The Passion of Anna (Ingmar Bergman, 1969)
Dear Reader, I can’t live with you anymore. I’ve tried to deny it for a long time, because I love you.
There are going to be different people reading this, so I have a few questions to ask up front. One of these is ‘have you ever been in a relationship?’ to which your answer is going to be either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Notice that it’s ‘have you ever’, it’s not ‘are you currently’. I’m keeping this as open as possible for everyone.
If your answer is ‘no’ though I’ll broaden it out even wider to say ‘do you know anyone who has ever been in a relationship?’ Again, your answer to this is either going to be ‘yes’ or ‘no, but I’d like to think that there are going to be significantly more positive answers than negative. I could be wrong here.
So it’s clear that I don’t want to rule out people who have no experience of relationships, but in all honesty this’ll probably fly better with those who do. That’s a little heads up for you all. We’re going to talk about relationships for three paragraphs here. Each paragraph has a different heading. But they’re intended to work together as a whole too. Separate pieces, which work together to form one.
The difference between knowing and experiencing:
Let’s say there’s a couple that you know, and let’s call them A and B. Let’s not bring gender into this conversation at all. Now you know A and B as a couple, but you’re probably more familiar with one of them than the other. You probably met one of them first. You probably have more allegiances with one of them. Let’s say the one you know better is A. Now let’s talk about another person that you know, or who knows them. This person knows B better than A. Both of you know the same couple, but you’re looking at them through different coloured glass. And let’s introduce the possibility that you are A or B too. People view you through different coloured glass.
When A and B met (or, when you, as A, met B) it was likely that both A and B were wearing masks at the time. A lot of early days relationship stuff involves the wearing of masks. The late, great Ben Elton reduced this down to the enormous lie of “You like Dire Straits? I love Dire Straits”, and this kind of thing is rife. People subtly altering who they are in order to be more appealing. Of course, it is possible to go into a relationship without wearing one of these masks, but this requires something of a monumentality that many people lack. It’s much easier to pretend you’re nicer, funnier, more interesting than you actually are. Of course, over time these masks are dropped to greater or lesser extents. No one can live at that speed. Pretence such as this requires the expenditure of a great deal of effort. It’s much easier to just drop the mask altogether.
What's more, when you think about A and B you make a picture of how they are together. A picture which is built up of the small amount of time you have spent in A and B’s company. But consider how much time A and B spend together. It’s far more than you have shared with them. They have to get down with what I'm going to term real time. You know when you go to the Dentist? You sit there in the waiting room and wait. And the time seems to tick away ever so slowly. But that’s real time. And real time often involves no activity or event to allow time to pass more quickly. It’s all very well meeting A and B at a barbecue, when everyone’s got their mask on, and there’s an activity to pass the time, an event that has a delineated end time. But when you’re in a relationship there is no end time, and there are often no structured activities. You’re just spanning time with another human being: sleeping, waking, eating, talking, not talking, reading, travelling, and so on. Real time crawls by at a snail’s pace. How can people claim to really know A and B? How can people claim to know what you are like with B when they haven’t experienced the real time of your relationship?
These are legitimate questions.
During that real time spent together there will be moments of separation, and sometimes A will find themselves alone but thinking about B. And A may also be placed in situations where it’s possible for them to learn aspects of B’s past life without their knowing. Trust. You need to trust each other, but curiosity is human. How far will A go to learn about B? To what depths will they sink in their quest to learn about the person below the mask, who exists outside of the shared real time, specifically, regarding past partners?
The story of past partners:
Past partners are impossible to compete with because they are finite. Their stories are whole and complete. They have come to an end and are therefore perfect objects. This is completely at odds with the rambling experience of real time. The story of the past partner has been reduced to highlights. And it often lacks the tedium (if that’s the best word) of real time.
We tend to look back on past events with the imposition of a narrative. This is aided by the fact that it’s finished, and therefore has a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end. The real time lived experience doesn’t have any of these qualities. If you’re currently either A or B, then where are you in the story? Are you still in the beginning stage? The answer is, you have no idea. Unless it’s the end, or what you think might be almost the end. In which case you do know. And you have my condolences. Or, if that's not fitting, you have my congratulations.
