Free Cinema

By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the ground was already softening.

In Britain, you had the Free Cinema movement, and it brought a rawer, more observational style.

In Italy, Fellini's Eight and a Half made the filmmaking process itself the subject of a major art house film.

So you already had the precedent in the mind of the audience who went to see Persona that you can make a film about making a film, that I am telling you the story of me, the filmmaker.