Cultural Significance of Persona, Metropolis and Minority Report - Movie Review Example

Persona Ingmar Bergman’s movie Persona, released in 1966, remains the ultimate instance of transferring the intricate elements of human psyche to the language of cinema. It questions the conventionally held beliefs and myths regarding the personal existence of human beings in the material and psychological realms. The mute actress Elizabet Volger and her nurse Alma remain the central characters who create the ambivalent mood of the movie through ineffectual, frustrating verbal interactions and willed, powerful silences. The movie is being noted for the multiple readings it calls for, and has brought out a number of significant analyses from different perspectives. The technical aspects of the movie, thanks to the combined meticulous efforts from the part of the director and the legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist, are integrally linked to the various themes of the movie. The opening sequences of the movie rely heavily on the Freudian psychoanalytic images. A collage of images that link childhood, libidinal urges, trauma, guilt, Electra and Oedipal conflict through the images of a boy being woken up, a figure of an erect penis, a nail struck to a hand, a bloodied lamb, a fearsome spider and so on. These images are closely linked to the themes that are repeated haphazardly in the movie as well. As these images appear on screen in the beginning, the viewers are sensitized to the sophisticated nature of the narrative and invited to get deeply involved in the story. The relationship between Elizabet and Alma depends on an ambiguous power structure. In the beginning Alma exerts power on Elizabet as someone who is capable to speech, and also as someone who is in charge, in the superior position that is similar to a doctor’s but the scene in which she discovers Elizabet’s letter that describes her as an “interesting case study” changes the power dynamics altogether. The succeeding scenes focus on the powerful assertion of silence and the shattering image of Alma, as she breaks down virtually, going through experiences over which she has no control at all. Even as Mr. Volger mistakes her for Elizabet, she is unable to break free from the acting that the situation calls for, as Elizabet watches it from the vantage point of deliberate abandon and fulfillment. The monologues of Alma are shot in such a way that they have an ephemeral quality, replacing the visual experiences for the more powerful auditory images. The incident she recalls about an orgy in the beach is replete with forced visual images that can be attained only in the minds of the viewers as they watch the women and the sound of the monologue creating an unusual screen effect. Alma’s recounting of an abortion is played twice, first showing Alma, and then showing the silent Elizabet. This can have a strong psychoanalytical effect, as the accusations that Elizabet was an unloving mother and that she wanted her child dead, are reflected in both these scenes, which marks a link between the two characters and leads to the consummation of the personae of these characters reaching an ambiguous identity. The transference of identities and the eventual unification of them are strongly hinted at by these scenes. There is a play with the concept of time that contributes significantly to the role reversals and identity amalgamation in the movie. Elizabet tears off a picture of her son in the beginning, but the picture is shown intact later in the movie as she looks at it. When she steps on a shard of glass deliberately put on her way by Alma, the film burns. Here the motive of both the characters reach an ambiguous level, as it is also implied that Elizabet must has tread on the glass deliberately, as she needed the presence of Alma for an extended period. The presence of a camera and the way in which the image of an eye intersperses the narration remind the viewers of their role in the interpretation and experience of persona. Following the Brechtian ‘alienation effect’ (Verfremdungseffekt) Bergman shows the crew filming Alma in the end. Persona is a movie that transcends the conventionally held technical uses of cinema to reach a deeperlevel of communication. The seemingly unusual technical aspects are self-explanatory if one takes into account how they contribute towards the meaning and interpretation of the deceptively haphzard storyline. A clear knowledge of cinematic technigues and the ability to combine it with the contemporary Modernistic elements of artistic expression and the Freudian psychoanalytic precepts make Bergman capable of handling the complex theme of the movie with utmost ease and grace. Replacing Metropolis with Minority Report I would replace the movie Metropolis with Minority Report (2002). Though I do not dislike Metropolis for its theme or ideology, I think the technical aspects and futuristic designs are a bit jaded in the present world. Written in 1924, the book lacks the grasp of the contemporary culture and its achievements, and the theme of humanoids and class wars are relevant for an avid movie critic just as a historical interest. In Minority Report Steven Spielberg creates a futuristic world from the standpoint of the present world, and the science fictional elements are strongly combined together with its ideological stance. In place of the central theme of the making of a robot in Metroplois, Minority Report dwells on a number of ideological and technical preoccupations. The central theme is that of ‘pre-crime detection’ that conjoins the psychic powers of three characters with latest technological innovations. The three characters are able to transfer their psychic images to a transparent flat screen and manipulate them with the ease of symphony conductors. They are able to predict the nature and source of crime much before they are