Sometimes, a film is so great that it robs you of words, leaves you speechless, struck dumb with awe. It's been a bit over two years since I've started writing for The Film Experience and, in that time, it's been a privilege to write about some of the best works of cinema I've ever seen. Ingmar Bergman's Persona tops them all and, when facing its wonder, it's hard to articulate anything. Perhaps no other film has been as tirelessly examined in the history of criticism, making it impossible to bring anything new to the discussion. And yet, it remains mysterious, as beguilingly unknowable as when it premiered in 1966. To try and write about it is a maddening exercise.
Even so, a celebration of Liv Ullmann wouldn't be complete without mentioning the first work in the artistic collaboration that forged her legend, that's at the center of her legacy…
5 random things that happened on this day, October 18th, in history
1867 The USA take possession of Alaska (formerly owned by Russia). Happy Alaska Day if we have any readers there. Enjoy your holiday.
1961West Side Story has its world premiere in New York City. It will go on to become a blockbuster at the box office and win 10 Oscars including Best Picture. We recently did a deep dive right here that you should read if you missed. It's currently being remade (sigh) by Steven Spielberg.
←1966Persona premieres in Sweden. Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece (well, one of them) will hit US theaters in March the following year. Strangely, given its reputation now and Bergman's position in world cinema then, it was not one of his Oscar successes...
Team Experience will be celebrating one of the world's most acclaimed auteurs this week for the 100th anniversary of Ingmar Bergman's birth. Here'sLynn Lee
Persona has been called the Mount Everest of film critics, and no wonder. For a film that clocks in at a lean 84 minutes and turns on a deceptively simple premise – a celebrated actress (Liv Ullmann) falls mysteriously silent and is consigned to the care of a chatty, insecure nurse (Bibi Andersson) – it contains multitudes. In the 50-plus years since its debut, its potential meanings have been explored from almost every conceivable angle, be it existential, metaphysical, psychological, psychosexual, queer, feminist, the role of art and the artist, or just the film’s pure cinematic texture and experimental devices. But Persona is a slippery beast: just when you think you have a theory as to what it’s “about,” it melts and reformulates into something else entirely.
Name your Top 5 films without repeating a language or country of origin.
That was the challenge I posed on Twitter last month. It's tricky enough to limit your favorites to a specific number, and I was interested in seeing what kind of responses this added degree of difficulty would garner.
Turns out Twitter loves making lists! I got a ton of replies – way too many to collect all of them here, unfortunately. But I've rounded up a handful of them after the jump including lists by The Film Experience contributors, film critics and film makers...
Two women talking: a recipe for witchcraft, an unnatural feedback loop, a cursed redundancy. Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 masterpiece Persona is a landmark for many reasons, but its legacy, which has show no signs of age in the 50 years since it was released in the U.S. and the U.K., is how it stared that anxiety in the face and opened up a loopy, meandering conversation that’s still going on to this day...
More Linkage Keyframe 'The Year of Nicole Kidman' don't force her to prove herself all over again Variety Cannes lineup is "high on "awards intrigue, low on safe awards bets" /Film Aquaman is overflowing with villains, 3 already for a first solo film? (not a good sign) and a fourth may have been added Coming Soon Antonio Banderas will headline Lamborghini -The Legend (working title) a biopic about the Italian entrepeneur of automobile fame. Alec Baldwin will play his rival Enzo Ferrari
Boy Culture "STREEPSHOW" a drag comedy about "characters one played by Meryl Streep" living together in the East Village will be playing NYC in June. Sounds hilarious but I have to admit that it took me quite some time to figure out the characters in the photo (and there seem to be two Miranda Priestleys?) which is maybe not a good sign. Shouldn't they be instantly recognizable? Guardian Mixed messages from Cannes as TV premieres from auteurs are happening but they've also banned Netflix from future competition unless they stop skipping theatrical releases Variety Gay gasp! The BBC is producing a series of 15 minute monologues called Queers which is set to star Ben Whishaw, Alan Cumming, and Russell Tovey and others Awards DailyGypsy teaser, a new series starring Naomi Watts Variety Hugh Bonneville will play Roald Dahl in a biopic set in the early to mid 1960s. This means they're going to have to cast someone to play both Dahl's wife Patricia Neal and her most famous co-star Paul Newman (see Hud) and both of those roles will be a Herculean casting task! The Guardian there's a documentary playing Cannes about Cary Grant's experimentation with LSD from 1958 through 196 Tracking Board Kenneth Branagh to direct himself in a movie about the father of Anne Frank The Keeper of the Diary
Not Remakes Though You Might Mistake Them For Such /Film Martin Scorsese starts filming mob drama The Irishman this summer with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci Gothamist Leonardo DiCaprio will star in The Black Hand about an undercover mob cop... (Ummm, haven't all these people already made these movies? Why not mix it up with a romantic comedy or a sci-fi picture?)
Exit Video Look it's the first clip from Todd Haynes's Wonderstruck. It may be impossible to follow Carol but we're glad that he got back on the horse so quickly after that long time away from us. How does this clip strike you?
Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 10:30AM 
