Persona, Personae!

Placing Kierkegaard in Conversation with Bergman

Author(s): Michael J. Stern
Source: Scandinavian Studies , Spring 2005, Vol. 77, No. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 31-52
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Society for the Advancement
of Scandinavian Study

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 Persona, Personae!
Placing Kierkegaard in Conversation
with Bergman

Michael J. Stern
University of Oregon

Throughout the anthropological literature, mash appear in conjunction

with categorical change.

A. David Napier Masks, Transformation, and Paradox

David Napier argues that masks played a significant role

in rituals of transformation in Western antiquity and that the
wearing of another aspect reconciled some of the ambiguities of
change (15). This reconciliation resulted, he states, because masks have
both the "ability to address the ambiguities of point of view55 and the
"capacity to elaborate what is paradoxical about appearances55 (xxiii). He
points out that recognition of change, by definition, constitutes an inter-
rogation of identity and that the act of wearing a mask pays recognition's
paradoxical tribute to variance in that a mask simultaneously conveys
the sense that what is was something else and that something else hides
the promise of what will be. In other words, masks conjoin the past to
the anticipation of the future, and the performance of masked ritual
promises transcendence.
Napier argues, however, that by the Middle Ages masking had taken
on a moral cast. With medieval Christianity, stable social and metaphysi-
cal positions emerged, and the "mutability55 symbolized by the wearing
of a mask fell into disfavor as disguise became the cloak of evil. He points
out that "the body itself became apersona- a mask that its wearer only
escaped at death55 (12, emphasis mine). This ambiguity- this tension
between the positive and negative aspects of wearing a mask- remains
with us to this day.
The termpersona comes to us from the Latin translation of the Greek
word for mask. Apersona (< Latin per + sono) was a mask worn by an
actor during a dramatic performance. A mask sits between its wearer

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32 Scandinavian Studies

and the eyes of the world. It screens her aspect as it create

pregnant with meaning for those who gaze upon it. As a pe
one appearance with another, a pseudonym masks an author
identity, or a proper name. It too acts as a screen, and in Kierke
the pseudonym functions as an existential possibility that h
little or no relationship to him. 1 In a broad sense, a persona a
nym both engender possible interpretations and as such are
upon repetition. The persona as surface is a differentiated r
that simultaneously reveals and conceals as does the Kie
pseudonym. This irony- this revelation that obscures- f
an existential gesture or a prompt for interpretation.
Poul ErikTojner points out that Kierkegaard's pseudonymi
both a distance and a proximity. He claims that

Det er en distance, fordi den pseudonyme forfatter satter sigpà teks

vare en intim del aj den. Og det er en n&rhed, fordi dette forhold- at
digter om digming-grundhggende spejler Kierkegaards eget an
refleksionen over det at vare forfatter, ... refleksionen over produk
somsadan. (12)

(It is a distance because the pseudonymous author takes on the

being an intimate part of it. And it is nearness because this relat
the poet poeticizes about poetry- mirrors the basis of Kierk
own concern: reflection on what it means to be an author, re
on productivity as such.)

Tojner argues that the pseudonym establishes distance in for

imity through content. The relationship of the pseudonym t
name of Soren Kierkegaard- to his legal status as a subject-

1 See Soren Kierkegaard's "En forste og sidste Forklaring" in Afilutende

Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler. Kierkegaard writes, "Min Pseud
Polyonymitet har ikke havt en tilfMig Grund i min Person (visseligen
for Lovenes Straf, i hvilken Henseende jeg ikke er mig bevidst at have fo
og har Bogtrykkeren, samt Censor qua Embedsmand, samtidigen med Sk
else altid vaeret officielt underrettet om, hvo Forfatteren var), men en v
Frembringelsen" (569) ["My pseudonymity or polyonymity has not had
basis in my person (certainly not from a fear of penalty under the law, in r
I am not aware of any offense, and simultaneously with the publication
printer and the censor qua public official have always been officially
the author was), but an essential basis in the production itselP (625)]. Tru
"first and last explanation" would not be Kierkegaard's last word on t
synpunkt on his œuvre was written in 1848 and published posthumously
Peter Christian in 1859.