One of the most satisfying ways of experiencing the story of the past partner is through the photograph. Poring over a photograph of the past partner. But this carries the difficulty of being concurrently a source of both an epochal and complete lack of information. There is nothing to glean from the photograph. All you can do is look at it and presume: read into what you think that face and pose tells you. Maybe it’s a painful experience. Maybe you see something which you think you’ll never be able to attain. Maybe not. Regardless, in both situations what you’re trying to do is find something you can’t find, you’re trying to uncover the presence of the intangible.
The Presence of the intangible:
When you’re perusing these pictures often what you’re doing is trying to see something which is felt, internalised. You’re trying to understand what’s happening between the people in the picture, or what they’re thinking about, or how they’re feeling, but the only evidence you have is a frozen moment of time. This clearly isn’t going to tell you anything, and yet we persist. We keep looking. As though there will eventually be a reveal and everything will become known to us. And, of course, let's keep alive the idea that sometimes that will be a photograph of yourself, playing A, being studied by another.
You might think that a photograph is just a photograph, but you’d be wrong. There are genuine emotional responses tied up in an image. Gombrich exemplified this by asking his readers to find an image of someone who was important to them, and to then remove the eyes by either burning them out with a cigarette, or cutting them out with scissors. Have you tried this? It’s not easy. Interestingly you’re feeling something by seeing something, and nothing else. Let’s say you’re A, and one day you find an old photograph of someone who used to be B. What’s that feeling you’re feeling? You’re not seeing the old B. You’re just seeing a picture of them. And a picture of them then. Not now. There's nothing 'real' here in a way, certainly nothing new. But those feelings that start running through you are very, very real.
If you’ve ever read any Bazin you’ll know that he was a very religious man. And if you haven’t ever read any Bazin you will know that he was a very religious man, because I just told you so, and you know that you can trust me. Even if you don’t trust me, you’ll be one step ahead if you’ve seen Caveh Zahedi talk about The Holy Moment in Richard Linklater’s Waking Life. The funny thing about pictures (or, if you’re Bazin or Zahedi, cinema) is that it puts a frame around a moment and allows us to see how very special it is. Really, this is going on around us all the time. All of life is, as Bazin believed, holy. But we don’t see it because going through life being constantly overwhelmed by being in the moment is a tad tricky. But recorded moments get around this. They’re different. They’re special. And we can see the holy moment, or, what Bazin said, the presence of God within an image. Even if you’re a non-believer you’ll have (hopefully) found yourself looking at images at some point in your past and experiencing a rush of emotions, an up-swell of feeling. Maybe it’s not the presence of God for you, but there’s undeniably something there. Maybe it’s just love. Whatever that means to you. But there’s something in those images that isn’t necessarily in those images. It’s not pictured, but it’s a feeling, and it’s so strong that when you return to that image it’s still there, and it’s still overwhelming, and if I ask you to explain why you won’t be able to explain yourself using words. That’s what’s great about pictures, and moments, and feelings: they can go places that words only dream they can. What’s more, and you don’t have to be religious to feel this, sometimes you’ll experience a moment that you know deep down exists solely for you. Something that you were meant to undergo, or see, or feel.
There’s a story by Maupassant (I can’t remember which one, but if you go and read all of them I’m pretty sure you’ll find it) where a Priest disapproves of a relationship that a young lady in his charge (maybe it was his niece, or daughter, or something) has developed with a young man. God does not approve of the relationship, says the Priest. You get the gist. Later that day the Priest finds himself unable to sleep, and so he goes on a stroll through the garden. It’s a still, beautiful night. The entire garden is lit with moonlight the like of which the Priest has never seen before. This creates a quandary for him: everything is the creation of God, and exists to benefit humanity, but what is the function of this creation? Why create a night this beautiful when there is no tangible benefit, no audience even? Just then the Priest hears a sound down by the river, and he quietly makes his way over. There, by the river, is the young woman in his charge, with the young man he disapproves of, sitting together, looking at the garden. And then he realises why God has done this, and how much He must approve of their union to grant them something like this. And then he steals away, red faced with shame.
