too much of the actio n and of the drama
subordinate place . A tactful criticism of Persona, one that sits righ t, has to acknowledge
that it is not the framin g sequences and the ci nematic pyrotechnics Ihal impress us
most, but what occu rs between Alma and Elizabeth. We feel them to be the pro-
tagonists-not film, film history, or Bergman' s art .
It seems , therefore , reasonable to reverse this emphasis and view it as a film thai
exposes the character, nature, and psychology of irs mai n figures . Bergman, especially
in this " period" of his work . is, after all, much more in the tradition of Dostoevsky
than of the avant -garde. Simon , in fact, goes so far as to declare: "Never before in
film has the derail ed psyche been examined more penetratingly, never befo re has the
drama been played so consistently beneath the surface, yet witho ut the slightest sacrifice
in palpable excitement ."? Much in Persona supports Simon's contention (esc hewing
quibbles over his hyperbolic " Never") . The presenting occasion is a psychiatric malaise;
the personal transactions are designed to be therape utic. The "palpable exc itement"
is that of a psychol ogical drama, and a great dea l of the imagery and dream-l ike
quality is appropriate 10 such a drama.
Elizabeth is the decl ared patie nt. Her ass umed mut eness and torpor, the hospital
setting, the psychiatrist' s presentation of the "case' to the psychiatric nurse as well
as her solicitous speec h about the terri ble burden of j ust "being" all imply Ihat the
actress is mentall y ill. She is to betreated and the therapy will involve understanding
her and remedi at ing her hurt s .
It sounds plausi ble; the kicker is that no real treatment (of Elizabeth) is in evide nce,
nor does there seem to be much probing or discoveri ng of her . From the time Alma
engages the case, there are reasons to suspect this surface arrangement. When she
introd uces hersel f, the nurse is a little too frie ndly, talka tive, and self- revea ling . She
vol untecrs-and these are her first remarks to Elizabeth-c-" am twent y-five and en-
gaged to be marri ed. I graduated from nursing sc hool two years ago , My parent s have
a fann . My mother was also a nurse ," Elizabe th' s silence is soon called into quest ion
as a symptom. Alma wonders to the doct or if it isn' t a sign of strength, of a conscious,
rational deci sion. Alma even wonders if she will be able to cope with such mental
and emotional strength. When Alma leaves Elizabeth' s room and we first see the
pati ent alone, she watches the newscast from Saigon, with the body counts and the
bonze inunolat ing himsel f. Her silent horror see ms psychologically appropriate, not
a pathol ogical symptom.
What does unfold is an almost too cl ear parody or the class ical psychoanalytic
situatic n-c-but one in which the dec lared patient and the therapist exc hange pos itions .
Alma slips into the role of the analy sand-sometimes ingenuously garrulous, sometimes
moody and reflecti ve or resentful , occasionall y intensely reveal ing of hersel f. The
Personal I27
lighti ng. the moods, the tone , and the setti ngs change frequentl y and rapidly-but
throughout, it is Alma, the psychiatric nurse and appoi nted therapi st , who displays
herself. Many of the detail s suggest that Elizabeth is occupying the role of the class ical
Freudian analyst. She is doggedl y, infuri atingly silent, but, as Alma appreciatively
observes . a good listener . In the electri c sce ne where Alma relates (confesses) her
orgias tic encounter on the beach and subsequent abortion, Elizabeth s ts in the back-
ground. behind the light , assuming the positi on Freud prescribed for un analyst . 'She
diligentl y resists passing any j udgment , all the while seeming attenti ve, caring. and
comprehending.
Alma, accordingly, performs the part of the traditional analysand-altemately sturdy
and engagi ng, angry and hurt . A good deal of her increasi ngly frenetic reacti ons can
be likened to the stripping away of the patient ' s defens es . characteristic of the earl y
stages of an analysis. The cracking through to Alma. her donnin g and shedding of
glasses and hats , her outbursts and regroupin gs, and the dream-like world she inhabi ts
all support this construction. Elizabeth's silence, which at first is congenial to Alma.
soon becomes irritating and provocative , much like the taciturnity of a classical analyst.
Alma becomes bitter, frant ic to get a response from her, to make her say something--to
make the doctor decla re herself. Like a relativel y insecure and defenseless patient,
Al ma feels very vulnerable and betrayed , especia lly when she discoversthat Elizabeth
has been chatting about her in the letter to the doct or and evidently taking her less
than seriously.
The most effective dynamics that occur in a successful psychoanalysis are the
transferences the patient expe riences and the projecti ons hedeposits onto the therapi st.
Surely, one of the keys to unlocking Alma and much of what she says i s to appreciate
how she projects her own feelings. history. and eve n identity onto Elizabeth. Thi s
makes sense of the confusion surround ing the hallucinated visit of Mr. Vogler (Alma
is imagi ning herself as Elizabe th). her apparent knowledge of Elizabeth's past and of
her relationship to her son. and-more dramatically-the joined image of them near
the end . with Alma ' s hysteri cal assertion, "I' m not you." Their persons have merged
in the nurse ' s mi nd and she feels overtaken.
The tonal emphasis of the film. the stressing of personal psychobgies, and the
psychoanalytic metaphor all argue for the view thai Simon ' s comment suggests, that
peeling the human onion is Bergman 's game here. But this. too. proves to be an
ultimately insufficient view of the movie . It has the obvious liability of ignoring the
frame of Persona, its meta-filmicness , and, as Sontag has cautioned , "Any account
which leaves out or dismisses as incidental how Persona begi ns and ends hasn' t been
talking about the film that Bergman made ."
g
More important. as the unfolding of a
protagonist-c-or of two of them-Pt'rsolla is unclear and unresolved. The figures don't
gel l: we certainly are not left comfortable in our understanding of chern. Th e therapeuti c
transactions, both the literal one undertaken and the (reversed) analytic one mimicked,
figure unclear ly in the film. The attitude toward them, their place , and even their
efficacy arc vague. Very likely, as Sontag advi ses. "to understand PUS,IIU . the viewer
must go beyond the psychologica l point of view."?
