According to the author, split-second impressions form a ‘mental state, not an actual story, but one abounding in fertile associations and images’. Compare this with Virginia Woolf’s experiment with the stream of consciousness technique in ‘The Mark on the Wall’.
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Answer. Ingmar Bergman’s description of split-second impressions, which form a ‘mental state’ and not an actual story being a brightly coloured thread sticking out of the dark sack of unconsciousness, is very much similar to the technique of ‘Stream of consciousness’ employed by Virginia Woolf in her work, ‘The Mark on the Wall’.
In the story, ‘The Mark on the Wall’, a series of images form in Woolf’s mind as she hops, skips and jumps from one thought to the other through those images, trying to explain the reason behind a mark on the wall. The pictures do not form realistic stories but fantasies of her ideas, views and opinions, giving an insight into her mind, which is brought forth to the readers through them. With all these insights, Woolf traces back to the cause of the mark on the wall.
Similarly, in ‘Film-making’, Bergman talks about the split-second impressions that form the film’s theme. They do not create an actual story but help in forming a mental state with all the imaginative pictures that gradually develop into a full-fledged movie. Thus, in both cases, a series of images helps develop the big picture and, therefore, is quite similar to each other.