As in "Night of the Clowns," Ingmar Bergman's "Face" (aka "The Magician") once again tackles the theme of the sad plight of wandering entertainers, albeit in a more connotative way. Complex and deep. Bergman further emphasizes the social situation of the artist as a market producer.
Who are Vogler and his troupe? In the words of Dr Veserus, the Royal Adviser of Medicine: "On the one hand we see the idealist Dr Vogler, who practises according to some hypnotism that is beyond the norm; on the other hand we see the not so brilliant The juggler Vogler, with all kinds of deceitful tricks he pulls off. If I'm not mistaken, Vogler's activities are shamelessly in between these two extremes." The film shows The people of the Vogler Troupe reflected the contradictions in his art in their own way.
Faces is a meaningful film that attempts to portray the "faces" of the entertainers, their social roles and their many contradictory features. Before the film started, a critic named Juergen Schulte was enraged by the indifference shown by the director in the recently released "Threshold of Life", and once questioned Bergman in an open letter: "You have a face. What is on your mind?" He thought he could see the distance between Bergman and his films. Bergman answered that question by changing his original title from "Liar" to "Face."
The film's allegory is very strong, it involves the relationship between art and modern society, with critics and audiences. Who is the real liar in the film? In the opening part, Manda in disguise reads a novel about gamblers cheating while on a trip to the capital. "Deception is so prevalent that anyone who tells the truth is branded the worst liar," she read. Spiegel, the dying actor, went on to say that the passage had universal meaning: "It's an illusory truth . According to Bergman, when the market is placed between the artist and his audience, art degenerates into cynicism, fraud, and deception for profit.
To Eggman, the representative of power and capital, and Vezelus, the representative of science and civilization, Vogler was nothing more than a social scum, and he was asked to perform in the living room only to distract their boredom, scientists and critics Vezerous is to verify his rationality and scientificity. When Vogler tried to hypnotize him, he said, "There's only one thing that interests me, and that's your anatomy. Mr. Vogler, I'd like to do a anatomy on you." A critic who wants to peek into the content behind the face of art, he denies the meaning of irrational factors in the creative process and the value of the artist's existence. Therefore, at the expense of the body and dignity of others, he uses his reason to peel away the essence of art. The autopsy scene is Bergman's mockery of the critic's rational analysis of the nature of art and its attempt to peek into and expose the irrational core of art.
To the servants of the lower classes, Vogler's mask represented a menace from the unknown, and they expressed disgust at the incomprehensible. Butler Rustin's words "should beat them hard..." showed their ignorant mentality. Likewise, Vogler confessed to Manda his distaste for those who tried to see through his mask: "I hate them. I hate their faces, their bodies, their movements, their voices. But myself I was scared too, so I became powerless." He hated them because they saw him only as an object to satisfy their expectations, and all they saw was his mask, and he could only deal with it in disguise them.
When actors wear unpredictable masks, they are mesmerizing, sparking expectations and dreams. And when they remove their makeup and reveal their true faces, they are denied and rejected. Eggman's wife Otilia, for example, visited Vogler late at night as a savior from suffering. And when Vogler showed his real face, she exclaimed, "I don't know you." Vogler knew his own place, so when Otilia kissed his hand and knelt at his feet, he His face is distorted by pain and hatred. He knew these people's insatiable need for mystical things, that he himself was incapable of giving them what they wanted, and that they were capricious and could reject him at any time.
Not only were Vogler's hypnotherapy troupe liars, but in the same sense the bourgeoisie were liars too, allowing themselves to be tempted and deceived. In fact, actors are victims of irrationality and escapism.
Vogler's deafness provided a great convenience for the rest of the troupe to show their talents. They personified the social role of the entertainer in different ways. Granny's incomprehensible gibberish and witchcraft were relegated to mysticism in an age of religion and science. Dubal once said, "Grannie's magic spell is old-fashioned, people are no longer interested in it, and because it can't be explained, Granny should be dead". In fact, the old witch left the troupe to pursue a more modern career—opening a pharmacy. Dubal is the face of the masked actor, he represents the market, and with the advent of capitalism, he is placed between the artist and his audience. He can't do magic, but he sells hypnotherapy to the bourgeoisie; he's the troupe's publicist and doesn't understand Vogler at all. The contradiction Dubal represents is the conflict between the market's need for sensory stimulation, mysticism and entertainment and the artist's inherent demand for authenticity. This conflict was acute during Bergman's filming of "The Face" and "The Devil's Eye" (1960). In the latter film, he described the fear of the artist's inability to do anything. In Faces, Bergman addresses his misgivings about the medium of film, arguing that it is impossible to walk a tightrope between artistic integrity and audience demands. He once said, "Don't take the form of art seriously, and strive to respect actors who are relatively pure in body and relatively complete in spirit." This extreme demand for purity is exemplified by the alcoholic actor Spiegel (meaning "mirror" in Swedish). Many of the traits he presents reflect the romantic ideals of the artist that Bergman strives to embody in almost all of his films.
Spiegel was a devout servant of art, but he never found someone to whom he dedicated himself. All his life he had longed for a sharp blade that would free him from impurity, as he told Vogler in the woods: "Then the so-called spirit can be freed from this meaningless The body." Spiegel represented the dream of complete autonomy for art, but when this demand for purity is pushed to the extreme, it becomes destructive, and Spiegel really does. His name ("Mirror") indicates his function in the film. When he met Vogler in the woods, he immediately saw his disguise on Vogler's face: "Why hide your true face if you're not a liar?" A counterpoint to Le, when Vogler peddled his art in the market (that is, at the Eggmans, before the bourgeoisie, the authorities, and representatives of science and civilization) and was relegated to a deceitful gimmick. Pigle, however, lives a miserable life by clinging to his quest for perfection. Vogler's call to the palace is all the more questionable than Spiegel's fate.
Like Bergman's treatment of the artist's theme in earlier films, he also creates a crucifixion-like figure in "Face." Vogler's make-up was like Jesus Christ, and his face had an expression of heavy worry and long-suffering; he stood silently before Vezelus as if he were being tried by a Roman court; he had a disciple, the Amon (Manda). After Vogler was strangled to death by Antonson, Antonson hung himself after the event, like Judas. Also like Jesus Christ, Vogler was resurrected after his death - summoned by the king.
Like Bergman in many of his films, Faces addresses the question that has plagued him for years: Does God exist? Can people communicate with each other? The film's answer is clearly skeptical. For example, Spiegel said to Vogler as he was dying: "I prayed all my life, but God is incomprehensible. We are getting closer to the dark... You see people lying, but you also In deceiving people, the endless torrent is the only truth." Here, Bergman uses Spiegel's mouth to express his own inner confusion. The film not only shows the irreconcilability between people who belong to different classes, but also shows people who belong to the same class, such as the estrangement between the consul and his wife, between Dubar and Vogler, and between Granny and the troupe.
As the Swedish critic Noren has pointed out, Faces depicts the artist's relationship with the bourgeoisie, with scientific criticism, and with a wide audience with extreme sensitivity. Bergman clearly emphasizes that that relationship is antagonistic.
If one pays attention to the general cultural situation in Western capitalist countries in the past decade, it will be found that Faces depicts the conflict between artists and their consumers quite vividly: serious art is restricted to a small elite by commercial forces; Market forces manipulate audiences; state intervention is the last resort to maintain serious artistic production separate from mass consumption. Faces is a visionary film that points to an undercurrent of art commodification that was hidden more than a century ago.
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