Sontag. in fact. offers a useful next gambit here. It is futile, she finds , and even
wrong- headed to try defi nitively 10 separate fantasy from reality or to reconcile appa-
rently contradictory internal relat ions hips; "The viewer can only move toward , but
neve r achieve. certainty about the action."!" Like so much else in the "new narratives"
(the fictions of Robbe-Gri llet . Resnais' Morienbod. Antonioni 's and Blow-
Up ), Persona systematically thwarts the desire to know. that hallowed pursuit of
plot-followers. Her view. rather, is that. "the construction of Persona is best described
in terms of this (modernist] variations-on-a-theme fonn . The theme is that of doubling;
the varia tions are those that foll ow from the leading possibilities of that theme ...
such as duplication. inversion, reciprocal exchange . unit y and fission , and repetiti on.,,11
Such a revaluat ion of the film usefully recognizes the importance of formali stic
I 28IPt'rsolla
concerns and emphasizes what are surely amo ng Persona' major eleme nt". One can,
as Sontag does, draw parallels between different types of doubli ng: thedivi ded person,
the frame (or art) versus the story contained or reflected , the interior versus the external
worlds. As an attempt to elucidate the entirety of Persona, though, it falls short
' because it smacks more of the cri tically cleve r than of the humanistic and comprehen-
sive. Knowing that reflec tions or doublings abound does not go very far toward
resolving our views of the two women, nor does it even help to place the psychiatric
dimension very persuasively.
Thi s returns me to my initial urging: that Persona is best seen as a film that begins
by seeming to be tbe psychological tale of a disturbed actress, but lbal ends up being
a philosophically much larger opus-one that skeptically examines the poss ibility of
knowing someone and questions whether it is eve n intellectually tenable to talk of
individual, dist inct identities , Such a reading not only accommodates all of the major
pieces in the film (those menti oned already as well 3S others), but also explains why
we do not leave really knowi ng Elizabeth-or Alma .
The immediate occasion of the film, Elizabeth's presence in the hospital. suggests
that our job is gradually to come to an understanding of Elizabeth, quite likely as she
and her examiners veer toward that same unders tanding . Her presenting symptoms
are clear and presumably pathological : for some months she has refused to talk and
has remained ncar-cata tonic. surely abnormal behavior. Elizabeth would seem a fine
candidate for diagnosis and therapy-c-except for the early intimations by the doctor
and Alma that perhaps she is not responding irrationally,
Since there is no real point in Elizabe th's remain ing in the hospital, the doctor
suggest s that she and nurse Alma move to her summer place by the sea . She goes on,
in what stands out in the drama as a set piece of expos ition (Sontag is "incl ined to
impute a privileged status to the speech"). explaining Elizabe th, her situation, her
choices , and even her prospects to the pat ient:
I under stand you know, The hopeles s dream of ' being,' not seemi ng, hUI being,
At every waking moment alert , The gulf betwee n what you are with others and what
) '00 are alone . The vertigo and the constant hunger 10 be unmasked . To he seen
through . . . rerhaps even wiped out . Every inflexion and every gesture a lie . .
every smile a grimace. Suicide " No, 100 vulgar . BUI you can refuse 10 move . Refuse
to talk ... so that )' OU don ', have 10 lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you don't
play any pans or make any wrong gestures. Or so you though t . BUI reality is diabolical .
Your hiding place isn't watertig ht. Life trickles in from the oet side . And you're forced
10 react . No one asks whether u' s genuine or nor. whether you ' re true or false. Such
things rnarter only in the theatre . and hardly there either . I understand why you don't
speak, why you don't ITNJVC. , I understand it and admire you for It . When you've
played it to the end , you can drop il ali you drop your oeber parts.
Elizabeth as a patient just does n't hold up. In the course of the doctor's speech ,
the malade evanesces and becornes-c-again-c-t he actress . Although ostensibly speakin g
as a psychiatrist . the doctor in fact sounds more like an Existentialist philosopher, a
sociologist. or a social game theorist. Her understanding is impersonal, of general
conditions and universal reactions. Moreover . Elizabeth is, it seems, bei ng dismissed
as rat ional, that is, as havi ng- for reasons that arc not hizarre-c-deci ded not to speak .
You can' t really commit someone for struggling not to lie,
The other , only slightly less overt evidence that we are to witness a psyche being
spread out (intelligibly) before us is the psychoanalytic situation Bergman simulates.
Of all of the branches and vagar ies of psychotherapy. no discipline is as exac tingly.
laboriously, indulgently dedicat ed to the understandi ng of a part icular huma n psyche
as is analysis. If anybody is devoted to tracking our inner recesses and success fully
decodi ng them, it is these archeologists of humanity. To the extent that Bergman
constructs a parallel between what transpires between patient and analyst and what
goes on between Alma and Elizabeth . the parallel could not be more fitting , How
Pers(I11ll
'12Q
right for a story that is goi ng to examine (he derailed psyche with unprecedented
penetration to employ as one of its major structures an analytic hour .
Agai n fine. except that it is the admitted patient who functions a, the doctor .
and--evcn gliding over this readjustment-c-Alma' s "treatment" is far more truncated
and unresol ved even than that of Freud's Dora. She is more fragmented md unknown
(by us and by hersel f) at the end than she wax at the beginning. and nOI j ust because
her superficia l images of hersel f have been exploded. More important. the focus or
thrust shifts j ust about the time when the film seems to bum and melt .