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 it in the textual
production of po
the text thereby
form. For Tojner
about authorship
observe this effec
udskiftet den rom
den med én melle
words a thought
the self and natu
our possible self]
This analysis de
ing and reading
interpretative po
both Kierkegaard
pseudonymous t
extend this anal
contests the notions of mediation and dialectic and would like to shift
the emphasis of the analysis toward interpretation by suggesting that
the pseudonym clearly addresses an authority that is itself a function of
irony. Furthermore, the pseudonym5s formal irony presents the reader
with a decision that seductively raises the question of the relationship
between motion and being and between a corporeal understanding of
subjectivity and the abstracted subjectivity of German idealism.
This essay will, thus, address the issue of masking as it relates to
subjectivity in motion. To do so, I will read two texts: Kierkegaards
Gjentagelsen and Ingmar Bergman's Persona. These texts will be discussed
in light of their use of existential prompts and under the sign of their
repetitions. There are two main tropes of interest in this inquiry: the
mask as it relates to categorical change and the motion of body as it
relates to being.

GjENTAGELSEN: TÏÏE BACK AND FORTH OF SUBJECTIVITY

While we know that Gjentagelsen was written by Soren Kierkegaard,

the name Constantin Constantius appears on the title page, which
reads Gjentagelsen: EtForsog i den experimenterendePsychologi (7).While
gjentagelse is translated as repetition, the Danish implies that something
is being taken again or even re-taken. When the title is read with its

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34

subtitle - an at
to refer to an
a psychologica
raises three ba

1. What is be
2. Who is seek
3. What is the

Let us attemp
tagelsen with
immediately r

Da Eleaterne ne
som Opponent;
blot nogle Gange
modbeviist him

When the Eleac

forward as an
not say a word
assuming that h

Constantius be
genes Laertiu
Hegel, and W
genes's more f
text begins wi
intended to s
by a philosop
writing and a

2 The Hongs attri

brief description
declared that the
The Hongs also p
Philosophie (363).
Gad edition refer
Philosophie publis
to this work beca
history. The majo
discusses Hegel, t
mentarer til Gjenta
and Kierkegaard's

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 of the anecdote p
expense of abstra
The issue at stak
complete in itself
cally conceptualiz
and forth (fren
objection as "he l
genes "optraadte
expression, but t
performs his argu
his paraphrase an
Diogenes- who c
in an effective if
are highlighted a
Constantius see
by moving and, p
repeating. While
understanding th
ing its performat
the text; the first
empty space of s
the opportunity
rather strange in
and his subseque
giving form. Rat
highlighting auth
content expressed
explanation.
On the level of textual production, Constantius reports on his trip
to Berlin (which he deems to have proven that there is no repetition),
re-prints the letters of a young man (whom he later claims to have made
up and who, in turn, claims to have found himself again through rep-
etition), and then concludes. In other words, Soren Kierkegaard uses
the pseudonym, Constantin Constantius, which in turn hides behind
the persona of the young man in order to tell a tale of desire, of love
unconsummated, and of love all-consuming. On the level of reception,
the young man writes to Constantius about a young woman who remains
un-named, and Constantius in the end addresses an ideal reader (denne
Bogs virkelige Laser [89] ) in a mock epistle that goes so far as to suggest

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 36

different inte
plays a pivota
appellation Mr
of any substan
ity. He becom
will interpret
no description
space, where t
If we include
levels of auth
author is thri
named (Consta
ity moves fro
young man)
otherness of
woman to th
us as flesh an
moves from C
text travels fa
our interpreta
is taken again
again for the
from an abst
the body.
There is, however, a complication as experience is projected onto
a series of screens that variously interact while oscillating between
identification and displacement. This difficulty is inherent in the form
of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous works, but this movement between
the poles of anonymity and the proper name creates a space for an
existential gesture revealed by both the pseudonym and the envelope
addressed to denne Bogs virkdige L&sere (89), twin loci that invite the
reader to wrest authority from any conception of the biological writer
that he or she may have. Like Nietzsche's dedication of his book on

3 See pages 91-2 of Gjentagelsen where Constantius describes the receptions by "En
nysgjerrig Laeserinde " "En bekymret Familiefader," "Et forelobigt Geni," "En gemytlig
Husven " "En Virkelighedens haandfaste Forfaegter " "En erfaren Frue " and "En Velaervaer-
dighed statuerer."
4 The Hongs translate den virkelig Usere as "the real reader of this book" (223).

