Lolita's Classics: Sven Nykvist

Showing posts with label Sven Nykvist. Show all posts

Friday, May 7, 2010

Persona (1966)

Persona
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Sweden 1966
85 min
Starring: Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullman, Margaretha Krook and Gunnar Björnstrand.

Is it really important not to lie, to speak so that everything rings true? Can one live without lying and quibbling and making excuses? Isn't it better to be lazy and lax and deceitful? Perhaps you even improve by staying as you are.

- Alma

An actress, Elisabeth Vogler (Liv Ullman), has had a breakdown on stage and now suffer from muteness and a near-catatonic behavior. Sister Alma (Bibi Andersson) is assigned to take care of her. Elisabeth's doctor and Alma's supervisor (Margaretha Krook) recommends them to live in her beach house, which she thinks will help Elisabeth's health to improve. As the two women live together and become intimate (some would say in an erotic way, but I think that would be a misinterpretation) their identities start to merge.

Initially Alma feels great relief in being the only one to talk, experiencing comfort and sympathy from her silent listener, as she reveals the most intimate secrets about herself. Elisabeth's continuing silence does however make Alma uncomfortable, especially after having secretly read one of Elizabeth's letters to her doctor expressing a delight in studying Alma's behavior and increasing dependence on her, and Alma turns from being a compassionate and sweet nurse to an egotistical, irritable and violent woman.

A plot summary may sound simple (or complicated) enough, but the most interesting part of Persona is the way it repeatedly acknowledges itself for the piece of celluloid it actually is. Both the beginning and the end of the film consists of bizarre montages, brief pictures that the eye almost can't perceive: a silent film slapstick scene, an erect penis, a slaughtered lamb and a hand being pierced by a nail. There are also short sequences with a film projector, celluloid strips and carbon rods meeting each other, to further underline the fact that what we are watching is in fact a motion picture.

The film is also interrupted halfway through, when the movement of Alma suddenly freezes, and the celluloid burst into flames - about the time when the projectionist would change reels. Most famous of these self-reflexive moments is probably the one with the ca ten year old boy reaching for an out-of-focus woman on the wall, resembling the screen of a film theater, a face that switches between Alma and Elisabeth.

This motif is the reason behind Bergman's request that all publicity stills were to include a piece of the film strip on the edge. (See below.) Responsible for the breathtaking photography is the Bergman regular Sven Nykvist, whose style established with Persona is sometimes humorously summed up with the words "two faces and a tea cup". That's just brilliant.

Trying to summarize Persona in less than a proper blog post length is hard, and for an amateur like me close to impossible. For a fabulous analysis of the film I recommend an article from Sight and Sound in 1967, by Susan Sontag. You can find it here, on the fantastic Ingmar Bergman home page.

Sontag is very concerned with reviewers taking the easy way out, describing Persona either as "a film about the merging of identities" or "a film about lesbians and lesbianism", as well as people conveniently deciding that either everything in the film is supposed to be reality or entirely a fabrication of Alma's mind.

That was what I was referring to when I earlier mentioned something about Alma's and Elizabeth's intimate relationship: I had the strong feeling while watching Persona, that some parts (with increasing occurrence) were a result of Alma's distorted mind. Perhaps I should re-phrase: It is evident that Alma feels a close connection with Elisabeth after having revealed her inner self for her, something that in her unconscious mind (when asleep or drunk) turns into erotic fantasies, an embodiment of the closeness she feels to Elisabeth.

The paragraph above is entirely my own interpretation of some scenes in the film, and not Sontag's rantings. But for the interested I recommend the more professional Sontag analysis, even though everything I say is of course the unquestionable truth.

In short: My homeboy made it again, and even more so than before, with Persona. It deserves plenty of re-watches and philosophical discussion. I can't believe I haven't seen this film of his until... today.

Below:

1. Ingmar Bergman during the shooting of Persona.

2. Bergman with cinematographer Sven Nykvist.

Monday, November 30, 2009

The Men Behind the Cameras

December is obviously the month of directors and cinematographers. Take a peek at the "Birthdays of the week" list in the right column, and you will notice directors Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise), Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Manhattan), Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless, Band of Outsiders, Crazy Pete), Otto Preminger (Laura, Anatomy of a Murder), Walt Disney and Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M, Dr. Mabuse's Testament).
Quite a few birthday children! I will therefore close the month of November on Lolita's Classics with a little tribute to the men behind the cameras, and I plan to do it with some cool pictures that [metaphorically] gather dust on my hard drive. My favorite? A certain Austrian-Hungarian with a monocle and a cigarette holder.

Lo and behold! Feast yours eyes on these marvelous photographs!

Ridley Scott.

Woody Allen.

Fritz Lang.

Walt Disney.

Jean-Luc Godard and cinematographer Raoul Coutard on the set of Crazy Pete (Pierrot le fou, 1965).

Otto Preminger.

Jean-Luc Godard and his then-wife and muse Anna Karina.

Woody Allen and his then-lover and muse Mia Farrow.

There are also two other important behind-the-camera men named in the birthday list, the first of those being Swedish cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Considered by many to be the world's greatest at his work, he worked frequently with director Ingmar Bergman and also with previously mentioned Woody Allen.

Ingmar Bergman and Sven Nykvist.

Sven Nykvist and Ingmar Bergman.

Sven Nykvist and Woody Allen.

Among Sven Nykvist's (1922-2006) works we find Ingmar Bergman's most praised cinematic wonders, like The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1962) Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973) and Fanny and Alexander (1982).
Nykvist co-operated with Woody Allen in Another Woman (1988), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and the "Oedipus Wrecks" segment of New York Stories (1989), and with Swedish director Lasse Hallström in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) and was also the cinematographer for Sleepless in Seattle from the same year.
With a repertoire like that, it's impossible not to be amazed. Sven Nykvist worked with interpreting directors visions into film for no less than 57 years.

Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan, 1960).

Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel, 1961).

Winter Light (Nattvardsgästerna, 1962).

Persona (1966).

Cries and Whispers (Viskningar och rop, 1972).

Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap, 1973).

Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander, 1982).

Another Woman (1988).

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993).

Sleepless in Seattle (1993).

The second cinematographer who celebrates his birthday this week is a man called William H. Daniels (1901-1970), a man who intimately captured Hollywood's most glamorous actresses (working several times with Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer) for an amazed audience to view on a big silver screen.

William H. Daniels.

William H. Daniels on the set of Love (1927), directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.

William H. Daniels on the set of Grand Hotel (1932), with director Edmund Goulding and actors Wallace Beery and Joan Crawford.

On the set (behind camera) of Queen Christina (1933) with director Rouben Mamoulian and actors Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.

Just like Sven Nykvist, Daniels worked for many, many years. His first project as a cinematographer was for a not totally insignificant Erich von Stroheim picture called Foolish Wives (1922), and then he continued his beloved work until the year of his death, 1970.