Alma is no more a patient to beanalyzed and understood than Elizabeth is-s-because
Bergman' s real interest is to suggest/or a while how difficult it is to know someone
and then to imply that the whole venture may be an absurdity. The rest of the major
elements in Persona all function to suggest that we may be deluding ourselves in
thinking that knowable individual human identities exist. The boundaries between
people are illusory. as are the boundaries separating reality from fantasy.
The suspicion that symptoms do not make an illness nor admission ttl a hospital a
patient. the parodic deflat ion of that ultimate mode of psychological exploration. the
relationship between the film we are reminded we are watching and the story it unfolds,
the enigmatic and shifting relationship between the two women. the elaborate congeries
of doublingx. mirrors. and reflectors. of splits and fragmenting. the occasional glimpses
of external political realities (the Warsaw ghetto and Saigon). and the concern with
an . [heater , and literature all become more cohere nt and intelligible from this perspec
tive, Each contributes to an essentially philosophical (certai nly "beyond psychology")
discussion of the nebulousness of the human quagmire. the questionable determinacy
of personal boundaries and individual identities.
Psychoanalysis, with its vas ..t theory. leisurely pace. and safely insulated theater of
operatio n. is at least a useful image of the most exhaustive of psychotherapies. But
art . too. has its traditional place as a route 10 psychological unders tanding. (Crassly
simplified: you want to underst and people. read Oedipus, Alma early tells Elizabeth
how tremendously important the theater is, "especially for people with problems.")
And among an forms, film is arguably the most wide-ranging and competent reflector
of the human figure. It has the persuasive concreteness and detail of photography.
plus the advantage of motion. It has the capability of literally showing us someone
from every conceivable angle. even of altering the time-forward or backward-e-at
will. Unlike the novelist. the filmmaker can smoothly incorporate a variety of point"
of view into his film. alternately switching from one to another. (Here is how our
heroi ne saw herself a decade ago; here is how she looks to Elizabeth----or to us-c-now;
here is how she will look to omniscience.) What a seemingly remarkable vehicle for
displaying a character!
Yet. Bergman still finds it lacking. The introduction effectively announces that a
film is being made and shown. (The center portion will define the psychological
content of that film. ) But the going is awkward and jerky. barely cohering. The
controlling artist is both aided and stymied by the experience he brings to this endeavor.
The pre-credit sequence includes shots from ear lier Bergman films ar d alludes to
familiar themes and even obsessions (the pains and dislocations of existence): previ-
ously met char-deters (the boy) slip into the new work-as will old names re-echo. This
is pan of the accumulated baggage the artist must control and give unlet to. besides .
of course, mastering the techniques of his medium (a the ~ h of Bergman and Nykvist
at the camera playfully reminds us). The prospects are dizzyingly difficult . By mid-film
it is as if neither the mind of Alma nor the frames of Bergman's making can contain
what I!' being acted out . They split. melt. fragment -with Alma on screen end Bergman
behind the screen simultaneously straining to regruup and return things to a focused
view. When. at the end. the reel runs off of the sprocket and the carbon arcs darken.
the medium itself seems to be confessing its incapacity. The subject, despite all the
urtist can bring to hear (his experiences. his expertise . his concerns). is too difficult
130i Pumlla
and co mplex to besuccessfully put in the ca n. The camera-no more than the analyst -
ca n present us with a clear and tidy view of Alma: (I ass ume. by this lime. Alma is
(he more likel y pati ent or subject).
But thi s. in is ((I outstridc Illy qu arry . It is largel y throu gh his imagery that
Bergman first tries to dra w his figures out and then co ncedes the fut ility of the venture.
The title contai ns, of course. the image that introduces the li lm. Pressured by Svensk
Filmindustris di sapproval, Bergman reco nsidered his original title. Film, and settled
upon Persona, ,It has become customary to include. in each new analysis of Persona,
a discussion of the tit le. The cus tom should he "Persona' originally meant
(or means) the role. part , or mas k one assumes-usually in a dramatic context: Elizabeth
was impersonating Electra whe n she called a hah to her "normalcy." It also denotes
the character behind the mask , which immediately the issue of whether the role
a character plays is the sa me as or ant ithe tica l to the player. Arc we, as an Existentialist
line of thought might ask, the roles we perform? Do we become them? To thiv Lati n
construing or the term. obvio us ly cognate with our "person," Carl Jung add ed a seco nd
meaning. " Persona" was. fur him, an outer mask. worn whe n among others and
reflect ing the role soc iety imposed on us. II is kin to the personali ty we construct. (he
face we prepare " to meet the faces that we meet." Like any mack. it serves 10 impress
and to conceal .
Elizabet h. as an actress, i:-. of course a co llection of professional personae. She
readil y ass umes and sheds iden tities. Her profc ..sion is a metaphor for the roles each
of Us plays. deceptively and defe nsively camouflagi ng his or her "rear' self'. Her
..ilencc. then , amounts to J refusal to continue the deception: (Alma asks. desperately,
if it is so impo rtant not [0 lie ). Th is strategy to act wi th integrity. though , is judged
ineffe ctual. The doc tor sees her maneuver as j ust another pan, one that she sho uld
play out-like the she loses interest in it. I f. accordina to Jun g. "A
complete udandonmenr of our persona wo uld . . . lead to a state (If mute unconsciou s-
ness : ' Ic,l\'1I1 g a human bei ng 10 "s tand face to face with his nak ed se lf (a nd with the
absolutd : ' 1.l for Ber gman such ,I strippi ng away amounts to an imposs ible delu sion :
there an: only person ae.