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Zarathustra, "fur
move opens a spa
emphatically, thou
even in this mom
expression in an
of the author and
This emptying o
ment in the bod
question- who d
Suffice it to say f
the actual reader
preter make a to
biographically - t
pseudonymous ex
tics, we have no
one interpretatio
his relationship
when we have the
I propose anoth
from oneself. I c
provides us with
allows us as inter
ourselves in the g

5 The subtitle of Niet

[a book for everyon
statement that "Man
bleibt" (4:101) ["one
Brandes urged Nietzs
he saw the commonal
Heidegger remains t
Kirmsee, I would argu
Heidegger's. However
ness and a mode of ad
Zarathustra (101). See
6 Here as with the N
that has led to the u
This necessity is Niet
["dangerous Perhaps"
ment helps to explain
so attractive to gener
7 For a good expositi
the Pleasure Principle.

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38

gesture funct
addresses expe
to reconstruct
shifts from th
virkelige Usere.
The distance c
that makes th
possibilities. K
nymous texts
text is that th
away from ide
in what direct
the pacing cy
Man sige hvad m
Rolle i den nye
hvad "Erindrin
en Erindren, sa
tagelse. (Gjenta

Say what you w

philosophy, for
was to the Gree
modern philoso

Constantius r
sition, a divis
history of We
that understoo
directed its th
creates its fut
On the abstrac
about the dire
He even goes s
samme Bevseg
vseret, gjentag
forlaends" (9)

8 Niels Nyman Er
essentially moder
sees the split as b
split is between t

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except in oppos
repeated backwar
(i3i)].Time is posi
ence backward, a
may sound. Con
concepts resides i
recollection of th
regress, and repe
As neat as this di
of its formulation
Constantius's own
of form. There we
backward glance o
of the categories
him at his word,
as a dialectic, are
other: for Consta
that of the etern
past and the othe
yet to happen, th
uni-directional ca
and forth of Diog
stilled by limitati
Let us recall Nap
categorical chang
persona; and let u
nymous texts cr
points. Perhaps w
repetition- is cor
category to anoth
nor is it Hegel's b
of motion as aest
repetition, and se
pretam, formal r
over abstract tho
oneself for the
writing about Ki

il pourrait alors se
tion, son foncier ég

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4O

deviendrait phil
la reconnaissanc
sance lui est acc
toujours à recon
(Levinas, Noms

It could then b
its contraction
generality. It w
existence seek
that recognition
not recognized
jectivity is nev

When we consi
jectivity, we w
glance of reco
another seduc
does the seekin
in subjectivity
if the "who" i
begynder forf
begin from t
whose desire
seduced into c
uncertainty a
from Berlin,
across the flo
repetition. If C
the experimen
fully, an expla
our third ques
find and does h
The answer to
Constantius is
traveling to B
(26-7) [to seek
(my translatio

9 Constanatius re
speculates that if
city, archeologist
suggest that a bod

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 Kierkegaard and Bergman 41

Useren, is an attempt to shatter the concept of recollection as po

"Greeks," and by this he means the tradition starting with Pl
tion of Socrates. He seeks to replace this concept with repeti
xoOxo Ô' eaxiv àvá|ivTiaiç éiceívcov ä nox eîôev f|(ic5v t} ''
G')'inop£vQeiGCL Geco Kai imepioovaa ä võv eivai <(>a|i£v, Kai
'|/aaa eiç tò ôv ôvtcoç. ôiò ôf| ôiicaícoç |ióvt| jciepomai fj xov <t>iA
ôiávoicr rcpòç yàp éiceívoiç àeí èaxiv 'Lvr''ir' icatà ôúva|iiv, rcpòç
Geòç (ôv Oeíóç èativ. (Phaedrus 249 c)