There are going to be different people reading this, so I have a few questions to ask up front. One of these is ‘have you ever been in a relationship?’ to which your answer is going to be either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Notice that it’s ‘have you ever’, it’s not ‘are you currently’. I’m keeping this as open as possible for everyone.
If your answer is ‘no’ though I’ll broaden it out even wider to say ‘do you know anyone who has ever been in a relationship?’ Again, your answer to this is either going to be ‘yes’ or ‘no, but I’d like to think that there are going to be significantly more positive answers than negative. I could be wrong here.
So it’s clear that I don’t want to rule out people who have no experience of relationships, but in all honesty this’ll probably fly better with those who do. That’s a little heads up for you all. We’re going to talk about relationships for three paragraphs here. Each paragraph has a different heading. But they’re intended to work together as a whole too. Separate pieces, which work together to form one.
The difference between knowing and experiencing:
Let’s say there’s a couple that you know, and let’s call them A and B. Let’s not bring gender into this conversation at all. Now you know A and B as a couple, but you’re probably more familiar with one of them than the other. You probably met one of them first. You probably have more allegiances with one of them. Let’s say the one you know better is A. Now let’s talk about another person that you know, or who knows them. This person knows B better than A. Both of you know the same couple, but you’re looking at them through different coloured glass. And let’s introduce the possibility that you are A or B too. People view you through different coloured glass.
When A and B met (or, when you, as A, met B) it was likely that both A and B were wearing masks at the time. A lot of early days relationship stuff involves the wearing of masks. The late, great Ben Elton reduced this down to the enormous lie of “You like Dire Straits? I love Dire Straits”, and this kind of thing is rife. People subtly altering who they are in order to be more appealing. Of course, it is possible to go into a relationship without wearing one of these masks, but this requires something of a monumentality that many people lack. It’s much easier to pretend you’re nicer, funnier, more interesting than you actually are. Of course, over time these masks are dropped to greater or lesser extents. No one can live at that speed. Pretence such as this requires the expenditure of a great deal of effort. It’s much easier to just drop the mask altogether.
What's more, when you think about A and B you make a picture of how they are together. A picture which is built up of the small amount of time you have spent in A and B’s company. But consider how much time A and B spend together. It’s far more than you have shared with them. They have to get down with what I'm going to term real time. You know when you go to the Dentist? You sit there in the waiting room and wait. And the time seems to tick away ever so slowly. But that’s real time. And real time often involves no activity or event to allow time to pass more quickly. It’s all very well meeting A and B at a barbecue, when everyone’s got their mask on, and there’s an activity to pass the time, an event that has a delineated end time. But when you’re in a relationship there is no end time, and there are often no structured activities. You’re just spanning time with another human being: sleeping, waking, eating, talking, not talking, reading, travelling, and so on. Real time crawls by at a snail’s pace. How can people claim to really know A and B? How can people claim to know what you are like with B when they haven’t experienced the real time of your relationship?
These are legitimate questions.
During that real time spent together there will be moments of separation, and sometimes A will find themselves alone but thinking about B. And A may also be placed in situations where it’s possible for them to learn aspects of B’s past life without their knowing. Trust. You need to trust each other, but curiosity is human. How far will A go to learn about B? To what depths will they sink in their quest to learn about the person below the mask, who exists outside of the shared real time, specifically, regarding past partners?
The story of past partners:
Past partners are impossible to compete with because they are finite. Their stories are whole and complete. They have come to an end and are therefore perfect objects. This is completely at odds with the rambling experience of real time. The story of the past partner has been reduced to highlights. And it often lacks the tedium (if that’s the best word) of real time.
We tend to look back on past events with the imposition of a narrative. This is aided by the fact that it’s finished, and therefore has a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end. The real time lived experience doesn’t have any of these qualities. If you’re currently either A or B, then where are you in the story? Are you still in the beginning stage? The answer is, you have no idea. Unless it’s the end, or what you think might be almost the end. In which case you do know. And you have my condolences. Or, if that's not fitting, you have my congratulations.
