I’ve got Liv Ullmann on the brain after watching the HBO “Master Class” show, where she coached 5 young actors in the Mitch-Blanche date scene in Streetcar Named Desire (which she was, at that time, directing, with Cate Blanchett – I couldn’t get tickets to the damn thing at BAM, and believe me, I tried – I hate to miss EVENTS like that). The Master Class was so moving on so many levels. It made me think about being young, hopeful, ambitious, full of desire to do well … and also the people who offered helping hands along the way. Ullmann has thought deeply about Streetcar, and there were snippets of the rehearsal process with Blanchett, including an incredibly moving moment where she is speaking to Blanchett about the “waltz” (from Streetcar), and Ullmann said, “The waltz is here.” She reached out and touched Blanchett’s heart. “The waltz is here.” It is not something heard, or something from the outside – it is here.
Some of the young actors “got” it, others didn’t (one in particular – a girl whose interpretation of the Mitch-Blanche scene is that Blanche wants to “get with” Mitch. What play did SHE read?) Alex and I had to pause it a bunch of times to discuss it. Alex said, “I do not understand why so many actresses, when playing Tennessee Williams, equate fragility and damage with weakness.” The resistance in the young actress to being “weak” kept her from even being able to read the play correctly. However, after a couple of notes from Ullmann, the young actress really did give it her best shot – but it was a struggle for her. She was a hot young girl, probably unused to having to play anything other than “winners”. But still: watching the work process, the rehearsals, all of the different actors playing the same scene … and Ullmann’s notes, and script analysis – fantastic stuff, look for it if you haven’t seen it yet.
I will never be reconciled to the fact that I couldn’t get in to see the Ullmann/Blanchett Streetcar, but it sure was a treat to watch her hold that master class with these eager sweet young actors. I loved watching them work. Take chances. Go out shopping for rehearsal clothes that they thought said “Mitch”, “Blanche”. Beautiful. And then, in a couple of moments, as a couple of them did that scene, you could feel … trembling on the edge of the sparse rehearsal room, the raw unvarnished setting … you could feel … the play. IT was in the room. A couple of them actually approached to getting the play, and there were some cut-aways to Ullmann’s face watching these scenes, and the smile – the smile on her face – My God, she has a light-switch inside of her. Is there anyone more luminous?
David Thomson writes of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona in his book “Have You Seen . . . ?”
It could not be simpler. A great actress, Elisabeth Vogler (Liv Ullmann), was playing in the last performance of Electra. In the second act, she stopped. She would not take a prompt or a cue. It lasted a minute. Then she went on again, as if nothing had happened. She laughed afterward – she said she had this terrible fit of laughter in her. She had supper as usual with her husband. But next morning she was speechless. “This state has now lasted for three months.” Tests reveal nothing in the way of a health problem or a hysterical reaction. These are the notes given to Nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) as she prepares to meet Elisabeth Vogler. This is the start of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona.
The nurse is amiable, decent, professional – I daresay she takes some pride in having common sense, a practical nature, a basic belief in people being healed. I mean, a nurse has got to believe that, just as an actress has got to hope that there are people out there who will be reached by the messages she believes she is sending. Anyway, the nurse cannot stand the silence. So she begins to talk and the film settles into a rhythm we know – from being at the movies: one person talks and the other listens – and the listener becomes more powerful, for the more the talking person talks, the more surely plea and desperation creep in. And Alma the sensible is a mess – why do you think nurses wear starched white clothes, with a watch clipped to their lapel, if they aren’t in terror of disorder?
But Alma has become an actress, too. It may be that in her jumbled life she has never talked so much to anyone, never performed, and never had the chance to find that level of self-expression. And thus Alma comes to the discovery that actresses know, and which sometimes tempts them into silence: that they are being used by the listeners, that they have become fantasy creatures, imaginary figures, personalities to play with. It could not be simpler: It is black-and-white, a little over 80 minutes, a film that might have been made over a long holiday weekend for next to nothing. And it is about vampirism and the power of one personality over another; it is about acting and being; it is about performance and silence. And it is what we had for films once upon a time. It is beside the point to say that Ullmann and Andersson are good in the picture. Rather, they are an event of primary importance: No one should be allowed to act professionally without seeing Persona. Of course, in life one cannot impose those rules. All I know is that with students – not just of film, but of every subject – I have shown Persona and had the conversation that followed go on and on until natural darkness overtook us. It could not be more complicated, or less lucid. It is as if Elisabeth Vogler fell silent in Electra because of her own memory of the film. We are in performance: It is a religious condition.
The waltz is here.