This is a recollection ofthose things which our soul once beheld

it journeyed with God and, lifting its vision above the things wh
now say exist, rose up into real being. And therefore it is just th
mind of the philosopher only has wings, for he is always, so far
able, in communion through memory with those things the com
with which causes God to be divine. (Phaedrus 249 c)10

It is important to remember that for Plato recollection was

of a double movement. On one hand, it functions as the
which the philosopher brings eternal knowledge to earthly r
On the other hand, recollection enables a human being to co
knowledge that both antedates and supersedes lived experien
edge comes from the remembrance of a previous a non-corp
Plato believed that the philosopher uses the past to transcen
of desire and illusion that marks earthly existence. Recollectio
prior knowledge of the divine. Repetition, on the other h
the temporal lens toward a future deferred. One remembers
in other words, one anticipates and experiences this anticipa
moment. This anticipatory remembrance is the method of Co
experiment: he anticipates repetition by recollecting a previou
in Berlin. He makes arrangements to stay in the same lodgin
visit the same theater. Despite all, he is disappointed and
"Det Eneste, der gjentog sig, var Umuligheden af en Gjentagel
tagdsm 44) [the only thing that repeated itself was the impo
repetition (my translation)].
The device is revealed here, and Constantius misses the poi
own desire to stage a repetition as he separates Erindren fro
£f eisen. As he repeats the impossibility of a repetition based
he repeats the desire to stage a repetition. While he dogmatic

10 Plato puts these words in the mouth of Socrates as the latter was re-presentin
Stesichorus of Himera. The citation comes from a moment when the discour
about love, takes a digression discussing reincarnation and contemplation o

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 42

the two opposi

that repetition
tion in the Pla
recollection as
recur. Repetit
desire collides
subject constr
desire blinds.
this collision,
The young ma
In a letter to
gift; med hvem
rort af et Slag
et naermere E
{Gjentagelsen
I read it in th
and have not h
again. Here I
It is no accide
egorical shift
worn by Cons
young man is
the proper na
stantius addres
addresses Cons
never writes b
put it (188).
Let us now return to our last question: was the seeking, the experi-
ment successful? The answer is both yes and no. Structurally we have a
differentiated repetition. Our understanding of this construction depends
on our prior knowledge. Constantius succeeds in setting the stage for
a repetition of his desire but experiences a repetition that he fails to
recognize. If we take him at his word, he is unsuccessful, but within a
scheme of displaced meaning and interpretative anticipation, he acts as
a principle of repetition, as the desire to repeat. This action is apparent
on the level of both plot and style. The young man claims to have expe-
rienced repetition as the actuality of his beloved's marriage to someone
else collides with his understanding of the story of Job. However, this
understanding involves a recollection of a divine act- an ideality- and
the young man's claim to have himself back again is contingent upon a

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substitution of hi
categorical change
the movement of
For understandin
Kierkegaard's jo
during, and after
was studying anc
relationship betw
These texts indic
thought. The fir
the second addre
approached as exi
his critiqueof He
recognition.12 It
thetic subjectivi
of subjectivity is
modernity's iron
Constantius's re-t
futation of the E
that these philosop
426) [in thinking
der Philosophie su
Vaeren ikke Vorde
not becoming]. Th
the Eleactics are
what could not be
problem as center
position. He consi
posed "Sporgsmaa
160) [the questio
his opinion, mode
problem throug
Kierkegaard, mov
(Journalen 160)
with the moveme

11 See Notesbegerne
the journal labeled JJ
12 See Hegel's Phenom
Bondage begins on pa

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 44

epitomized by
Gjentagelscn. T
in notebook th
and mediation as follows:

Er Mediationen Nulpunktet, eller er det et Tredie. -Kommer det tredie

selvfrem ved de Tvendes immanente Bev&gelse eller hvorledes kommer det
frem.-Vanskligheden viser sig is&r, naar man vil overßre detpaa Virke-
lighedens Ver den. (Notesbejjerne 415)

(Is mediation the null point, or is it a third. -Does this third arise from
the immanent movement of the other two or how does it arise- this
difficulty appears especially when one wants to transfer this to the
world of actuality.)

