"Mask" can be called one of Ingmar Bergman's most difficult to read and most confusing work. It has caused critics to study and explain it from the perspectives of psychology, aesthetics, and sociology. .
"Persona" was originally a mask worn by actors in ancient Roman dramas to show the identity and character of the characters they played, just like facial makeup in Chinese opera. Under the influence of Jungian psychology, this term has now added a number of different meanings, which refer to the masks that society imposes on our roles when we are among other people. According to Jung's explanation, if people completely abandon their masks, it will lead to a state of speechless subconsciousness, and one will face the naked self.
Jung’s definition clearly clarifies the theme of the film. This is a film about a woman, actress Elizabeth Vogler, who voluntarily removes her "mask", preferring to leave herself aphasia and inaction and retreat from all social roles and opportunities. This is still a film about another woman, Alma, a nurse. She has her own social role, her "mask", but she also has a passionate and loyal heart. "Alma" (alma) has the meaning of "mental image" and "imagery" in Latin. Jung believes that "Mask" belongs to the category of reason, while "Alma" is completely emotional. When a person is in the conflict between "Mask" and "Alma", one urgently demands to liberate himself. Bergman's naming of Bibby Anderson's role as Alma is an acknowledgement of Jung's research in this field.
Bergman's films mostly use women as narrative carriers and anatomical objects, which is related to his family background. Bergman grew up in a Catholic family and received his father’s strict patriarchal education and Catholic education. During the growth of his personality, his father’s strict discipline over him gave him a kind of inner character to his father and even the patrilineal line. Strong elements of alienation, resistance, confrontation and even hatred. On the contrary, he has an instinctive and natural sense of intimacy and dependence on his mother and matriline. In his subconscious, the female-mother is his idol, and the female-mother is the embodiment of noble and pure. In Bergman's series of works, we can see the obvious imprint of this kind of thinking. However, Bergman is also tangibly and invisibly affected by his father’s authoritarian thoughts and behaviors. Therefore, when he talks with society and people through film means, the authoritarian or paternalistic style also penetrates into his works intentionally or unintentionally. Come in.
Before "Mask", Bergman hadn't made a film for a while, when he had been the director of the Royal Swedish Theatre. He wrote a script called "The Cannibal," and the heroine is scheduled to be Bibby Anderson, ready to make a four-hour movie. But in January 1966, he got pneumonia and stayed in the hospital for four months. He was temporarily deaf and dizzy due to the injection of penicillin. During that time, he could not read or watch TV. As long as he turned his head, he would spin around immediately, feeling out of balance. One day Bibby Anderson accompanied Liv Ullman, a Norwegian actress who had come to Stockholm for a study visit, to visit him in the hospital. Bergman’s first thought when he saw Liv was to write for her in The Cannibal A scene. Bibby and Liv soon became friends. Bergman saw a photo of them, and he was surprised to find that they looked very like each other. From these two people, we can see each other in a special way. This idea lingered in his mind, and he decided to write a film about two people who lost their personalities with each other. This is "Mask."
Bergman always believes that people cannot be separated from society, art cannot be separated from society, and one of the foundations for art to survive is its social function. If an artist does not or cannot reflect social issues, and does not reflect the connection between man and society, then he will lose the value of existence. By the 1960s, television had become quite popular in the West. The news attribute of TV is beyond the reach of movies and dramas, and the development of TV threatens the development of movies and dramas. Bergman is increasingly aware of the limitations of dramas, films and TV series for communicating scripts. In his view, art has always been a means of stimulating or motivating politics in the past, and art implies certain political behaviors through its manifestations. At that time, he felt that art had almost lost this function. Artists could hardly act as a perspective of society anymore. They could not imagine what they would become. In "Mask", Bergman makes the accomplished drama actor Elizabeth Vogler suddenly aphasia on stage, which implies the author's inner worry. Before the formation of "Mask", the US war in Vietnam had escalated. The endless bombardment of hordes of planes, the mass casualties of innocent people, and the destruction of stable life brought a great psychological impact to Bergman, a sensitive artist, who launched the U.S. war on Vietnam with Nazi Germany. The Second World War is treated the same. The instability of the world situation, especially the disasters brought to mankind by war, made him surrounded by a feeling of oppression and fear. Elizabeth saw TV news reports about the Vietnam War in the ward, and the tension and fear that the Vietnamese Buddhist monks showed when they set fire to self-immolation to protest the American war atrocities. These are the true portrayal of Bergman's personal mentality at that time.
