Persona

I have at least two other posts on this movie on my blogs. This is my third or fourth viewing, first since college. I first saw this probably too soon -- probably early high school, probably one of the first foreign movies I'd seen, if not the first. I don't think I had any idea what to do with it, but maybe I liked the atmosphere (see other recent posts for discussion of atmosphere). Then in college I put it beside The Seventh Seal as my favorite Bergman movies I'd seen. They're very different.

After Scenes from a Marriage I commented it was not as artistically or conceptually interesting as his other movies I remembered. Indeed, Persona is far more interesting to me, and I prefer it. Scenes is upsetting and empty; maybe if I felt more sympathetic to their love (as I used to in Blue Valentine) it would have been a beautiful experience, but as is I didn't take much away, other than knowledge of a relationship and of a cinematic triumph. Persona is so much easier to justify: it's artistically and conceptually interesting. There's much more to chew on. I didn't even reconsider relationships after Scenes (maybe this depends on the viewer's state of life). Persona leaves plenty of questions. Persona rewards rewatches.

There's more to mine. Even the plot is confounding. There's allegorical potential. There's esoteric artistry. I like how Persona is 90 minutes -- sometimes you need to deliver a compact package. It touches each subject with subtlety and elegance, without bludgeoning the viewer out of wonder. It's impressions. Scenes was arguably long-winded. Tarkovsky is tough. Persona glides. There's no way this movie can tire me -- it's dense and pleasant. What more can you ask for?

Next day:

I like impressions, vignettes, portraits that introduce original experience but leave closure to the audience. It reminds me of those models of knowledge in which one person is a capital T (no depth in most areas, intense depth in one) and another is a comb (reasonable depth in a diverse array). An artwork could hammer home its point (beat a dead horse) to guarantee audience understanding, but that's not very artistic -- leave that to science, I guess (but exclude modern physics). Art should be subtle (my post) and interpretive; it should leave room for the viewer, rather than pummel subjectivity with objectivity. That's not to say it lacks clarity or coherence -- Persona's obscurity isn't required -- but it leaves room for interpretation if not multiple interpretations. Let's say it takes you 70% there -- even if it has one definite goal, it lets you finish it, but 70% also means there could be multiple possible goals. Back to models of knowledge, Persona is a rich array of impressions: even if it has a certain goal, it doesn't drive it unambiguously. It lets you finish the story, if not make your own. It seems most great art has vision and direction but allows audience participation in the application, or even in the conceptual completion. Even Pollock had vision. 2001: A Space Odyssey doesn't complete the circle, conceptually, but it gets you far enough on an original vision to take something away, if you're attentive and original yourself. Great art seems to require artistry from the audience; it doesn't fill in the gaps; if it did, the audience wouldn't have an artistic experience -- they'd have an experience of art; the pleasure of great art is then not only the experience of art but the creation as well; creating art is inherently pleasant; participating must be too. Persona doesn't fill in the gaps -- it allow creativity on your part, or the pleasure of chaos if you choose not to seek solutions. Sometimes losing grip is pleasurable.

I like Persona for its subtlety. As I've explained before (Art post, 22 A Million post?) subtlety needn't be soft or austere. Sonic screeches and black splatter can both be subtle. Persona is abrasive at times, but conceptually, it's gently lobbing some rich context. These aren't fastballs. My metaphors are flying off the rails as I try to define subtlety subtly, meaning I can't get you all the way there -- I have to babble around a subject, but I need vision. I'm setting satellites in orbit, and you can imagine what's at the center. How could I do this without metaphors? So much of our language is founded on metaphors. "Abrasive" is an adjective. It can be applied to sound (I always thought of Yeezus as abrasive), but really, unless there's a deeper etymology ("deep" is another example), it's about surface granularity ("granularity" is another example). Our colloquial language relies on metaphors so much that they stop being metaphors and become new definitions (see my post on a different blog regarding "vicious circles"). Anyway, I'm not trying to be lazy or dense by failing to find the gravitational center of my point. I'm trying to guide my audience without doing all the work for -- and seizing creativity's pleasure from -- them. Subtle art is not lazy or dense, because it offers original vision. It's hard to be original. When you're original, you can formally teach your audience, but now you're a scientist, which is fine. If you want to be an artist on the other hand, you need to associate your vision with beauty, and leave some of that beauty of creation for your audience as they become momentary disciples in your direction.

Can longer works be subtle? Yes. Though I haven't read much of Ulysses; though its style appears unsubtle and idiosyncratic; though it appears long-winded; though it may lack vision; still it may have consistent and subtle vision. Persona is short, digestible, but long enough to deliver a vision and explore it a little.