Persona

How this film uses it

Elisabeth Vogler and Alma start as patient and nurse and end up impossible to tell apart. In the film's composite shot, their faces are literally merged. Bergman uses this doubling to ask a question. Is identity something stable that you own, or a performance you can only keep up when a separate person is there?

Where to see it

The composite face sequence. The camera merges Elisabeth's and Alma's faces into a single image. The doubling of their minds becomes literal, and then it becomes terrifying.

How this film uses it

A key scene in Persona repeats from 2 points of view. At the midpoint, the film strip itself seems to break. Bergman gives you no key for sorting any of this out. The film is about a reality you can't trust, and no solution is waiting behind it.

Where to see it

The repeated motherhood monologue. It plays twice in full, once with the camera on each woman. Bergman won't choose between the versions.

How this film uses it

Bergman's boldest break with convention is the composite shot that merges Elisabeth's and Alma's faces. Their relationship gets more and more unstable. Eventually, the images start to suggest that each woman might be the same person.

Where to see it

The face-merger sequence. Half of each woman's face is joined into one literal composite. It takes the film's play with shot-reverse-shot as far as it can go.

How this film uses it

Persona opens with a projector lamp igniting. Then, before the story begins, you get a string of unconnected images. There is a spider, a nail through a hand, animated cartoons and a boy touching a blurred face on a screen. The opening tells you this is a film about film and about images. It is also about how fragile the identities cinema creates are.

Where to see it

The film's abstract opening sequence. The projector, the broken-up images and the boy's hand on the screen announce what is coming. It is a film about its own existence as a film.

How this film uses it

Elisabeth Vogler stares straight into the camera at several points. She says nothing and just looks. Her gaze breaks through the fiction, and nothing explains or resolves it. You realize the film is looking back at you, and it is as hard to read as you have found her silence.

Where to see it

Elisabeth's direct stares into the camera. The actress's gaze breaks the fiction. The look pulls the audience into the film's question of who is watching whom.