Kierkegaard's critique of Hegelian mediation centers on its immanent

movement, its motion only within the body of abstract thought gov-
erned by logic. Here he departs from Plato in that knowledge on earth
is privileged as opposed to the knowledge of the soul. This departure
might explain why he writes so much about faith and never really
attempts to prove God's existence (like Descartes or Spinoza). For
Kierkegaard, the concept of being and movement are inseparable, and
he is satisfied with neither the solution offered by the ancients nor the
one offered by the moderns.
These conclusions move Kierkegaard to look for another category,
a category concerned with temporality and being.13 As he works out
this problem, he writes: "Er det Forbigangne mere nodvendigt end det
Tilkommende" {Notcsbogernc 405) [Is the past more necessary than the
future].14 In a long entry entitled ccHvad er en Kategorie" [What is a
category], he reasons:
Er nu Varen en Kategorie? Ingenlunde hvad er Qualität, det er bestemmet
Varen, bestemmet ved sigselVjAccentenliggerpaabestemmet, ikkepaa V&ren.
V&ren er hverken forudsat eil. udsagt. (Notesbegerne 406)

(Is being a category? By no means. What is a quality, it is determined

being, determined by itself. The accent falls on determined, not on
being. Being is neither assumed beforehand nor is it uttered.)

13 See John D. Caputo's "Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and the Foundering of Metaphysics" for
an analysis of Heidegger's attempt to do so with an acknowledged debt to Kierkegaard.
14 Translation mine. Of course this statement has theological implications. One only
has to think of the concepts of the eternal life of the soul or of the second coming and
its relationship to the crucifixion. But I am not a theologian and will limit myself to a
philosophical discussion.

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 He goes on to co
Forspil i Lseren
on being is a po
objections led Ki
problem of media
ity of thought ce
revives temporal
about the relativ
Kierkegaard wan
the problem of
which retained the thesis and antithesis in the sublated form of the
synthesis {Aufljebung)^ repetition (ßjentagelse) takes again. Kierkegaard
asks: "Hvad er det selv, der bliver tilbage, naar et Msk. har tabt den
ganske Verden, og dog ikke tabt sig selv" (Notesbegerne 413) 15 [What
is the self that remains when a person has lost the entire world and
nonetheless has not lost himself] ?
The issue here is one of losing and regaining, not of the retention of
the dialectic in a synthesis. For Kierkegaard in 1843, the self is a paradoxical
formulation that is the result of a decision and determines itself by virtue
of the absurd- through its loss and through its repetition. The temporal
question re-emerges in the difference between retaining elements of a
synthesized past as opposed to the anticipation of regaining oneself.
This anticipation takes the form of a desire to stage. In a journal note,
Kierkegaard writes : "Constantin Constantius5 Reise til Berlin er ikke noget
Tilfaddigt. Han udvikler isaer Stemningen for Possen, og naaer her Yder-
spidsen af det Humoristiske" (Journalen 198) [Constantin Constantius's
trip to Berlin is not a coincidence. He especially develops the atmosphere
of a farce and approaches the extreme edge of the comic].
For Kierkegaard, contradiction is the category of the comic (see
Journalen 145 and 147), and this categorization helps to explain Constan-
tius's failed recognition. The contradiction arises between enunciation
and actuality, between context and text, as irony. While Kierkegaard
sees repetition as a religious category, Constantius is unable to make
this move.16 He is restricted to the aesthetic, the realm of the senses,
poised in anticipation on the brink of the comic. He stages his farce and

15 Of course this entry has its parallels in the story of Job and in the young man's discovery
of his own repetition.
16 ^Gjentagelserì er og bliver en religieus Kategorie. Constantin Constantius kan derfor
ikke komme videre" (Journalen 195) ["Repetition" is and will remain a religious category.
Constantine Constantius can therefore not go any further].

