 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
207.30.238.78
career (okay, I'm simplifying a bit) out of studying middle-aged, disaffected, neurotic, Viennese bourgeois women.
This movie closely studies the innermost psychic recesses of a Swedish grande dame of the theater, though cleverly it really is a baring of the soul of her nurse who begins to lose her personality into that of her patient, I guess?
Anyhow, it's all very clever and it does have one of the most fascinating, sexually charged scenes in all of film history (not a bared limb in sight, either), and the photography and montage are brilliant... but I found I didn't care very much.
The troubles of the privileged seem so self-indulgent that, frankly, I don't give a damn.
...it seems utterly tone deaf to me.More often than any other I've thought of "Persona" as my favorite of all films. It's a poem. To each his own...
a film which, being a Bergman vehicle, has thought behind it.
My point is that, like Freud, Bergman has centered upon the neurosis of a middle-class woman. Great art should have great subjects: Imagine Hamlet without Claudius's crime. He'd be just another disaffected teenager, wouldn't he?
Poor little filthy rich actress and her nurse/governess: boohoo. Where's the dynamic struggle? Mental illness? Not really, is it? She seems to be playing a game, as the whispering scene suggests.
Yes, it's a clever, entertaining, and beautiful film but it's not great. And, yes, I understand the playing off of the persona of an individual, of an actress, and of another person that is NOT an actresss... what is real and what is artifice.
In the end, superficial people, both of them, and not very "important."
...I hear what you're saying but I'm sorry I just think you don't get it at all. Not that I even think there's a single interpretation to "get." I think it's best if I leave it at that.
The point is that Bergman himself couldn't tell us what we are missing. It's a different film to each of us, and different each time we view it. This makes it great to me personally. If this sounds like a copout, sorry.Rod
nt
a
Fascinating film, and one of the finest films by one of the finest film makers. Worth repeated viewings IMO.It influenced other cool films like "Three Women", "Mulholland Dr." and probably others I can't think of at the moment.
Rod
My head always begins to spin to that quiet narration...I dunno... you seem to be fixated on classes, to me that was human story, applicable to any class.
An absolute masterpiece... (OK, OK, just my opinion... you Scott and James boys...)
An orgasm.
It s so obvious that I refuse to comment on THIS film.
Rich, self-absorbed snobs need love no less than those dirty hobos you pass downtown.
with a private nurse and survive.
The flashes of shocking international violence also seemed to be out of place: we didn't see anything that would lead one to believe there was a connection, whether deep sympathy had unhinged her.
Anyhow, the "evidence" pointed to self-absorption. I guess if you feel that's a fascinating topic... I don't.
If Bergman was trying to show how worthless her life was in the midst of so much REAL human suffering (the burning monks were protesting American foreign activities) it still raises the question of why bother to put so much effort into such a selfish, worthless woman?
Bergman was comfortable filming on Faro, and most of his 60s films were done there. This is reason enough for it to be set there IMO. In other films he depicted people much less fortunate financially who were living on this same island.Rod
Funny... the setting is just the setting, it is what inside the two personas that matters, and their feelings are not particular to their classes, they are common to the class called mankind.When you go ga-ga over a film showing the life of the poor and disprivileged... you never comment that their emotions, pains, suffering, joy, love, etc are unque that that underclass and therefore has no bearing on how you, presumably a middle class guy, live.
Emotional and physical sufferings stip people of their class. Audrey and Jackie suffered before their death just like a coctail waitress does, and the fact they came from upper class does not make their pain any less palpable.
I must agree with Victor on this, tin...As a teacher of low-income students in Shreveport, Louisiana (how low? One asked if I were rich because, after all, I "came to school in clean pants every day!"), I find that they can be just as self-absorbed as the women in "Persona", hell, just as self-absorbed as me. Class and wealth should not be used as an indicator of a person's worth.
Besides, I can sit through a lot of rich neurotic self-absorbtion for that monologue! At least we agree there!
can lead a life in which that is the consuming, defining paradigm: the poor would end up on a street, in a cardboard container. Financial survival is a cruel master but it does keep one grounded.
I don't know why people seem to feel wealth creates no "space" from others: it does. The lives of the rich are quite different and it's not just the possessions: not to worry about one's next meal, rent check, etc. is a MAJOR impactor on life. The greatest one, actually, since survival is our strongest instinct.
One needn't be a card-carrying Commie to point out differences in economic class, ours is an extremely class rigid society.
Anyhow, a poor person's descent into a mental illness which paralyzed her would have a hell of a lot more drama. Go to a private island, have a 24-hr. a day governess for whom you harbor unspoken lusts: hardly the stuff of riveting drama, URGENCY, eh?
If that's a serious problem, let Bibi Andersson know that I'd gladly have suffered it!
It doesn't make the film bad, just not the film you seem to want to make.Check out "The Passion of Anna" to see a few characters in less than wealthy circumstances, and psychological distress, living on the same island.
Rod
care to feel others suffering the comfort that flows to all who hurt can not reach you if you are unavailable to bring it to another.Hiding in fantasy,pretending you are what you need to be keeps one from truly becoming whole.Maybe as an actress,the character represents this artificial construct where she thought since her material world was filled with abundance she had become complete,that the giving as an actress was enough.Nothing real though, she keeps her true self isolated, maybe from arrogance,pride etc but its enough to isolate her,creating a living Hell which naturally crushes the of itself, small human psyche.Perhaps this is part of the reason Angelina Jolie likes to put herself , in a more overt way from what i see,into the throng of humanity.Maybe she sees the need to stay in touch with humanity in a real sense when such a large part of her life is spent pretending to be someone and something other than herself to keep from being truly isolated which is of course enough of a Hell to drive one mad.Then again maybe it was a boring,pretentious tedium.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
