{"id":5641,"date":"2018-11-23T02:09:07","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T02:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/?p=5641"},"modified":"2018-11-23T02:22:57","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T02:22:57","slug":"olivier-assayas-on-bergmans-absurdly-important-persona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/olivier-assayas-on-bergmans-absurdly-important-persona\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivier Assayas on Bergman’s ‘absurdly important’ Persona"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebrated French director Olivier Assayas (Paris, je t\u2019aime<\/em>, Clouds of Sils Maria<\/em>) recently penned an editorial, for the magazine Film Comment, on director Ingmar Bergman\u2019s legacy. In \u201cWhere Are We With Bergman?<\/a>\u201d Assayas wrote, \u201cI see [Bergman\u2019s absence from contemporary cinema] as a terrible void,\u201d adding that \u201c[Bergman chose as his subject] what is most precious in the ontology of cinema: its capacity to represent the complexity of human experience, to face its contradictions and ambivalences, to look at what is simultaneously destructive and full of hope, transcendent and maddeningly trivial in humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

We move away from Bergman when we move away from our dark side and the necessity to face it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the recent Toronto International Film Festival, Assayas sat down to share, on camera, his thoughts on Persona<\/em>, a movie he describes as \u201cabsurdly important,\u201d while adding that Bergman showed \u201cthat you could be both a great writer and a great filmmaker, meaning you could have the skills of a director and also be one of the great writers of your time.\u201d Watch as the director discusses the magic of Ingmar Bergman\u2019s 1966 masterpiece.<\/p>\n