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 46

demands a co
centrality of
of his own sub
it Constantin
the young man
tion or as mo
because interp
or subjectivity
Let us now tu
movement, an
interlocutor b
logical depende

Motion is the Conceit of the Picture: Persona

and the Fluidity of Subject Positions

Persona begins with a gesture to artifice. The screen is dark, the projec-
tor lights up, one filament moves slowly toward the other, and as they
touch like the finger tips of God and Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, they merge, and the screen is suffused with light. We see the film
spool, and we, the viewers, are shown the means of projection upon the
screen. The montage that immediately follows seems to resist analysis
as it deconstructs both traditional notions of narrative beginnings and
celebrates the history of the art of cinema. It is as if the film wants to
state tautologically: this film is only a film.
However, there is more to this gesture than a tautology. Like Kierke-
gaard's pseudonymic chain and Constantius's forced distinction between
recollection and repetition, this opening sequence is a seduction, a leading
away. It is only commonsensical to point out that the grandest illusion of
all occurs when a film says, "I am merely artifice" by showing the image
of its means of projection. The temptation is to allow the representation
of a machine to say, "I alone am real in this film," and thereby to distance
viewers from a clear sense of interpretation. This image attempts to
separate xéxvr|- the means of production- from 7ioír|aiç- the act of
making- and in so doing serves as a parallel phenomenon because both
technology and creative acts are forms of interpretation.
We can resist this seduction if we understand that the image of the
projector seems the way the rest of the film seems. This tension between
seeming and being is articulated by Elizabeth Voglers doctor when she

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 accuses the actres
opposition of ait
is realized in the
and a screen. The
of seeming frame
which projects an
of a persona. Tha
superficiality of
If we read the fi
value a reification
we embrace an al
moving montage
ship among illusi
then we realize t
level of form and on the level of content.
In light of the film's preoccupation with identity, I propose a reading
that focuses on the screen, the mask, and the persona. Screens enable
representations. They filter the viewing of images as the fabric upon
which a film is shown. Or, like the television screen in Elizabeth's hos-
pital room on which actual footage of a Vietnamese monk immolating
himself is seen, they allow history to be edited and infused into the
fictional world. In Persona, curtains and windows double the screen, and
a still photograph of a horrified child in the Lodz ghetto acts as a screen
for Elizabeth's own moment of terror as she is frozen in silence while
struggling not to seem. Certainly Elizabeth's reaction to the televised
image of the self-immolating monk alerts us to how Persona connects
the self-consciousness of its own artificiality to aspects of human suffer-
ing in the world. And certainly the distance we require as we see the
images filter through Elizabeth's reaction opens an interpretive space.
This distancing is especially apparent when Elizabeth looks at the pho-
tograph of the Jewish boy in the ghetto. We know that we are looking
at the image of a boy whose fate is uncertain. As Elizabeth gazes into
the photograph, we are reminded of the photograph of her own son,
which she had torn up. Elizabeth is unmoving, and the semantic field
opens an interpretative ground upon which we can pace back and forth.
If the opening montage shows motion to be the conceit of this film,
the stillness of the photograph invites us to question whether or not
identity can remain static. The anonymous boy becomes all children
while Elizabeth's spectatorship doubles our own and forces us to con-
template our own complicity.

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48

This type of d
tional world w
the curtain a
of the film br
starts up agai
body walks up
as Alma. As th
that they caus
loci for differ
in that like a
contact. The v
up a semantic
Kierkegaardian
Here this proc
does not and b
of position be
and Elizabeth's
the absolute p
impossible. Al
excursion into
This formaliz
the scene wh
pregnancy.17
time, the wor
a still photogr
silent as her
Alma exclaimi
transformed i
because as the
persona and E
Vogler" [I am
ated repetition
As Alma strug

