In the 20th century, the film industry met the vigorous development of Hollywood. It attracted a collection of film technology and raised the value of entertainment. This value of entertainment does not mean to use simple stories with beautiful scenes to please the audience, but tends to reflect the positive side of the life and characters, ignoring people's forbearance to real life. Hubner (2007) also concluded that the criticism of Hollywood films is generally aimed at Pan entertainment. Films blindly stay unrealistic, which will only consume the public’s mind and cannot be used as a culture with internal power. The opposite is the European low-cost independent film, in which there is no lack of experimental film. Such films generally have slow rhythm and abnormal stories, but the authenticity of their creation is comparable to people's daily life, so the overall impression is easy to be depressed, negative, but full of practical significance. Although it is difficult to make an objective comparison between the two in terms of films, compared with Hollywood films produced in the same age with Persona, it can be seen that these artists have the same degree of care and unique creativity for their films, which can not be constrained by cost. The following will analyze and compare the posters issued in different periods and regions of the Persona. 

Trailer Poster 

Trailer poster of Persona, American Edition

This poster is very creative. Combined with the topic of “Persona" in the film, the poster selects the puzzle as a part of elements, which implies factors of unknown, incomprehensible, combination and separation. And the proportion of the two roles in the poster area is almost equal, which will enhance the meaning of the fight between them. In terms of color  psychology, red implies anger, rage, desire, danger and aggression, while black implies mystery, sadness, regret and power. The extreme combination of red and black is a strong expression of the emotion in the film. The second horizontal poster also made changes on the basis of the first one, which weakened the influence of black on emotional language, and chose  black-and-white collocation to move closer to neutrality. 

Trailer poster of Persona, Swiss Edition 

The Swiss version of the trailer poster is relatively regular. The designer selects the old-fashioned roll film as the template and uses the classic stills of the two protagonists as the cover to restore the  film rather than make a great leap forward design. The two versions of posters can also reflect the differences between American and European films. 

Even if this kind of film forces people to get rid of the perspective of God and to feel the truth, its original intention is not to entertain or deliberately awaken people's aesthetic appreciation of the truth. Director Ingmar Bergman also mentioned in the interview that his work was inspired by a female image, and he only planned to pave the way for a long time to complete the script at beginning, without conceiving the whole picture of the story (Gado, 1986). However, it is not a completely realistic film. It basically is a modernist film, witch easily lead audience get the feeling of illusion. Lixunhuan (2006) once posted his impressions that he thought Persona was a miracle that combined by lens language and lines, which made the audience indulge in its scene. On the other hand, Ohlin (2005) advised that there should be a suspicion of the extreme strike to Elizabeth on the performance. These comments evidence that this film expresses the inner world constructed by the director through the combination of virtual reality. The following version of the release poster is also the result of the unification of the American version and the Swiss version of the poster. 

Issue Poster

Poster of Persona, American Edition 

According to the comments in Douban, this version of poster is the most popular compared with others, which designed by The Criterion Collection from the United States. It is selected from a still photo in Persona. After resizing, it is made as the poster background to retain the authenticity of the original film. At the same time, high contrast and neat composition, black and white make the picture very elegant. The close-up of the face also reflects the theme of Persona. This poster is close to the combination of American version and Swedish version in style and design. On Douban, the poster was replaced by other posters as the cover of persona, but finally be reset after users’ vote, because this is the right poster closest to the film in the views of the audience, and satisfied with aesthetic. 

Poster of Persona, Spanish Edition

The style of the Spanish version of the poster is also close to that of the American version. It retains the black and white primary color of the film and carries out creative transformation, but does not destroy the essence of the image. The two different faces are perfectly fused to achieve the whole in texture and structure, but retain the differences in facial features. It is also a good interpretation of persona, and the expression is more direct.

These posters have undergone different polishing in their release. In addition to considering the film content, it is also necessary to use posters to attract the audience. Therefore, the characteristics of different regions can be reflected in the posters. At the same time, we can also feel the different understanding of the next film between these regions. 

Reference

Gado, F. (1986).The Passion of Ingmar Bergman: Persona. 

Hubner, L. (2007).The Films of Ingmar Bergman: Illusions of Light and Darkness. 

Lixunhuan. (2006).无法告白的——《假面》. [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://movie.douban.com/review/1061341/?dt_dapp=1. 

Ohlin, P. (2005). The Holocaust in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona: the instability of imagery.Scandinavian Studies,77(2), 241.