One of the most satisfying ways of experiencing the story of the past partner is through the photograph. Poring over a photograph of the past partner. But this carries the difficulty of being concurrently a source of both an epochal and complete lack of information. There is nothing to glean from the photograph. All you can do is look at it and presume: read into what you think that face and pose tells you. Maybe it’s a painful experience. Maybe you see something which you think you’ll never be able to attain. Maybe not. Regardless, in both situations what you’re trying to do is find something you can’t find, you’re trying to uncover the presence of the intangible.
The Presence of the intangible:
When you’re perusing these pictures often what you’re doing is trying to see something which is felt, internalised. You’re trying to understand what’s happening between the people in the picture, or what they’re thinking about, or how they’re feeling, but the only evidence you have is a frozen moment of time. This clearly isn’t going to tell you anything, and yet we persist. We keep looking. As though there will eventually be a reveal and everything will become known to us. And, of course, let's keep alive the idea that sometimes that will be a photograph of yourself, playing A, being studied by another.
You might think that a photograph is just a photograph, but you’d be wrong. There are genuine emotional responses tied up in an image. Gombrich exemplified this by asking his readers to find an image of someone who was important to them, and to then remove the eyes by either burning them out with a cigarette, or cutting them out with scissors. Have you tried this? It’s not easy. Interestingly you’re feeling something by seeing something, and nothing else. Let’s say you’re A, and one day you find an old photograph of someone who used to be B. What’s that feeling you’re feeling? You’re not seeing the old B. You’re just seeing a picture of them. And a picture of them then. Not now. There's nothing 'real' here in a way, certainly nothing new. But those feelings that start running through you are very, very real.
If you’ve ever read any Bazin you’ll know that he was a very religious man. And if you haven’t ever read any Bazin you will know that he was a very religious man, because I just told you so, and you know that you can trust me. Even if you don’t trust me, you’ll be one step ahead if you’ve seen Caveh Zahedi talk about The Holy Moment in Richard Linklater’s Waking Life. The funny thing about pictures (or, if you’re Bazin or Zahedi, cinema) is that it puts a frame around a moment and allows us to see how very special it is. Really, this is going on around us all the time. All of life is, as Bazin believed, holy. But we don’t see it because going through life being constantly overwhelmed by being in the moment is a tad tricky. But recorded moments get around this. They’re different. They’re special. And we can see the holy moment, or, what Bazin said, the presence of God within an image. Even if you’re a non-believer you’ll have (hopefully) found yourself looking at images at some point in your past and experiencing a rush of emotions, an up-swell of feeling. Maybe it’s not the presence of God for you, but there’s undeniably something there. Maybe it’s just love. Whatever that means to you. But there’s something in those images that isn’t necessarily in those images. It’s not pictured, but it’s a feeling, and it’s so strong that when you return to that image it’s still there, and it’s still overwhelming, and if I ask you to explain why you won’t be able to explain yourself using words. That’s what’s great about pictures, and moments, and feelings: they can go places that words only dream they can. What’s more, and you don’t have to be religious to feel this, sometimes you’ll experience a moment that you know deep down exists solely for you. Something that you were meant to undergo, or see, or feel.
There’s a story by Maupassant (I can’t remember which one, but if you go and read all of them I’m pretty sure you’ll find it) where a Priest disapproves of a relationship that a young lady in his charge (maybe it was his niece, or daughter, or something) has developed with a young man. God does not approve of the relationship, says the Priest. You get the gist. Later that day the Priest finds himself unable to sleep, and so he goes on a stroll through the garden. It’s a still, beautiful night. The entire garden is lit with moonlight the like of which the Priest has never seen before. This creates a quandary for him: everything is the creation of God, and exists to benefit humanity, but what is the function of this creation? Why create a night this beautiful when there is no tangible benefit, no audience even? Just then the Priest hears a sound down by the river, and he quietly makes his way over. There, by the river, is the young woman in his charge, with the young man he disapproves of, sitting together, looking at the garden. And then he realises why God has done this, and how much He must approve of their union to grant them something like this. And then he steals away, red faced with shame.