The do ubles and refl ectors in Persona arc another way or saying thai we arc. at
base , unint egrared fragments . l have . with ..uspcct glibness. scu led on Alma as the
effective focus of the film. She is the image of the analysand being treated: we learn
a number of details about her past: she evidently cracks up, and-as Sontag righ tfully
argues-many of the surreal goings-on arc bes t seen as occurring in Alma's mind
(Elizabeth's nocturnal visit 10 her. the episode with Mr. Vogler) . B UI thi s was proffered
tent ati vel y and with reservations.
It is more helpful to view Alma and Elizabeth as doubles. :IS co mplementary aspects
of consciousness: the outwa rd mask or facade (persona) and the inner soul (Alma),
the si lent. see mi ngly uncommun icat ive figure and the talkati ve guileless one. the
healthy therapi st and the infirm pati ent (whi chever happens to he which). of-in
Sontag' s tenus-c-hiding (muteness) and showi ng forth , and or co nscio us existence
(realistic. tangible ) and subconscious (fa ntasied I exis tence . Such a view leads In ;10
appreciation of Ber gman' s imagery. It also reinforces the notion that a person, one
and indivisible. is an illusion.
Ber gman has at limes traced the origins of Persona to his detecting a similarity
between Liv Ullman (in a Norwegian film) and Bibi Anderson . Vernon Young finds
the pattern much more profoundly etched in his art .
From the moment Bergman foot in the theatre. the dopplrgtlnxe,.., the twin. the
fraternal emblem. Inc complemen t and the rival. the porsnnar Imash or person..),
the mut ually hos ttle or infatuate ge nders had con-ututcd hi.. world ... [fnun hi.. carl)'
plays th rough Tilt' Srventh Seal and The Ntll..t'd Night tn nil ' Sifl"lICt'). Hihl and Liv
is a in u subject ion to the und islcxlgcahlc . . . or duality.
dua litv . dualit v! 1.J
Personal J3J
The theme of doubling is more exte nsi vely de veloped in Persona tt an in any of
Ber gman' s other film!'>. He is concerned in it to create the image of a divided person.
a split identity-s-and then to portray the two halves as ul timately irreconcilable. The
theme launched before the credits. where the boy traces on the glass the co ntours
of a woman that alternately suggests the two actresses.
Wi thin the talc itself, Al ma gent ly advances this motif when she wonders what
interest Elizabe th could possibl y have in her. A lillie embarra ssed. a little stars truc k.
she exclai ms, " 1 ought to be like you:' Th is reminds her of having seen the actress
on screen and then looking in a mirror to discover: " Why. we look alike Oh. you're
much prettier but we 1001.,: alike . I co uld change myself into ),ou if I tried hard. I mean
inside me . You could arrange yourself into me like this [she snaps):' This apparently
innocent exchange is rel lingty followed by the fil m's first ambiguous narrat ive se-
qur.: nce , Alma rests her head on the table (it is almos t morning) and we hear a voice
adv isi ng her ttl go 10 bed-s- pres umably Alma' s proj ect ion , in her mind . of Elizabeth' s
voice .
In the next episode. Elizabeth's surrea l vivit to Alma' s bedroom, the boundaries
between what IS rea l and what envisioned arc indetermi nate. Th e lighting. has altered
to suggest a much more airy and diaphonous tone: the veil-like mate-iuls and the
logistics of the two doors with their effectively parallel halls enhance this ambiguity .
We have been shifted to a new dramati c or psychological level-...o ne that would be
di minished by ca lling it a dream or hallucin ation . though it certainly conveys some
of clements. What unfolds is an expressionistic revel at ion of Alma ' s psych ic
sturc after her long night. Obviousl y. she' d like to be visited by Elizabe th and for
Elizabeth to take some initiative to conti nue the closeness. Si nce a given is that
Elizabeth won 't talk. a somnambulant, si lent visitation is fitti ng. Culmi nating this
encounter . which almost arranged like a symphony in white and black, is thei r
embrace; the bounda ries betwee n the two figures become nebul ous. mer ged . blurred .
When Elizabeth stands beside Alma and fingers her hair bad. showing a closene ss
of person and look, she is only (in Alma' s mind . still ) showing what Alma earl ier
had descr ibed discoveri ng in the mirror-their likeness . We now see that mirror ' s
reflection of their relationship. in an image that will recur several more times in the
film when thei r profiles overlap.
The last such instance . Alma ' s twice-delivered catec hism/i ndic tme nt of Elizabeth,
imrod u,.-es the mos t extensive sequence of doubling in all o f Persona . The e pisode
is, of course. capped by the two- sided face that Bergman gradually constru cts (which
recalls the figure the hoy wiped onto the glass in the preface 10 the fi lm), Alma's
reconstruction of Eli zabeth' s lack of motherl ines s, Elizabeth' s pregnancy , attempted
abortio n. and unsuccessful mot herin g arc only momentaril y puzzlin g. She "knows"
some of these details bec ause they in fact apply to her and she is prcject ir g them onto
Elizabeth. It is Alma. reme mber, who had the abort ion. In the scree nplay. where the
speech is only delivered once, she spea ks in her own person (' T')-for Elizabe th.