committed. And they also carry the burden of reaching the spot of crime just minutes or even seconds prior to it getting committed and of stopping it. In the contemporary world where the use of science and technology are criticized for the fact that they have done more damage than good to human morality, the theme of the movie is very significant. The very nature of pre-crime detection stresses on the need for a reinstatement of moral values and law and justice. However, the major intrigue in the movie revolves around the fact that the major character of Detective John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise detects in one of his psychic images that he commits a crime of murdering an unknown person. The clash of values emerges as he is torn between the moral choices of saving himself and stopping the crime. Minority Report follows an unusual narrative style. The first fifteen minutes are very crucial in the movie, where Spielberg takes the heavy responsibility of communicating the concept of pre-crime detection to the viewers through some thrilling, action-oriented sequences. The camera work of Janusz Kaminski is incredibly convincing, especially with regard to the futuristic flat screen console which projects translucent 3D images and the way Anderton manipulates them with magnificent aesthetic ease. The toned down blue that remains the predominant color of the movie frames adds to the element of film noir in the movie. More than just being a thrilling science fiction movie with an emphasis on action, Minority Report possesses an ideological power akin to great dystopian movies of all times, like Metropolis, 2001 A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and so on. The ideological element of the movie touches upon the personal and social aspects of life, and the technical quality of the movie augments and unites the themes of science and morality in the socio-political and material aspects of contemporary life. Enlightenment and Romanticism Enlightenment originated in Western Europe as an intellectual movement. The major precepts of Enlightenment were based on an attempt at warding off all sorts of superstition and understanding the world through empirical evidences and analyses. Inspired by the scientific achievements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the spirit of Enlightenment developed around Europe. It spread to other parts of the world as well, especially in the eighteenth century, but Europe strived to remain at the centre of this movement. It claimed to get rid of all regressive elements and shunned barbarity and ignorance. Quite paradoxically, the seeds of colonialism were also seen to sprout from the Enlightenment spirit, which defined the idea of progress as a linear phenomenon, favoring certain species, nations and classes. Drawing profusely from the humanistic arguments that favoured speciesism, Enlightenment led to the colonial ideologies that ruled the world for more than two centuries. America awoke to the ideological power of Enlightenment in the early stages of its formation. The quest for knowledge and adventure fit well to the prospect of an American dream, and led by the philosophical insights of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, America proceeded in the alluring path of development and progress. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of America took their roots in the Enlightenment movement. The principles of religious tolerance and scientific knowledge helped America survive the initial stages of it formation which called for a forced co-existence among diverse groups of people who ended up in the continent for various reasons. Peter Brooker points out that Enlightenment had an “immediate effect upon the American and French Revolutions” (Brooker 85). The major part of nineteenth century, often identified as the years between 1828 and 1856 are considered the Romantic Period in America. However, the European Romantic period spans from the later eighteenth century to the middle of nineteenth century. Though it marked a violent reaction towards the Enlightenment, it is better known for its affinity towards the concept of imagination. In America, both Enlightenment and romanticism facilitated a natural shift from the formation of a culture through revolution to the pragmatic issues of group survival. Romanticism helped America gain a nationalistic spirit through its political, philosophical and artistic expressions. Terry Eagleton observes: “Romanticism had tried to square the circle between finding in aesthetic culture an alternative to politics, and finding it the very paradigm of a transformed political order” (16). This period is also known by two other names in America – The American renaissance and the Age of Transcendentalism. The legendary literary and philosophical figures of the age are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. According to M.H Abrams, “[I]n all the literary genres except drama, writers produced works of an originality and excellence not exceeded in later American history” (Abrams 206). The age is also known for the beginning of feminist thought in the thoughts and works of Margaret Fuller. The African-American influence in literature and political though was also maintained through the works of Francis Ellen Watkins Harper and William wells Brown. The fact that this age produced America’s national poet, Walt Whitman, who left an inimitable legacy to American literature makes American Romanticism a matchless one, even hinting at the emergence of its sudden growth that overshadowed the European sense of superiority. References Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary terms: Seventh Edition. Singapore: Harcourt, 2000. Brooker, Peter. A Glossary of Cultural Theory. London: Arnold, 2003. Eagleton, Terry. The Idea of Culture. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. Read More