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Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film, The Seventh Seal, is another work that is reflective of the artist’s crisis with his own spiritual identity. To that point, it has been noted that during the time of the film’s production, Bergman was still wrestling with the sobering rationalism of his adulthood and the lingering piety of his childhood. Despite that, it would be later in 1961 that Bergman would begin to endeavor in production of his ‘spiritual trilogy’ in which, through his art, the artist conquered his misconceptions about spirituality and gained a comforting agnostic rationalism that he would embrace for the rest of his life. In his autobiography, Images: My Life in Film, Bergman speaks about how the characters of Jof and Mia are representative of his ultimate and final conception of spirituality. He explains that the characters were evocative of: “the concept of the holiness of the human being. If you peel off the layers of various theologies, the holy always remains.” (p. 236) He then continues to refer to the first film in his spiritual trilogy to further explain his largely agnostic stance on spirituality through an absolutely marvelous metaphorical analogy that is alluded to/evoked in various films in Bergman’s oeuvre. “In Through a Glass Darkly, my childhood inheritance is put to rest. I maintained every conception of god created by human beings must be a monster, a monster with two faces or, as Karin puts it, the spider-god.” (p.238)
Within the film there are various memorable cinematic techniques and devices that are worth mentioning. For example, there is a shot in the film when the Knight has his second meeting with Death, within that shot one may notice that the shadows being emitted from the bars of the confession window are reflected, quite deliberately, upon the Knight’s face. There are various interpretations that could be drawn regarding the significance of the composition of this particular shot, however, it is my feeling that the shadows of the confession window are representative of not just the Knight’s, but also the author’s, metaphorical imprisonment by the institution of religion; namely, that of Christianity, as this is a narrative that has for its subject none other than The Crusades. Having a plague at the center of the narrative is quite appropriate for a film so centered upon a spiritual crisis; moreover, one may argue that the plague evokes the theme of theodicy and as a corollary, alludes to the sense that institutional religion is not only inadequate but hopelessly diluted, confused and corrupted.
To move away from critical interpretation and speak about some general facts about the film, one might say a good place to start would be the discussion of Eric Nordgren’s original film score. Largely inspired by Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and other medieval chants of a similar nature, Eric Nordgren’s musical contribution to the film should never be overlooked as it is marvelously executed and maintains a high-caliber amongst even the most revered comtemporary comparisons. In regard to the representation of Death, it was largely – as many of you may have known and/or guessed – inspired by medieval frescoes found in Swedish churches in the countryside that Bergman had become acquainted with in his childhood. Yet, one should note that at the time of the production the form and physical nature of the figure was more or less established for the reasons I’ve mentioned before; thus, making the introduction of Bergman’s interpretation, which was differed quite largely from the traditional Nordic artistic envisioning of the figure of death, was a not a risky decision. Bergman thought long and hard on this problem and finally decided to embark on what is largely considered on the most influential filmic techniques to have been executed in cinematic history, the artist switches abruptly from the pounding, seemingly ubiquitous, the sound of waves breaking on the shore to the sudden, sobering, introduction of absolute silence. It is at that same exact moment Bergman makes the cut to Death’s appearance and for whatever reason, it has proved throughout the decades among audiences all around the world that this method was effective not only in communicating accurately the representation of the particular conception of the figure of Death but also, perhaps not so much these days, in even shocking and/or frightening the audience. It was a gamble that Bergman played, he realized he could have been laughed at if he hadn’t executed the scene correctly as his actor, Bengt Ekerot, could have easily been mistaken as representing the figure of a clown had it not been for the proper use of costume, lighting and composition. In my opinion, this case is a perfect representation of the necessary essence and/or character that an artist must posses to truly be considered great. To put the final cherry on top, I’ll add that the great artist must not only create but innovate; he must not be an individual who lives a worriless life devoid of problems but instead be a figure who not only is often confronted with problems; yet, despite that, embraces the problems when they come, solving them through profound artistic means… This, in my mind, is the embodiment of the artistic spirit of a unique, rare, inspirational figure such as Ingmar Bergman; a true auteur that has forever changed the world of cinema…

Watch Th Seventh Seal here

Welcome to my blog. It is not without reason that I have chosen this film as the first post ever, certain it will bring good vibrations our way.
In any case, what a better way to start, than with a master!

