I snapped this shot from Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966) months ago. I'm not even sure it's the 8th thing you see in that famous rapid experimental montage that opens the film. I typed up a list of all the images flashing by, some of them repeated: projector lamp, phallus, cartoon, tarantula, young boy, etcetera but promptly lost the list and buried this photo accidentally in a folder within a folder within a folder. (Ah disorganization!) But as with the film its culled from, the image came back to me like a dream. Persona always comes back and demands that you return to it, too.
That is to say that I think of Persona the film as the mute actress (Liv Ullman) it gazes upon and the audience as her frustrated nurse (Bibi Andersson) who struggles to understand her before succumbing to some sort of symbiosis. Persona may make little narrative sense but its emotional and psychological effects are large. It haunts, compels, questions and demands rescreenings. Simply put: it's indisputably great.
"08th" the series
This short-lived blog experiment didn't work out exactly as I planned --too much work and too odd -- but I'm still proud of it. Found some interesting things in interesting movies and what better way to wrap it up and say goodbye than on 08/08/08. Did you miss any of the earlier episodes? Chase the label and view them all.- "FEAR!" in Batman Begins
- Line of dialogue in Volver
- Costumes in Marie Antoinette
- Description of Elizabeth
- Close Up of Carrie's hands
- Shot of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain
- Kill in No Country For Old Men
- Character in Showgirls
- Use of Magic in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
