Persona - Ingmar Bergman

(aka "Kinematografi")

Sweden 1966

"Heavily artistically infused this chamber piece from Bergman lauded numerous international awards for both the film and the performances. It's beautiful imagery from Sven Nykvist's magnificent cinematography, its high level of pretension and its inability to be comprehensible have given it a unique place in cinema history. "Persona" can causes a myriad of personal reactions. Perhaps its greatest triumph is forcing the viewer to allow "it" to penetrate... to open yourself to its deeply felt expressions and perhaps have it touch upon your own. "Persona" is rife with universal emotions; pain, love, desire, regret, longing. This is a film that can be viewed multiple times garnering more from each visit ... or less, depending on how you allow it to brush your subconscious... that part of you filled with emotions which you rarely, if ever, openly discuss."

Gary W. Tooze

Posters ( Click to enlarge where applicable )

Release Date: October 18th, 1966- Sweden

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DVD Comparison:

MGM - Region 1 - NTSC vs. Tartan - Region 0 - PAL

Big thanks to Richard Stracke for the MGM Screen Captures !

(MGM - Region 1 - NTSC - LEFT vs. Tartan - Region 2 - PAL - RIGHT)

DVD Box Covers
	Or buy the entire 6 -disc MGM Boxset: We recommend buying them individually (reasonably priced) and picking up the superior PAL editions.
Distribution	MGM Home Entertainment Region 1 - NTSC	Tartan Home Video Region 2 - PAL
Runtime	1:22:33	1:19:03 (4% PAL speedup)
Video	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 6.45 mb/s NTSC 704x480 29.97 f/s	1.37:1.00 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.13 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes
Bitrate: MGM .
Bitrate: Tartan
Audio	Swedish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), DUB: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)	Swedish - Dolby Digital (2.0) Mono
Subtitles	English, Spanish, French and none	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Aspect Ratio: Full Screen (Standard) - 1.33:1 Edition Details: • Original uncensored theatrical version • Brand-new digital film transfer presented in the original aspect ratio (1.33:1) • Original Swedish audio and English audio • Commentary by Bergman biographer Marc Gervais • "A Poem in Images" featurette • On-camera interviews with Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson • Photo gallery • Original theatrical trailer DVD Release Date: February 10, 2004 Keep Case Chapters 20 Sold individually or as part of The Ingmar Bergman Special Edition DVD Collection (Persona / Shame / Hour of the Wolf / The Passion of Anna / The Serpent's Egg)	Release Information: Theatrical Release Date: October 16th, 1966 Production Company: Tartan Video Aspect Ratio: Original Aspect Ratio - 1.37:1 Edition Details: • Trailer/Advertisement for Tartan's 'The Ingmar Bergman Collection' - (2:53) • Promotional Art Gallery - 6 poster stills and 6 capture stills • Censored Montage Sequence (1:23) • Philip Strick Film Notes - 6 Static pages • Filmographies of Bergman, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman • Original Un-restored Trailer (2:31) DVD Release Date: April 28th, 2003 Transparent Keep Case Chapters: 12

Comments:

The Tartan is much brighter - and may be partially artificially induced. It still looks quite sharp for a DVD5 - but possibly a notch less-sharp than the MGM. The MGM is cropped on all 4 sides (calculated to be 11.5% of the image!) - a significant amount. Personally I like the high brightness levels on the Tartan. Its whites are ultra-white (like bleach) where there is a dullish brown hazy over the MGMs. The subtitles are very good on both version. Both have quality Extras with MGM's commentary, interviews and short featurette making them the winner in that category. The MGM has a (useless) English dub and more subtitle options. Both offer original 2.0 audio. I won't be trading up from my Tartan, but I suspect many of you may want to, if only for the Extras. I am unhappy about the cropping (enough removed to make me mention it) on the MGM and I am not bothered enough by the brightness (too bright!) of the Tartan.

Shame MGM - I wonder how Bergman would feel about us watching 88.5% of his film?

- Gary W. Tooze

DVD Menus

(MGM - Region 1 - NTSC - LEFT vs. Tartan - Region 2 - PAL - RIGHT)

Subtitle Sample