All language subtitles for 1 Interviews (1966).en

Ingmar, did you change
your attitude toward your audience

with this film
compared to your earlier films?

You've been called
a witch doctor.

You seemed to want to bind
your audience to you,

whereas this time you seem
to place demands on them.

I don't feel so concerned
about the audience anymore.

I used to be concerned
about them,

even quite anxious...

but I'm not anymore.

It's no longer true.

What's the reason for that?

There are several reasons.

One is that I have
such a strong sense

that I'm making
my films now...

primarily for myself.

It's a need
to communicate.

I need to express myself,
to communicate.

So that's my primary need.

And then, of course,
it's very nice

to have someone
to communicate with.

In your foreword
to the book version of Persona,

you write that you
and many other people

prefer a Western to a film
by Antonioni or Bergman.

The question then arises:

Why don't you make
a Western?

I'm not able to.

I've always admired

all that terribly skillful
and professional stuff,

and I've learned
a lot from it,

even 50-minute
made-for-TV stuff like 7he Saint.

I think they're fantastic
professional productions.

It's a highly skilled
professionalism,

but I could never do that.

I'm too emotionally involved
in everything I do.

But it's lots of fun.

I'd much rather see Goldfinger
than an Antonioni film.

I can't help it.
That's simply how it is.

Bibi, this must have been
in many ways

an extremely
difficult role to play,

perhaps above all
because you play

the antithesis
of an actress.

Did you feel this was one
of your most difficult roles?

Yes, I did,

and one of the most intimate
and most personal roles.

And of course the most
technically difficult role.

It was my biggest
and most important role ever.

I had to convey
one of the film's themes.

I saw the film,
and I'm not sure if this is true,

but Liv and I talked about it
when we were about to start.

You start psychoanalyzing
the characters to see if they're real.

Then, when this dream sequence
appears, you feel clueless,

since it's so un-psychological
in a conventional sense.

So we decided that this had to be
two sides of one human being —

presumably Ingmar,
since he created this.

We felt we were there
to keep a balance between us...

between these two sides
within one person.

In that light
it's not so hard to grasp.

It's just the chaos
a person experiences

when they're in conflict
with themselves.

Are these two female roles
intended to be

two sides
of one human being?

Look, don't make me state
what my initial thoughts were,

because that's
of such little importance —

But we build
on those things.

Of course we have
a working theory,

as you always do
when you do something.

But it would be
utterly stupid

to then superimpose that
upon other people's perceptions.

Each person
should experience it

the way they feel.

And that's
very important for me,

the idea that you can never
understand a film like this.

It isn't even
about understanding.

It's always about
experiencing it emotionally.

It's like with music.

Stravinsky once said —
and I think this is wonderful —

"I've never understood
a single piece of music in my life.

I've only experienced them."

Liv, what were your greatest
difficulties with this role?

Well, at first I was happy
I could just be quiet,

because it suits
my nature.

Then I found out it was
extremely hard to remain quiet...

because you want
to express yourself,

and after a while you notice
you feel very impoverished

when you can't talk
or show your feelings.

Have you yourself
felt that urge

to just be silent?

Yes, I guess I have.

I've made
some 26 or 27 films

and staged
a huge number of plays

and worked for some 25 years
professionally.

And I can say

Persona is the result...

of a "crisis of truth"
I myself went through,

and I suddenly felt
I had to take a stand:

"What is truth?

When is one
telling the truth?"

All this became so difficult
that I thought

that silence must be
the only real form of truth.

But then,
taking that one step further,

you discover that
that too is...

another sort of role,
another sort of mask.

You need to take it
one step further.

And I guess
that's what the film —

That was the motivation
for this film.

Have you seriously
considered

quitting filmmaking
at some point?

Oh, yes. You think about that
every now and then.

Before every premiere,
but perhaps for different reasons.

But before
making Persona...

and heading the Royal Dramatic
Theater and all that...

I thought more than ever

about quitting
artistic work altogether.

Getting back to Persona,

there are some almost
dazzlingly beautiful images

throughout the film.

They sort of break up

the inner framework
of the film.

Is that
a conscious breach?

Everything,
the way I see it,

when dealing with film,
is done consciously.

- Really?
- Yes, I believe that.

I mean, on the technical
and professional level,

there isn't
a single frame that isn't —

They don't just happen
by chance.

You plan them.

They don't just
happen accidentally.

They're always exactly
where they should be.

The fact that it's suddenly
very beautiful

in the middle of something
that's perhaps very painful

comes
very naturally to me.

As it does in reality
when you see some scenery

that's so devastatingly beautiful
compared to how you feel.

For instance,
there's a terribly beautiful image

that I took out
and then put back in again.

When Bibi's read
that letter of betrayal,

she stands
by a sort of lake,

with a tree
in the background.

She stands there
in a raincoat, motionless,

reflected in the water.

That scene came out
and went back in several times.

But oddly enough,
I felt it belonged acoustically,

because the whole time
she's reading the letter,

there's this accompanying
sound of drops falling,

which I then take out.

