Stephen Benedict has edited a three-minute video that shows how footage from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona resonates with other iconic films.
The video shows 29 frames from “Persona,” which are compositionally repeated in “Psycho,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “The Truman Show,” “Fight Club” and many other famous films.
As Benedict himself noted, it is difficult to perceive this film in isolation from the entire cultural heritage of cinema.
“It was in Persona that Bergman most succinctly visualized the central techniques of his work: identification, reflection, shadow and split screen,” says the author of the video.
The film is about a successful actress who suddenly falls silent during a performance. It seems to everyone that she is speechless forever. To overcome her illness, she goes with a nurse to a house on the coast. There, difficult days of communication await the two women.