Bergman believes that people always play a role in society and family. Sometimes a person plays several roles at the same time. It is difficult for a person to present a true and complete self when playing a role, and often appears in another face. It's like putting on a mask. In his view, society is the big stage. People living in the society are like acting, and the drama on the stage is performing society and life. In Bergman’s eyes, there is no absolute boundary between life and acting. . The 1960s was a period of great changes in Western society. The high-speed development of economy and industry dilutes human cultural values. While the feminist movement and the sexual liberation movement caused social instability, they also impacted human values and interpersonal relationships. This trend of thought has been manifested in Western films. For example, the works of Godard and Antonioni bear a clear mark of that era. In the trend of the times, Bergman must also dialogue with society through movies, but his works are different from Godard and Antonioni. Bergman is Bergman, he records society and people in society in his own way, including himself. Bergman has always respected women. In the bourgeois family environment where he grew up and received his education, sex and money were taboos in conversation. But in "Mask", Bergman designed his two protagonists as two women, one is an actress who has a successful career, evades his mother's responsibilities, can't bear social responsibility, and retreats from a social role into a self-enclosed actress. The other is a female nurse who lacks knowledge of society and herself, is passionate about career and life, and is interested in talking about sex, and has a simple personality. From Elizabeth Vogler and Alma, we can see Bergman’s perplexed and painful inner world, as well as the helpless and anxious emotions that he showed when he could not find a way to communicate with society.
From Bergman's films, he can feel his understanding of human power. "Mask" allows us to see that the power of human beings is considerable, whether it is positive or negative. The physiological structure of a person is like a factory, each factory has its own operating mechanism, this is each person's unique way of thinking, behavior, emotion and personality. In Bergman's view, emotion not only has its beautiful side, but also its ugly side. In "Mask", the author writes Elizabeth as a selfish, cold, motherless mother, she is no longer an actress, but an ordinary "me". The roles and obligations imposed on her by the outside world, and the pressure and influence that the society in which she lives in was impacted by violent acts such as war, which made her lose the power to continue wearing a mask and face external violence. She is feeble and appears as a victim. When she took off her mask, her own factory came into operation again. It was an instinctive power from her body. She retreated to a silent, but quite combative defensive side. Alma appeared in front of Elizabeth as an angel in white. She was here to help her patient, a weak person. Alma felt the power on her body the moment she saw Elizabeth, it was a kind of evil temptation, that power led her to get close to and close to Elizabeth. However, with Alma's contact and understanding of Elizabeth, who is suffering from a psychological disorder, she, a normal person who was originally optimistic and dedicated, loses self-confidence, shakes her beliefs, and loses her ability to protect herself. The strong who helped the weak became the weak. Now it’s Alma's turn to mobilize her own strength to rise up. Alma not only has to deal with the power of Elizabeth from the outside world, but also overcome her own mask and face her true self. .
Reality has penetrating power, and it affects everyone. External forces and internal forces also permeate and interact with each other. While dissecting Elizabeth, Alma also stripped off her mask layer by layer, turning into me in you and you in me. Bergman used a set of rather peculiar shots to show the results of the interaction between Elizabeth and Alma: when Alma alternately reads Elizabeth’s heart and her own heart, Elizabeth’s face and Alma alternately appear on the screen. Ma’s face, and finally a weird face half Elizabeth and half Alma. Perhaps in Bergman's view, this ugly, terrifying, and lifeless face is what a person really looks like. After completing this alternation, the two of them returned to their respective roles. Elizabeth will still be a mother, and Alma may continue to be her nurse. But are they the same as her and her when they return to the role?
There are always some scenes in Bergman's films that people can't understand, guess, or even be inexplicable. For example, in the opening part of "Mask", the subtitles appear with harsh noise, and then the main theme of the diffuse film: humiliation and death. The audience saw a hand nailed to a cross, a lamb being slaughtered, a deserted grassland, and a pile of sand on the steps. Then all this turned into a morgue-like photo. In the dead silence, the audience heard the ruthless dripping sound. Bergman attaches great importance to the role of the mirror. He believes that the screen is a mirror that can reflect any kind of image and allow the audience to enter another state of life. When Alma felt humiliated and painful, she used the mirror to let the audience see her reflected image several times. This is precisely Bergman's intention. "Mask" is not a work based on real people or facts. There is no clear boundary between reality and fantasy in the film. For example, the audience saw Elizabeth walk into Alma's bedroom. When Alma asked about Elizabeth, the latter denied it. There is also the scene of Mr. Vogler suddenly appearing in their bedroom, a scene where Elizabeth talks with her husband through the mouth of Alma. These mysterious treatments sometimes make the audience very puzzled. Has Elizabeth entered Alma's room? Has Mr. Vogler been to their nursing home, or is this Alma's imagination or dream? In Bergman's view, there is no need to explain everything clearly. Movies are basically a unique and attractive mixture of reality and imagination, form and function. His films aim to construct a subconscious process, sometimes through supernatural means to lead people to a deeper self-knowledge.
For "Mask", different people may make different interpretations, but one thing is beyond doubt: in "Mask", we see Bergman on the thorny journey of exploring life. The heart of a sensitive artist who is sincere, persistent, confused and wise.
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