Many of Alma 's charges are particularizat ions of the kind of doubts and misgivin gs
co mmo nly experienced by women who are pregnant or contemplating Her
cl aim that Eliza beth lacked motherliness and became pregnant to prove her femininity
would, for example, be recogni zed by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex as a
consequence of the myth of the mat erna! instinct. That she. once pregnant. feared the
responsibility (the being tied down). the pai n. and the pos sibilit y of dyi ng would
hard ly distinguish Elizabeth. Al ma acc uses her of having only acted the part of the
happy expectan t mother . and of want ing to abort, whi ch sounds very much like the
ordinary misgi vings: " Do I really want this ? I think I'd like to ca nce l." Alma charges
Elizabeth with havi ng begun to hate the child and of ha ving hoped for a stillbirth-not
exactly a start ling fant asy for an an xious prospecti ve mother- sort of a dramatic way
of sayi ng. " I' dli ke out." Alma conti nues. tapping typi cal enough parental gui lts about
feeling indifferent toward one'v ch ild and wanting to he left alone.
132,Pa.\fmll
Des pite the intensity of the harangue und the illu..ion \)1 personal nc... . though.
ne ither wo man is rea lly Individuated. Whal we ;10: let t wi th . rather tha n a re... elation
of Elizabeth or even of Alma. is a drama with in the: fihu-c-complctc with ih own
mise-en-scene, lighting . compos ition. and .. l I. ftel,:t!oo-ahout the two halves PI"
complementary sides of a dubiou!'ol)' joined IlC"Onaill) . Alma ..ecm- 10 bethe !'>JX.tkin)!
hall. verbuhzing for the ... ilcm Elizabeth Running the Illunolng through 1\\ 1(1..' . fiN
from the pe rspective or Alma and then 01 Elizabeth. give... credence 10 the Ide" Ihal
these are IWO halves of a 'iin!!le human cnlil) So doe!'> the way Bergman darken..
reciprocal side of their fuccv prior It) juxtapovmg them. II make.. themat ic en e II I
..ee the IWO lace' JOInedtwuh the ..hadowy ide!'> eliminated}; wc vc seen the indictment
from both view... . BU! ju ..t a!'> Ihi .. happen!'>. Alma feel .. herself engul fed b)' the trgure
of Elizabeth and protectx, " Nil. I' m nol you I don't fed .I!'> )OU do . I'm Alma [Hut
half of "her " Iacc I' Ih31 of Hhzabeth .] I'm ouly here III help. I'm nOI Elizabeth
Vogler : ' The face itself'. in fact. seem... about to break apart trorn il. own internal
tension . It' !,> an eerie. distu rbing. and flickering construcuon-c-Ihc cpposue olhartuoru-
ous . Its effect, like that of the pvychoanal yt ic metaphor . is I I I suggesl that two halve...
lin not make n Y. hole . "The two women: ' as Nancy Scholar decides, "ran be "CL'n as
mask and shadow respec t!vely. at the same umc a.. they play out the drama 01 idcn -
tifi carion and projection between two ... BUI, "Fusion within [he ..e lf. resolut ion
of rbc feeli ngs ofdivision. and unity between the eel vcs , prmc impos sible 10su..tain "I Ii
In contrast "" nh an) sense of intcgruuvn Ih;11 a character 'IUd) would ordinarii)
de ..clop. is a welter of Image... of di vision ami frugmentauon lhe merged shot of
Alma and Elizabeth. with il.. disturbmg -cam. is prefigured h) the photo of her ..on
that Elizabeth almo:..1 cerc moniou..l> tear ...-u!l\.e. Irorn hlp to tltlllom- .lIld by the
caes ura in the middle or the movie , \..hich bcgm.. wi th (he trume of Alma', cracking
apart tals o vert icully j The famed picture 01 the hoy in the Warsaw gbetto round-up
that haunt s Elizabet h is studied III part ial close-ups . as If',ail1 lyt better to cumpre hend
the ma gnitude of the hor ror. IUnfortunately ...cell piecemeal the res ul t is rcnuniwcm
of the Kul eshov experimen t with context: the isolated fragments fail to convey the
horri fic enuuion or tone of the entire compovi tion.t
Gl ass or gfasses is a wonderfully economic metaphor lor ....cemg, reflect ing. rt.'l.:"ord-
in,!:! , ;tOd di"'inlegration. and Persona full 01 gla..... The fir'l ... s we i.. III
n111rgue"-l ike I:hambe-r at the beginning . TIle hoy up and .. his h.tnd o' er
the Ird""l ueenl gla.'i!> bctv.\.-c:n and camera (u!' and him 10 Iral,.c Ihe image of Alma!
Eliz abe lh lhat Ihe remainder or Ihe film will presumably nc.h out. Pan of Alma's
\ cry "'pri(!.ht l) outfn IS a p.lir of clear reading gla.... gla . seo' tha t ... he ..cry
put s on 10 read (Mr. Vog ler's 10 Elizabeth and , later . 1:Ii1.aht:th!'> 10 Ihe doctorl .
As Alma reads the un!'oea led leller 10 the doclor , Bergman il clear thai we :'lrc
watching Ihis Ihro ugh the car's winds hiel d (the arc ill wor"-) and from assort ed
per spc'<:liv es . 1I !'> ht.' abrupll y Cliis fro m one angle to annl hef-each one showi ng
looking IhfllUglt her gla...scs ;11 Ihe paJll:r. The leit er ilsclf is a rencction 01 Alma . as
a chann ing and pleasant enough co mpanion. fun 10 study. hUI who.. ang uis heJ c:\pcn -
ences arc hardl y 10 be gra nted profundity or evc:n confidentiality. Alma. sha nered .
gets ou l of Ihe car and walks 10 it (ltlnd. obviously checking: hCf'e1f in rellc(' linn :
(a mirror ' s Image . n: meml'ler, once suggested 10 her thai ..he loo"-ed like Elizaoclh) .
