This lead-in to the credits of Ingmar Bergman's 1967 Persona has always reminded me of the closing of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In Persona's opening the central character is a young boy in white pristine surroundings finally reaching out from his bed to a giant screen holding the faces of Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullmann. In the 2001's closing the central character is an old man in white pristine surroundings finally reaching out from his bed to a giant monolith, alone and silent in the middle of his room. Was Kubrick influenced by Bergman here or are the similarities just in my head? Probably the latter. Still, this opening sequence, truncated here to just the lead-in and credits, is one of my favorites. Thanks and enjoy.
27 comments:
yes, great opening. and fabulous film!
Do you think composer Lars Johan Werle was at all influenced in his use of tympani and xylophone by Allen Sherman's "My Son, the Vampire"?
MrJeffrey, agreed. A beautiful film.
Arbo, I think Allen Sherman's biggest influence was clearly on the high-octane wacky antics of Tarkovsky. Isn't it obvious?
Seriously though, most movie music of this period was influenced heavily by what John Cage and Milton Babbitt were doing. All the dishordant clangs and crashes were reminiscent of their style which in and of itself merely took the dischordant snippets from the Russian composers like Stravinsky and made whole pieces out of them.
I can't watch this at work right now. Is this the part with the wiener in it?
No, just the boy touching the screen. So it's SFW! That's "Safe for Work" in case you're wondering.
I can't believe I haven't seen this film, yet. It's in my DVR, though.
Tony, it's a must see, even if you end up hating it. You should at least be able to say you saw it and hated it, if you know what I mean. Although I personally love it but I can understand it coming off as a little too abstract and artsy for some people's taste.
Why the disclaimer, man? Everything I've read about the film makes it sound great?
It is great! It's brilliant! I'm just saying that it's an essential and that even if you didn't like it or its kind of storytelling wasn't your cup of tea it should still be considered essential viewing for a cinephile. That's all. Visually it's just stunning and Anderson and Ullmann are amazing.
To be honest, of the Bergman films I've seen, PERSONA is my least favorite, but I feel like my real opinion of it is still unformed. I doubt I'll ever love it, because it is a bit far away from what I like in movies, even Bergman movies -- who generally I do love, moreso lately -- but I do admire it, because it was made by someone who was making whatever the hell he wanted to make, a movie that mattered to him, for his own reasons, and I admire that. Granted, there are filmmakers who do that who I don't admire, so I suppose my overall positive feelings towards Bergman elevates PERSONA for me in this regard, but that's how I think of it.
That's a great illustration of what I was trying to say with Tony. It is essential for a cinephile to see it (as well as most Bergman I suppose but this one is considered near the top) but at the same time I completely understand your ambivalence towards it. It's that kind of film. So it's strange to say but you tell people they should really see it but also feel like mentioning, "But you may not like it."
And yet, HOUR OF THE WOLF is almost as inscrutable as PERSONA, and it's one of my favorites. I guess because it's scary...
His work during this period is probably my favorite. Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Shame. He really his a stride there that's pretty amazing. I haven't seen Hour of the Wolf in a while but this discussion has made me want to see that and Shame again.
I've never seen SHAME, and I really want to, because I know it's supposed to be one of his best. Unfortunately, it dropped off Netflix a while back. I haven't checked to see if it's back on, though.
William Goldman is a huge fan of SHAME, and Bergman in general. He thinks Bergman was the greatest screenwriter of all time. I bring this up only because it always seemed odd to me, Goldman being such a commercial writer, and a good one, but one who never seemed to want to push himself out of his niche, even though he admits to not liking his own work very much.
Anyway, he also once said that he's glad he never met Bergman, because he knows he would have said something like "So was writing THE SEVENTH SEAL a lot of fun?"
Sometimes people are fans of things that are nothing like them for that very reason.
I think it's always got to be awkward meeting someone you admire artistically because really, what do you say? Years ago I was reading through the Beatles Anthology book that I got for a Christmas present back in 98 or whenever that came out. It's HUGE! It has every possible factoid and story about them you'd ever need to know. Anyway, one story they all told was when they met Elvis in 64. It had been set up by publicists of course but they all were still young enough and new to stardom to be starstruck with Elvis. And they get introduced and say how great he is and just stand there staring until Elvis finally says, "Man to hell with this. I'm going to go drink. You guys want to join me you can but stop staring at me." And then everything was fine and they got drunk. There's a good moral in there somewhere. I think.
It's probably Bergman's masterpiece, though it's clinical underpinnings and obtuse quality don't equal the ravishing color tapestries of CRIES AND WHISPERS and FANNY AND ALEXANDER, nor the signature philosophical essence and unforgettable set piece in WILD STRAWBERRIES (the opening dream sequence of the latter film with the runaway hearse is arguably as cinematically formidable as the one you post here). If someone put a gun to my head and asked me to list the Top 10 Bergmans (he is one of my two favorite directors with Bresson) I would go with these:
1 Persona
2 Cries and Whispers
3 Fanny and Alexander
4 Wild Strawberries
5 Sawdust and Tinsel
6 Winter Light
7 Summer Interlude
8 The Silence
9 The Seventh Seal
10 The Virgin Spring
Through A Glass Darkly, The Passion of Anna, The Magician, Shame, Hour of the Wolf, Face to Face all worthy too.
