TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

Double Take

Persona

Ingmar Bergman
1965 - Sweden - 1h25

Screenings : monday 22 - 10:00 am - Pathé - 2

Struck dumb in the middle of a performance, famous actress Elisabet Vogler is sent to convalesce by the sea, with only Alma, the nurse, as company. While Elisabet doesn't speak, Alma gradually opens up, with the help of the patient's complacency. The border between the two personalities grows thin and finally blurs.

In 1965, Ingmar Bergman was once again hospitalised for depression. He wrote the screenplay of Persona in his hospital room in the space of two weeks, at a time when he was subject to bouts of high fever – which can explain in part the “cinematographic delirium” which makes up the first few minutes of the film, a succession of mind-blowing hallucinogenic visions. Bergman started shooting as soon as he came out of hospital, guided by the feeling that Persona would be a resurrection film. Never before had he felt such a feeling of freedom during the creative period. To play the two heroines, Bergman called on his favourite actress Bibi Andersson and the woman who would become his muse and lover Liv Ullmann. The first plays the talkative nurse Alma, and the second Elisabet the speech-deprived actress. Through these two female characters, Bergman multiplies his cinematographic experiments playing with the notions of the double and opposition, both on the physical and mental fronts. The theme of psychoanalysis is present throughout the film; the persona means the social mask worn by a person on an everyday basis, in constant conflict with the subconscious designated by the term alma, which is also the name of Bibi Andersson's character. Bergman created a daring, multi-layered work sublimated by the photography of Sven Nykvist, who skilfully played with effects of dark and light, and the almost experimental music of Lars Johan Werle, contributing to the creation of a phantasmatic mental world. Persona is one of Bergman's key works, showing unequalled virtuosity.

CAST AND CREW

Cast : Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook, Gunnar Björnstrand
Screenplay : Ingmar Bergman
Cinematography : Sven Nykvist
Sound : Lennart Engholm, Per-Olof Pettersson
Editing : Ulla Ryghe
Music : Lars Johan Werle

Production : AB Svensk Filmindustri

French distributor : Carlotta