Opposcl1 , Ihlmgh . (0 Ihe clear glasses Ihal 'hould facililale secm!! are lhe lhlr k nne ..
that Alma onn:.. whe n. afte r read ing Ihe lellef . she is angry . When ElizahC"th refu:ooes
her plea 10 speak, Al ma da ....hcs (he m 10 rhe grounJ , Very ..hurt l)'. in her
she will pmvide Mr. Vogler With da rk gla.. glassC!'i Ihat h:'lvc led many to assume
he is blind. (Bl ind or noL hc faib to di sti ngUish hi!> wife from her play c:r-al lea!'>t in
Alma s choreography. ) Dar"- or clear glasses see m 10 ma ke lillie difference . likewise.
the image Ihe boy uncovers :' 11 Ihe be ginning IS a blind ; the Iilm co ncl udes wilh Ihe
same inlerposed image . with nl) eni gmas d arifil."d .
Gl as s ab o shatters and Wh en Alma breaks il glass on the pat io . she
PaswUll 133
leaves a shard in Elizabeth's path-hoping to pie rce throu gh to her. Pricked. Elizabeth
does bleed . and even utters an "ouch," But Alma's achievement is empty-as she
watches it through a glass door that then crac ks (in her mind), heralding the disi nteg-
ration of the film frames and the surrea listic inter lude (fragments from di rec tor) .
Fina lly, we are reminded that all of this is being seen and recorded through a glass
lens and imprinted upo n the glass- like celluloi d stock. But spectacles, glass pane.
lens. or film transparency-all transmit obsc urely and are devalued. Seei ng a person,
plain and straig ht. is as unsure a venture as trying symbolically to cut through to him
ur her. (It was only five years before that Ber gman had distributed a fil m under the
title Through A Glass Darkly. )
Bergman' s camera lavishes particular attention upon faces and hands. Both arc shot
repeatedl y in close-up. Sometimes they are e xplicitly linked. as . for exampl e. whe n
the boy's hand (races the woman' s face on the glass . More ofte n they arc seen alone .
Separately or together, though . the possibility that they ca n hel p to fix en ide ntity is
pursued. Des pite the fact that the faces of both act resses are remarkably, almost
lcgcndar ily exp ressi ve and tha t we see a great dea l of them . by the time o f the mer ged
shot they have been hovering in and around each other's orbit. blurri ng the borders
that separate them so effectively tha t a face is no longer a reliable index of either
identity . Physiognomies. like psyc hologies, become: confused. Hands, si milarly. as-
sume generic rather than individual proportions . They can be macabre (the vampirish
shadow of a hand in the morgue). or symbolic of a crucifixion- like agc ty (the mail
hammered into the palm). or aged and withered (also in the morgue sequence), or
searching-reaching (the boy's). charmingly beautiful or angrily clawi ng. But, despite
Alma's admonition that it is da ngerous to com pare hands (or maybe in line with the
warning). they remain independent of personal character. One observer. surveying a
number of later Bergman fil ms. indicates their impo rtance: " Hand and face. as an
image cl uster , symbo lize. when used negat ivel y. the lack of and sea rch for ide nt ity
and co mmunica tion and, positi vel y, a communion of love ," 16 The singular "pos itive"
instance in Per sona occurs as they clean mushr ooms: the preponderance suggests a
lack of identi ty and communica tion . Thinking. incident all y. of the si milarity of Hibi
Anderson and Liv Ullman. Ber gman recall ed how he " thought it would be wonderful
to write something about peo ple who lose their ident ities in eac h other. . .. Sudden ly
I got the idea of their sitti ng comparing hands . And that was the first imagc----of the
two women sitting comparing hands and wearing big hats." 17
In a parallel way. the added-on externals, the clo thing. wor k to subvert the separ-
ableness of the protagonists. At one extreme. they appear in the uniforms of their
respective professions . the social roles they have assumed . Alma begins and ends in
her nurse's outfit. She confides to Elizabeth her admiration of the old m rsev. " Who
have always worn uniforms ." She 'ices this as "devoting yuur whole life to something."
which reasonably translates a... being able successfully 10 identify wi th a role and
submerge yourself in it. Elizabeth is shown both at the vcry beginning and end of the
film in the costume of Electra. her last thea trical role .
At the summer hoc...e . each i, wearing "civi lian" clothing. Rather than representing
individual . distinct choices. though. thei r dress is a chiaroscuro that al ternately con tras ts
.IOJ con nec ts Alma and Elizabeth. Their dresses and large-brimmed hat s t( nd to differ
on ly in shades-c-of black. grey, and white. The shades become ever closer. unt il there
arc times (late at nigh! in the kitchen and duri ng Mr. Vog ler's visit) wile 1 their dark
dresses like their faces-llow indistinguishably into each other. Clothes nrc no 1110re
hel pful Ih.1O faces in mak ing di stincti ons. Onl y to the extent thai the)' artificially
impose a profcsviona l role urc they functional in deter mining identities . and the idcn -
lities of " nurse" and Elec tra arc overtly impersonal.
Speech and language func tion muc h the same way for Bergman. Like the clothes
which ... hould distinguish people. high lighting their singularity. our words should serve
10 reflect and reveal us-c-to " tell" us: to another. to a p... ychcanalyst (with whom

vpecch ami vilence are uniquel y and importantly j uxtap osed) . and even to ourselves .
words , like hat -, and can be put on and remove d 31will . or. more III the point
in Bergman ", cosmos. silence can be slipped into much like a co- tumc. Language.