Great post!
Bresson is such an odd director. He's the one guy that I can't say I objectively "like", but that I'm fascinated by, and keep working to understand. If I ever feel up to it, I'm going to write a post about my experiences with him.
Bill, my favorite Bresson is AU HASARD BALTHASAR, which for me views with Mizoguchi's SANSHO THE BAILIFF and Ozu's TOKYO STORY as my favorite films of all-time. But for some reason, while many do consider that film an unquestioned masterpiece, others blame it as the prime reason why they can't connect with Bresson. Godard once said of BALTHASAR: "It's the whole world in 90 minutes" referring to its famed cycle of life underpinning.
But at least five other films by this uncompromising master would approach the masterpiece label in my estimation:
Diary of a Country Priest (1950)
A Man Escaped (1957)
Pickpocket (1959)
Mouchette (1969)
L'Argent (1969)
Perhaps no director in the history of cinema used sound design to such sparing and profound effect, methinks.
By the way Bill, I'll be there for your post if you write it.
Sam, that's an excellent ranking and I just might put Persona at the top myself. It really is a piece to behold. But I'm sure my opinion of one Bergman to the next would shift from day to day much as my favorite Hitchcock would. Over time I think Persona has become my favorite although so many others have held that mantle before, from Hour of the Wolf to Wild Strawberries.
I feel much the way Bill does about Bresson. I think Au Hasard Balthasar and Pickpocket are great films but there's more admiration there than love. I need to see more Bresson and get a better feel for him.
I've always felt tat if 8 1/2 is the best movie directly about the filmmaker druing the filmmaking process than Persona is the best movie indirectly about the filmmaker and the filmmaking process. I'm planning on doing a post of this shortly. Great post though, always good to see Persona being passed on through the ages.
"His work during this period is probably my favorite. Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Shame. He really his a stride there that's pretty amazing."
I feel the same way, and I'd include The Passion of Anna in that group. Shame, in particular, is my favorite of his work and one of my favorite films overall. You really get a sense from Bergman's work of this period that a well-established filmmaker is re-learning the art of cinema (and the opening scene of Persona has been interpreted as a metaphor for just such an act).
I think it'd be interesting to compare the general impression of Bergman as a director held by those who were introduced to his work via his mid/late 60s films to those who first experienced Bergman through his more popular, theatrical, and, um, "academic" films from the late 50s.
word verification: mantrabb
Bresson is an odd director for me, one I know I should love but who kind of just leaves me cold, so I agree with Greg and Bill in that respect. Au hasard Balthazar I found utterly frustrating, Pickpocket was more interesting, and I liked A Man Escaped a lot. So I've gotten a bit more out of each Bresson film I've seen; maybe it's a matter of becoming more accustomed to his signature style, or maybe it's just that A Man Escaped is more attuned to my sensibilities than the other two films. But I especially agree with Bill that for whatever reason, Bresson is a director who I don't necessarily get but still feel drawn to keep watching his films and trying to understand him. So I think there's obviously something there.
Back to Bergman, though, I love Persona and, indeed, most everything I've seen by him. I'd agree with Greg, too, that the mid- to late 60s was a particularly great stretch for Bergman. In addition to the films already discussed here, he made the bracing, theatrical The Rite, a possible touchstone for Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and the quietly harrowing Passion of Anna. And of course, before Persona he'd made his great (absence of) God trilogy, so that's quite a consistent run, the work of a director constantly pushing and challenging himself.
Mike, I just watched 8 1/2 again recently and am more impressed with each viewing. As a teenager I "appreciated" it but found it arcane and difficult. As a forty something I can only laugh at that now. The movie makes absolute perfect sense and I feel closer in thought to how Guido feels about art and life and existence than I ever thought possible.
As I re-watch so many classic foreign films from my youth, including Persona I find they are not as impenetrable as I once thought, merely that they are adult and mature in their sensibilities, not unafraid to confront the confusion of life in a more indirect and emotional way.
BLH and Ed - taking your two comments together so I don't repeat myself. One of the things that bothered me most about Jonathan Rosembaum's now infamous obit for Bergman in 2007 was the implication that Bergman was a theatre director with no real feel for the cinema. I'm still not sure where that came from and argued it with Rosenbaum and several others at The Reader in the comment section back when it happened.
Rosenbaum made it clear that he preferred, as BLH puts it, his more popular, theatrical, and, um, "academic" films from the late 50s. I have nothing against them but I do find it baffling that one would choose to negate the extraordinary, and very cinematic, period Bergman enjoyed in the mid to late sixties in favor of his fifties work.
His work is exceptional in this period and I can't wait to revisit more of them.
Looks interesting. I did remind me of 2001. I'll have to check it out.
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