As she stands
there motionless,

I have the sound
of the drops fade out.

It's a sort of arc

that to me feels
entirely appropriate.

That's how it happens.

Speaking
of the betrayal letter,

you obviously think

it is indeed a betrayal...

to study another human being
from the outside?

I must correct myself on that.
Alma considers it a betrayal.

I don't see it that way.

I sometimes feel
that a difficult thing

about this profession,
is that you're constantly —

And as actors you do
the same, right, Bibi?

You're constantly

studying people.

You study them
in powerful...

very emotionally intense
situations, right, Liv?

Go on.

It was kind of strange.
I had an easy delivery,

but I'd just seen a film
that had a scene of a birth.

And I remember lying there
thinking, "She did it wrong.

It should be like this."

In life you're often
evaluating things.

All the same,
I see it as a betrayal

to reveal that coldness,
the way she does in this case.

Even if you feel it, to communicate
it is a betrayal, I think.

I's something we could
discuss at some length,

but every artist

who's active
in these kinds of media

is always recording,
making notes,

observing, absorbing...

and feeding
off their environment.

That's very clear.

And I must say
that sometimes...

this observing and ingesting —

no matter how legitimate —

can feel frightening.

Sometimes it seems

morally reprehensible.

This might seem crazy,
but you can't help it.

There are references
in this film

to other films.

One can note traces...

of Godard
and perhaps Bunuel.

Are those
conscious references?

No, I don't think so.

Or course, Bunuel...

is a foundational cinematic
experience for me...

so if there are references
to him in the film,

they're entirely
unconscious.

I'm not one of those
who believe

that an artist grows up
out of nothing

and starts to bloom
with no nourishment at all.

I believe we're all part
of a great hodgepodge,

so we take
from each other,

and I've always been completely
uninhibited in that regard.

If I see something good,
I steal it

and make it my own.

I think it has
to be like that

in all the arts.

I find it hard to imagine
traces of Godard in my work,

because I dislike
his work immensely.

What's it like
to be directed

by Ingmar Bergman?

Well, I can tell you that
I was terribly frightened.

First of all,
I'd always admired him

very much as a director,

as I suppose
most actors have,

and I'd always hoped
to be in a film of his.

But then I'd heard
so many terrible things

about how fiendish
and gruesome he was.

And being quiet
and self-conscious,

I thought
it would be just awful

if he got to know me
during the shoot,

and I'd rather just go home.

But it turned out

I've never worked
with a director

who listened with such warmth
and understanding...

to what an actor thinks
about their role

and uses what the actor
has inside them.

It brings a great calm
and a great joy.

I think working
with Ingmar Bergman...

is something every actor
should get to do.

How nice!
I'm blushing.

May I ask Bibi
the same thing?

He's a great authority

and sometimes has
this authoritarian way

of expressing
himself very clearly

so that you tend to obey
like a little schoolgirl,

which I find devastating.

Quiet.
Let me finish.

From working with other directors
I've gotten over it,

and it took me
a while to figure out

how not to fall back
into being a schoolgirl

and instead find
that way of cooperating

that comes
so naturally to Liv.

But growing up
under Ingmar's whip,

SO to speak,
has had its effect.

It's true.
It may sound silly,

but you have
this great man,

and if you start out
with him very young,

you're ready
to just accept all that,

and I don't think that's
productive for actor or director.

May I say one thing
about the girls?

You see,
it was like this —

"It was like this"!

I was actually planning another film,
to be called "The Cannibals,"

and Bibi and Liv
had both been hired for it,

along with a great many
other people.

It was a gigantic project
that I'd written the summer before.

But when I fell ill,

I realized it would be impossible
to make the film...

which made me
terribly sad.

And one of the things
that saddened me most

was that I wouldn't get
to work with these two.

I didn't know Liv at all.

I'd just met her once briefly
outside the theater with Bibi.

Later I saw some pictures of her
and a film she'd made.

But I found
Bibi and Liv to be

exciting people
and exciting artists.

Later, when I began
to think about this film,

it absolutely was,
right from the start,

a sort of desire
on my part

to work with Bibi and Liv.

And I thought I'd somehow
start over from the beginning,

leaving all my previous
work behind,

setting aside
all my earlier films

and all the tricks that had
become sort of routine,

all the skills I'd acquired
over the years.

And what comforted me

in all this agony and anxiety
was the thought

that I'd get to lean on

these two
incredibly fine artists.

And, just as Bibi
was saying,

in terms of
my authoritative side,

to let all of that go

and be able to ask
Liv and Bibi...

"How should we
go about this and that?"

To not know, for once.

I have to say —
and I really mean it —

that these girls
really taught me.

You laugh...

but you know
there's a lot of truth in that.

So I could always go to work
without any preconceived notions.

And because
we had an original script...

that was in no way —

you can compare it
with the book —

that was in no way
sacrosanct....

we could always
meander this way and that

and come up
with something new.

And it's that winding path
that resulted in Persona.