:-- fX C4.,' h. and vilcncc become even more important metaphors in f a w lI/tl than they
were in the earl ier The Fan' and Tilt' Silencr ,
Humans are human (individuall y and meaningfull y so) largd) beca use they use
langua ge 10 communica te. Th is key to cxprcvsion and identity was rejected by Elizabe th
even before the ..tory began. Alma. who starts very normall y telling Elizabeth all
about hen-elf. ends up reduced to vocalizing incoher ent hits of nonsen se . "We are
witncss ing: ' John Simon rim". "after the qoc-tioning of the value of words. thl' very
breakdown of speech. Silence at one end. gibberish at the other.. , ." Even the radio.
he co ntinues . " a prime medium of vcrh ul communica tion. here seems III go berserk
and In bemoan the I:Jd of communica non.v'"
Alma. who carries the- burden of verbal expression. rail, ultimately to use language
10 etch herself. Increasingly pressured by the emotion al need to C' jXN: and ex plain
herself. rather than politely to fill and he rcavsuring, she becomes progressively
more incoherent . The bils ( If gibberi sh to whic h he dcwcndv near the end arc. of
course . choice: " Many words and then nausea." "Hut I ought 10 : ' .. " desperate
perhap..... " It", called , . , no-no . no " . we . , . I: ' "I he incredible pain" Much
like the jarringl y projected pictorial image at the begtnnlng and in the middle-c-Ior
like :lny other collage of modernist imagesl. they offer an effect or impression . in this
case the psychic furni shings of an anxious ego. one that doubt s the communicati ve
capacity or word s.
Elizabeth. of course. has rejected the inherited eloquence of our cultural tradition.
because-e-lf we can trust the doctor's analy vis-c-languagc i"l fraudulent. hypocritical .
LTueJ. and inadequate. To speak is inexorably to lie. When Alma' s great effort s fina lly
coerce speec h from Elizabeth. her pyrrhic achi evement i, litera lly " Nothing: ' The
uctrcs-, ha:-- nothing to say. word s com say nothinu . not hing is worth saying. and. since
she is only echoing (he nurse. the sugges tion is that both women arc alone here.
Language has failed as a communicator , It has parti cularly failed :1"1 a means of defining
and expressing the self. The hom that sits. like a punctuation mark . 011 the soundtrack
is with equal propriety heard ,I' a foghorn or a, a studio silence horn .
The overwhel ming bulk of Persona conce ntrates on the intrap sychi c , Irugg lc of
Alma -Elizabeth for per sona l clarification. But Bergman doc s not ignore the ext ernal
world and its contribution . We each obviously inherit an outside realit y that helps
mold us and that impin ges upon our images of ourselves. and we need 10 integrate
Ihi, realit y into our psychic beings . That world is conveyed through the art ifices of
myth. legend . and poetry and. comparatively bluntl y. throu gh hi story-including co n-
temporar y events The ident ities we construct, then. arc in part forged OUI of an and
cir cumstances . In /' a sOI/(J . the oute r world. like the inner one, proves invufficicnt 10
confer personal identit y.
The politi cal world th;1I Eli zabeth inherit , and occ upies i:"o twice interjected into this
otherwi se private drama , She carries wit h ber the famed pic ture of the Jewish boy in
the Warsaw ghetto. and horrified . she watches an American news report from Vietnam:
a body count dcli\'ert:d a, a Buddhisl monk immnl ales himsel f in protest. These are
not. I "Iugge:--1. mer e hislriunic a... many h' l...t) revie \\en. have <"ornplai ned ,
Vcr} effi cient ly. Bl!rgman has inn)rporateo two indic ting llcca,iuns uf our gross
inhumanil)'. fh: has also. Ihrough Ihem . hnw hewi, m i"l no longer a prdct icOJI
ftlul c In ide-nt it}'. II was hy Iheir ex ploit:-. Ihal ... uc:h figure, a, Odys"l cus and King
Arthur could reli ably a,scrt their heroic natures. which were funda mental parts of
thL'i r idenlilic:-- . Such is no longer possihl e. Not nnly i, "IC\'erely ",carred by
the thcy arc abo crises Ihat precl ude heroic actiun and the refore hemic
identity . To pn)le'l individually either Ihe ihsauh ujXmthe- ghetto or the " pac ifica tion"
campaign would have been a futil e ge:--t ure (1'01 141 1 in one ca..I.:) ,
" ('(.\( 1111/1 I J)
Bergman' s literary references infer the same- concl usion . At the end of The Silence,
Johan carri es onto the train with him A Hera of Our Time, The begi nning and end of
Persona find the same young acto r, Jorgen Lindstrom. again reading Lermont ov'v
novel. Thi s 1840 Russian fiction. so consc iously influenced hy the F-rench and by
Byron (thro ugh French transl ations) provid es an ironic comment on Hergruun' vdrama .
Implicit in Lermontov's story. its sources (the world -weary figure" of Byr on }. hi"
title . and even in his narra tive stru cture: (with its mult iple narr ator s .md disrupted
chronology) is the question of whether and how heroic action is possible. To the extent
that Pechorin, thehero , is cast larger Ihan Iife-and certainly larger than the inadeq uate
world he was doomed to traverse-s-the issue seems to bejoi ned sincerely and srraightfor-
wardly. Romance and broad strokes. a maundering self-concern. and a de vil-may-care
posture are apparently end orsed. To the extent, however, that Pechorin in fact doe s
nothi ng estimable and just fade s away at the end. presumably to Persi a tar, inconclusive
end, at that) . the hero and his ostensible search are ironicall y prese nted.
