Persona this week.  Vertigo next week.  As always, follow along on our iCheckMovies list, and be sure to let us know how you’d rank the movies in the comments below.

Persona – October 18, 1966

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Producer: Ingmar Bergman

Writers: Ingmar Bergman

Actors: Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullman

Studio: AB Svensk Filmindustri

Distributor: AB Svensk Filmindustri, Lopert Pictures

The course of the conversation:

Let’s just start with “pretentious.”

Jonathan disagrees entirely.

Are we past post-modernism?

Criticism is not a statement of absolutes.

A half-second shot of an erection: pretentiously unnecessary or all you need to get the point?

A tangent into conspiracy town.

What matters more? The narrative or the meta-narrative?

Nathaniel hates post-modernism.  His opinion of Persona is not surprising.

Sometimes a cigar is just a penis.

A commentary on the power of sex.

Michael feels like there’s too much symbolism.

We make assumptions about Father Beast’s take on this movie.

Nathaniel really hated this movie.

Michael just felt like the story was obfuscated, but it’s not hateful.

Jonathan bought into the entire movie.

Should a movie be completely comprehensible on the first viewing?

Should small parts of a movie doom it or elevate it?

We recorded late on a week night and Nathaniel really wanted to go home. We didn’t really let him.