Bergman”™s Legacy in Persona. Masks, Identity and Recognition

Abstract

This text, written in occasion of the hundred years since the birth of Ingmar Bergman (Upsala, July 14th 1918 - Fí¥rí¶, July 30 2007), is a kind of tribute to the artistic legacy of the Swedish filmmaker, universally considered as one of the giants of the cinematographic landscape of the XX century; an author whose indispensability has become, today, an indisputable axiom in the artistic development of the seventh art. After some reflexions on the poetics of the Scandinavian author, we would like to analyze one of the most fascinating, innovative and avant-garde works of the film director: Persona (1966). The examination of the movie is oriented towards an inquiry of the introspective kind. Through the progressive scansion of the sequences of the movie, shaped by the psychoanalytic echoes that are evoked by the perturbing and disturbing images of Bergman, we try to give a metacinematographic interpretation of his work by exploring the existentialist folds that are hidden under the meticulous work of construction and deconstruction of the identity which the Swedish filmmaker gave to the world of cinematography of his age.