The Seventh Seal is Ingmar Bergman’s 1956 gem of a feature. I don’t think I am really suitable to give an impartial opinion on this movie, because I simply love it in an almost morbid way. Maybe because of its landscapes, barren and desolated; maybe because of its close-ups: paintings, section-views of a human’s spirit; maybe because of the beauty, angelical, yet full of vitality and passion, of the female interpreters; maybe because of its hieratic stillness, alternated with the utmost dynamicity, the timeline blurring at the edges, both in the movie, and in real-time; maybe because of Antonius Block and his obsessive quest, exemplar of the struggle we face against fake spirituality, and his all-consuming receipt of the final strike of the scythe.

Block is a noble knight, returning to his native Sweden after ten years spent fighting in the Crusades, with his faithful squire, who shares the same whole-heartedness, only to find a country ravaged by the Black Death, and people trying what they can to save themselves from what they think is a divine curse. We come to identify with him, and we come to love the simple goodness of Jof (Joseph) and Mia (Mary), and their symbolic role in this allegoric tale, which grabs us by the throat from the start, with the scenes of desolation in a plague-ridden Sweden. The realism of the small countryside village where the story first develops is proof of Bergman’s mastery with the alternation between wider frames and close-ups, between general and particular, between society and inner individual life, and their collision, a theme dear to the Swedish master, as we can see in later films, such as Persona.

But I’m digressing now. It’s time for you to enjoy the show: whether it is for the first or the tenth time, I know you will…

Revisiting Bergman’s The Seventh Seal

Det Sjunde inseglet / Sweden / 1957 ©Moira Sullivan 2009

The Seventh Seal is, in real time, a thirty-minute reprieve from the “apocalypse.” This is symbolized by the Black plague of the Middle Ages during the 13th century, a disease that spread between victims at eight kilometers a day. The Christian clergy randomly blamed people for its spread, in one case burning a young woman of fourteen at the stake. For Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, the film served as an allegory to the cold war of the 50s and the threat of nuclear warfare. Because the rapid advancement of the plague is abundantly featured in the film, the thirty-minute reprieve becomes an evolutionary and meditative journey.

Fourteen years after a Holy Crusade, Antonius Block returns to the south of Sweden. At that time it encompassed Denmark with the festival of saints at Helsingör and Roskilde as geographical references in the film. The most famous scene of The Seventh Seal opens upon Block at the eastern coast of Sweden. Death suddenly appears, covered in a black cloak from head to toe:

“Who are you”, asks Block.

“I am Death,” the figure replies.

“Have you come to get me?”

“Yes.”

“Wait a minute.”

“Everyone says that.”

“But I don’t grant any reprieves.”

“You play chess don’t you? I’ve seen it in paintings and heard it in songs.”

The game begins with moves on board, which serve as plot changes. A field trip to a church with frescos illustrates the story of the plague as a death ritual. The thirty-minute reprieve Block requests is for him to experience one meaningful deed before he dies. He tries to trick and is tricked by Death, who poses as a confessor at one point while Block reveals his game plan.

Block’s quest is for “vetskap” (knowledge), but he is also aware of his corporeality. At one point he holds up his arm exclaiming, “this is my hand,” as in the Christian sacrament of Holy Communion when the liturgy intones “this is the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” The knight meets a circus family: Jof, Mia, and their little two-year-old son Mikael. Jof predicts that Mikael will one day be able to suspend a ball in mid air, such supernatural powers providing allusions to Jesus and his parents, Mary and Joseph. It is Jof, however, who appears to have mystical powers — his visions indeed serve to save his family from death. Jof sees not only the Virgin Mary but his death, his family’s, and that of others.