17 This narration i
had earlier spoken
at the moment. Th
we are seeing thr
more concerned w
category rather th

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 Kierkegaard and Bergman 49

begins to break down. Disrupted syntax echoes revealing of

of filmic montage, and the exchange between the two chara
a violent turn.
When the violence occurs, Alma, who had been dressed as
is back in her nurse's uniform. The two women now face each other.
Alma tries to elicit a reaction from Elizabeth who remains still. Alma
says: "Jag blir aldrig som dig, aldrig" [I will never be like you, never].
She tells Elizabeth that she can never reach her. After this statement, her
sentences become progressively more fragmented. Syntax now breaks
down, and a communication of blows replaces words. Alma drums the
table, then slaps Elizabeth. Next we view a close up of Alma's arm where
her hand scratches it, and it begins to bleed. Elizabeth's lips quiver, and
she moves or is moved, the volition is unclear, toward Alma. 18 The irony
is apparent, the gesture is clear. These images are a perfect metonym for
the fragmented body assaulted by its own movement toward and away
from the other. Elizabeth then sucks Alma's blood. The vampirism dra-
matizes the existential prompt, the embodied and ironic gesture toward
interpretation in this film. The flowing of blood signifies the fluidity
of the repetition of identity. Elizabeth certainly reaches Alma as Alma
reaches her. Yet the obscurity of intention captures the distancing and
rapprochement of the personae, points to the limits of an aestheticized
notion of subjectivity, and ironically highlights the identity exchange
that dominates the narrative episodes in the film. The persona of the
other is eventually exchanged for a more familiar mask, and another
categorical change occurs. But at this point the back and forth of sub-
jectivity is arrested as Alma and Elizabeth both find an Archimedean
point in a return to their previously established subject positions, their
socially accepted masks.
In the end, Alma and Elizabeth return to their lives, and the screen
darkens. Violence marks a return to bourgeois subject positions. Before
the curtain falls, Elizabeth is seen through the camera as she returns
to her more accustomed speaking role as Medea. Again, the device is
shown as we see the director on scaffolding move away from the shot
and Elizabeth through the camera in what is perhaps a gesture to our
own directorial choices. Alma boards a bus, silent and alone. The two
have returned to where they left off. We again see the machinery of

18 1 claim the volition is unclear because even though Elizabeth moves herself, Alma had
opened up her vein to her, almost as an invitation. Alma also grabs Elizabeth's head and
holds her in place.

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5O Scandinavian Studies

film represented in opposition to the screen. The screen da

as Constantin Constantius appeals to a catalogue of typical
inchoate flux of differentiated repetition at last finds rest
space, in the indeterminable stillness at the close of the text
a catalogue of bewildered readers who possibly await some ot
resolution. This area is the space of interpretation. Into th
What can this movement mean? Martin Heidegger remar
Frage nach der Technik53 [The Question Concerning Techn
loss of connection between Té^vn and rcovnaiç comes at th
basic misrecognition:
Der Mensch steht so entschieden im Gefolge der Herausforderun
stells, daß er dieses nicht als einen Anspruch vernimmt, daß er sich
den im Ge-Stell von diesem Angesprochenen übersieht und damit
Weise überhört y inwiefern er aus seinem Wesen her im Bereich eines
ek-sistiert und darum niemals nur sich selber begegnen kann. (2

Man stands so decisively in attendance on the challenging-

Enframing that he does not apprehend Enframing as a claim
fails to see himself as the one spoken to, and hence also fails
way to hear in what respect he ek-sists, from out of his essenc
realm of an exhortation or address, and thus can never encou
himself. (27)

Heidegger goes on to claim that because of this split, art remains our
opportunity to reflect upon how we think ourselves. I argue that it is
for the sake of this speech that repetition (jjjentqgelse) has engaged itself
with difference within the space of recollection. The oscillation in the
space between personae allows Contantin, Alma, Elizabeth, and us to
move into ek-stasis, allows us to be both inside and outside of ourselves.
The irony of the persona represented in the movement between the
opaque border categories of subject and object creates the multiple
masks of the decisionist text: persona, personae!

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 Kierkegaard and Bergman 51

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Plato. Euthyphro, Apology, Crtto, Phaedo, Phaedrus. Vol. 1. The Loeb Clas
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