Elizabeth is also strongly connected with a heroic role . She renounced speech and
action while being filmed playing the part of Electra. Twice we sec shor-, of her in
costume. The choice of this rebell ious Greek seems part icularly fitting The horrors
of her life made Electra "awarel Of murders and adulteries ," She is . aconsequence.
di stinguished by her unwillingness to get along. How can she (Elec tra berates her
compliant sister Chryso themix) not act. that is, reac t. in such a world. Ethica l princi ple
must prevail ove r conv enience. self-interes t, and security. and over being con vention-
ally accepting and acce ptable . She finds no alterna tive for one who ... ees the: cvil
growi ng, as she does , no choice bUI to stand apa rt in the hope of exucung n j ust
reve nge . As the possibi lity of her being able to act successfully dimini shes. Electra
envisions withdrawing from the world. Persona, a" Robert Boyer" hus ind icated.
ha.. a great dC;111non with Hrctru, The actrc ..... in " I' r .\f " 11l ha ... dclrbcrately alienated
herself from the 01;1..... of her fellow human ht.-ing.. . .. Like Elec tra. the ,ll'trc"s is
be ...ct by thme who would have her adj u..l . .. And like Electra. ..he in... iMs on her
illnc....... on her sorrow. her differe nce. her 'wound.' a.. it wcrc .!''
A IIn o of Unr Times. Electro . ..uul Persona all question the possi bil ity of heroic
act ion. Ou r time" arc hei rs to the lazi blitz and the Warsaw ghetto und they have
carried that heritage into Vietnam. Elizabeth has , by her refusal to spea k or act . denied
the Ieuvibili ty of a heroic or eve n of :111 adequate indivi dual response. The sacr ifice
of the bonze may be heroic. hut it is of another wor ld anti dubiously er-e ctive.
Tradi tionall y. figures such Oedipus and Odysseus di scovered that a substantial
part of their identit ies (and of thei r ability to demonstrate those identities! was their
heroism. In the world of Elizabeth and Al ma . because heroic action j" not possible ,
the "pe rson as hero " is not posvi blc either. That Elizabeth existed. in fact thri ved. by
portrayi ng heroines i" ironic. making it all the more pressing for her III determi ne the
validity and pertinence-if any--of those roles. Her reaction to playing Electra . the
ho} ' " readi ng (If Lermontov. and the evening new" are at one .... ith the main of
Persona .
Bergman has , then. packaged for us in Prrs ona a taunt ingly rich confla rion of
images . modes . perspectives. and even theme s . The wra pping a sparkling
modernist wor k. a" it teases out of us thought s of self-reflexivity. The subject seem"
modern in a very dif ferent sense. in the "en...e of the ficti on vince George Eliot that
moved the ccuon "in ... ide" and devoted itself to the psyc hological dnncnsions of
characte r. The images are startli ng but for the most part traditionally used-cexccpt .
of course, for those that break the surface of the narrative . hops cotchingfy referring
to the medium itself und even 10 the auteur , Al the center of cs thcic package .
though. a sublimely tradit ional con undrum: what. if anything, del inea te" the indi-
vidual person? Even Bergman' s skeptica l (I hes itate to ... ay pc... simistic l depi cti on is
vtccped in precedent . It reca ll". for example. the conclusion Hume argued two centuries
ea rlier in AI' f ;ntl il iry Conct'rning fl lIm"" U" dn .\ftll/t/i"g : to that "the "elf'
Alan P. Barr
Indiana University. Northwest
136/Persona
meant something identifiable, logical . and consistent was intellectually insupportable
folly.
NOTES
I David L. vierting, " Bergman' s Persona: The Metaphysics of Meta-Cinema. " Diacritics,
IV (19741. 4851.
2 John Simon, tngmar Bergman Oi r(','15 (N.Y.. 1972). p. 215.
J
Susan Sonrag , "Bergman's Persona, in Styles of Radical Will (N.Y. , 1970J, p. 136.
4 Vernon Young. Cinema Bon'ulis: tngmar Hagman IIlIdthe SWf!diJh Ethus IN. Y,. 19721,
p.228.
Lloyd Michaels. in an article Ihal uninrcrestingly uemizcs the ways in which Persona points 10
itself as a film. more simply decides: "On at least one point. however. there seem.. 10be general
agreement: me self-reflexivity of the film. Surely , we are safe in saying that whatever else il
may be, Persona is a film about film:' in "The Imaginary Signifier in Bergman's Persona;"
Film Criticism. II (I97H). 72.
Simon, pp. Vo-39.
Simon. pp. 230-) I.
7 John Simon. "Persona: An Invitation 10 Excellence," in Film: Richard Schickel
and John Simon, cd-. (N. Y., 1968). p. 19-'.
Sontag, p. US .
9
Sontag, p. 130.
10 Sontag. p. 129.
II
12
Sontag. pp. 135-36
Paisley Livingston. Ingmar Bl'rgman and the Rituals af An (Ithaca, p. 192.
Young , Pl' . 225-26.
13 Carl Jung , quoted l1y Maria Bcrgom-Larsson. Ingmar Bugman and S(II{:it't) (London.
197.). p. 87.
14
15 N:I1lC)' Scholar, "Anai!'! Nin's House uf incest and Ingmar Bergman 's Persona: Two
Variations on a Theme:' Li/ntJlundFilm Quarlt'rly, VII 09791, 50.
16 Fritz R. Sauuncm- Frankencgg. " Learning ' A Few Words in the Foreign Language' :
Ingmar Bergman's "Secret Message' in the Imagery of Hand and Face." Scandinavian Studies,
49 (1977), JOI.
17 Bergman un Bergman : lntrrviews (London. 1970). p. 196 .
18
Simon. tngmar Bu/:man Uirects , p. 296 .
19 Robert Boyers. " Bergman' s Persona: An E. ....a)' on Tragedy." Salmagundi . II (19681,7.