Bergman’s films often depict the artist as an outcast and at one point in The Seventh Seal Jof is asked to dance as a bear, awaking superstitions of the people at an inn who need a scapegoat for the plague. Such a mime evokes the medieval custom of sacrificing a bear for atonement. Likewise, processions led by clergy carry not only witches for burning but a parade of flagellates paying for their sins.

The Seventh Seal is not only a medieval drama play. Bergman also manages to instill his film with references to his philosophy on women, elsewhere seen in Monica, The Story of a Bad Girl, Persona, and Cries and Whispers.

At one point an actor from the circus is seduced by Lisa, the wife of blacksmith Plog. They escape into the forest and are later discovered by Plog and Block’s squire, Jöns. The forest is feared for bears, wolves and ghosts but primarily Death, symbolized by thunderstorm, lightning, and rain. Jöns and Plog converse about how Lisa should be killed, as all women, for their deception, harking back to the garden of Eden. “Lust is one thing,” says Jöns. He tells a woman he “saves from rape” that he is tired of “that kind of love.” Plog and Lisa are however reunited and cry out that the actor should be killed, shifting the burden to the artist as outcast. Death, like the church, has a thing to say about the adulterer, who fells a tree the actor has scurried up, leaving a squirrel to sniff at the fresh cut of its roots.

ONE HUGE QUESTION ABOUT THIS FILM IS NEVER BROUGHT UP IN FILM CRITICISM:
Upon meeting the young girl condemned to death, Block cannot help but ask why. He means to interfere and prevent the fate, but supposes she is half dead already. There is plenty of time before she is set on fire, so it is curious that he waits until the last minute. (Was that not a good deed?)

Convinced of “tomheten” (emptiness) Block wanders away to the circus family where he has a bowl of “smultron” (wild strawberries, offered to him by Bibbi Andersson as in Wild Strawberries, made the same year). The symbolism of the meal points to one other existential truism, that for the moment daily bread is enough.

When the travelers make their way to Block’s home they are met by his wife, who prepares the last supper. Death is welcomed into their home and we later together with Jof see them led by Death brandishing a scythe in a dance on the hill. The Seventh Seal is riddled with conventional metaphors about death and women, and the artist as outcast, a fate Bergman himself would experience two decades later when accused of not paying his taxes.

NOTE: Criterion features a new digital transfer special edition of The Seventh Seal, with loads of extras!

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YOU KNOW, THAT GOD THING
The most crucial part of The Seventh Seal to me is the fact that Jof and his family are the only ones to escape “unscathed.” Of course they too will eventually join the dance of death, but that naive optimism can only come from such absolute faith.

I don’t believe Bergman is advertising Christianity though, and perhaps I am interpreting the film through my own beliefs, but I think the point is more that faith is indeed a powerful thing, and that God and Satan (or what they represent) exist in us all. The scene in the chapel after Antonius’s confession, when he marvels at his own hand, to me that is Bergman asserting: Man is God and creator of his own domain, master of his own body. This is my hand, and I can move it. You can’t really watch this film without laying down, in black and white, what DO you have faith in? Which is the film’s true power, I think.

This motif of absoluteness, of “black and white,” is hugely significant. The film of course is not in color, and whether or not this was a creative choice or sign of the times truthfully isn’t important; the similarity to and (apparent) emulation of a chess board and pieces results in images as beautiful and meaningful as they come.

Watching The Seventh Seal invokes a cruel image of time: the shadow of man waiting outside the gates of the unexpected, just sitting around until knowledge, an epiphany or death tears away this meaningless shade and replaces it with a purposeful existence. To those who think that death coming out of that threshold is not purpose, should think that it’s the goal we’re all unwillingly reaching for.

Never had an artist raised so intelligently the questions about existence and its final destination since Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot until Ingmar Bergman did it with a premise that sounds as simple and complex as yet different from Beckett’s play: a knight coming back from the Crusades plays chess with death in an existential gamble that could mean his salvation and a few more years of life using the adjective happy would be worthy of a fairy tale. Like the story of Beckett’s two characters who wait for Godot -who could be divinity, death, life, a change, and basically anything unknown, The Seventh Seal deals with the theme of life as a one way ticket to something we all know is coming but accept it or reject it in many different ways.

In the film, Max von Sydow stars as the reflexive Antonius Block who is accompanied by an often over-the- top cast through a journey to return home like a medieval Odysseus across the villages of Black Death-infested Sweden. From the moment the character is born his first on-screen appearance, that is, he is seen around with a chess set, a feature that tells us about the game we play with death since the very moment we’re conceived. Later, as the Grim Reaper appears and tells the knight of his bodily decay leading to one and only fatal path, the wonderful images of a sinister looking coast are left behind and Bergman’s essay on death, God and afterlife is set in motion.

Antonius’ party, made up of his squire, a group of actors, a young mysterious mute woman and a blacksmith and his wife, represents humanity in its many different faces: the heroes whose exhaustion brought by war and killing make them question or mock the Christian faith; the optimistic visionaries who trust God and are able to see visions of His emissaries; the sinners who enjoy the hedonistic aspects of life. Each kind has a philosophy and behavior: the characters who question the existence of God are very critical of the Christian fatalism around them; they reminisce of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Antichrist, specifically in a passage in which the German philosopher criticizes the fear of pain in Hell as a means to attract followers. On the other hand the innocent believers are united as a family and seem to receive continuously the divine grace, which makes them obedient and happy. Finally, the sinners who know their ways don’t think much but fear the end, and this is what links them all, the end of days.

The Judgment Day permeates the atmosphere within the film; wherever they go, the characters find a fatalistic world on the verge of extinction due to the bubonic plague. Every inhabitant of these cursed lands seems to be chained to their fatal hour, and so are their thoughts, which escape their mouths in mockery when one of the actors is humiliated, revealing the cause of the fear of these people: they know they are sinners, they know their time will come the worst way possible. In this stark world, the simple diversions are ruined by the visions of illness and decay and by the sounds of rotten choirs and knife-like ocean waves. Existence is heavy, it is a burden, yet the fear of the unknown makes the inhabitants of this scenario fearful of what might come after the heart stops.

The flow of the film is fantastic, and although it seems rather theatrical due to the dialogue and the performances, it never ends up seeming silly, but rather introspective, profound and sinister, and so is every scene, in which a situation tends to fire away the discussions and reactions towards the central themes like the one in which the party meets a witch about to be burned and Antonius asks her to let him meet the Devil in order to ask him about God.

More a compendium of scenes that incite thoughtful reflection than a straightforward narrative even though it is one, The Seventh Seal is a film that invites and requires viewers to participate through meditation along with its characters; it extends itself way beyond the movie theater or the screen, and dives into the mind, bringing an existential crisis that Woody Allen seems to have understood well for his character in his wonderful family tragicomedy, Hannah and Her Sisters.

The quest for the meaning of life, and if their is a god or not. Has never been better shown on screen, this film is all of what art house films should be. Bergman takes a notorious genre, and turns it in to something entertaining; and if your going to watch this film I recommend the Criterion, flawless and great commentaries and interviews. This film profoundly effected me, it showed me the difference between a great film and Hollywood, not to say watching this film will make you a pretentious ass-hole. Just appreciate films much more, for all the right reasons.

Many who have never even watched a subtitled film in their life have at least heard of the Seventh Seal. The image of the knight playing Death in a game of chess is one of the most iconic in all of cinema. Yet, does the film truly merit its acclaim? It’s hard for me to judge that objectively, since The Seventh Seal was my first time viewing a movie while regarding it as a work of serious art. Many critics today dismiss it as too obvious. I can understand that sentiment to a certain degree, but one has to realize that no film previously had dealt with man’s search for the meaning of life and fear of the unkown in such a blatant and direct manner. It was incredibly brave and still strikes a chord in the viewer. It has moments of great humor and pathos that makes one identify with these medieval characters. Upon seeing it for the first time, I felt that it was the greatest film ever made. Since that time I have become a much more experienced cinephile and while I still considerate it great, I no longer feel the same way. In fact I don’t even think that it was Bergman’s best film of 1957 (Wild Strawberries)! I also feel that Winter Light is his best film about religion and faith-in-crisis. The Seventh Seal, however, is certainly Bergman’s most important film in terms of launching his career. It is also one the most important films ever made as it helped to usher in the wave of serious and avante garde films that were to come. Any serious fan of cinema needs to see it at least once.

Despite the lack of Wellesian cinematic artistry, this film showcases the straightforward style of Bergman with a parable so classic that all human beings who ponder existence should eventually see The Seventh Seal at some point. It gives Schopenhauer’s scoffing of allegory a run for its money, and transcends the stereotypes of the Middle Ages through its warm yet distant portrayal of a disenchanted man searching for meaning in a seemingly forsaken world, where faith resides amongst fools and the only certainty is death. The Seventh Seal is Bergman at his best.

A monumentally influential film that confirmed the genius of Bergman, The Seventh Seal is a triumph of filmmaking. A medieval knight is returning home from the Crusades in a state of agnostic turmoil. All he wants is to reach home and reunite with his wife, but along the way he discovers that his homeland has been decimated by the plague, and now Death has come for him. The Knight makes a deal with Death, challenging him to a chess match for his life. That is only the beginning of one of the most hypnotic and mesmerizing films dealing with existential dilemmas, the hypocrisy of organized religion and the importance of love vs. the dangers of repression. Its impact may have been dulled by countless parodies, but it still retains its cold and majestic beauty.

After the success of Smiles of a Summer Night Bergman went on to make his masterpiece, The Seventh Seal. This is the film that put Bergman, and the excellent actor Max von Sydow, on the map and launched them to critical success.

After ten long and tiresome years, a knight and his squire come home from the Crusades, only to find their homeland ravished by the deadly Black Plague. Our knight begins to question himself and his surroundings, and the relevance (if any) that God plays in his life. To bide his time he plays a metaphorical game of chess with Death, and with this time he travels across the land in search for an answer, or any sort of meaning in general.

The film starts and closes with a quote from the Book of Revelations about the seventh seal, which is essentially the end of the world. During his travels he comes across depraved religious fanatics and a witch burning, which only makes him wonder how God, who is kind-hearted and loving, can let this happen to his creation. It’s only when he stumbles upon a traveling troupe that he starts to fully realize the meaning of life: that of wild strawberries and milk, of spending every day with a loved one, and caring for your young. It’s only when this happens that he truly does smile and laugh during his chess game, which only confuses Death to no end.

The Seventh Seal is one of my favorite films of all time for many reasons. This film also contains some of the most iconic imagery in the history of cinema: A bird soaring through the clouds, Death standing before our knight with his arm outstretched, and even the infamous, “dance of the dead,” a long line lead by death which features our characters, all joined by the hand, dancing their way to the afterlife, or whatever may lay out there. Iconic and Intelligent.

One of the most famous and influental films of all time, but until today I had never seen it. That obviously had to change and so today I took a dive into the world of Ingmar Bergman with the Seventh Seal.
The result is a film that is abolutely intriguing, impresses with a number of visually brilliant scenes and the slowly getting under your skin. It`s to express in words what exactly it is that is so good (or so bad) about it, the film has something intangible but it`s clear that it`ll keep on replaying in my mind for some time to come.
A film that I have watch more often to really be able to put it at real value and see how good it is. Until that time:
[b]7,8/10[/b]