One Shot is a series that seeks to find an essence of cinema history in one single image of a movie. The Seventh Seal (1957) is showing June 16 - July 16, 2020 on MUBI in many countries in the series The Inner Demons of Ingmar Bergman.
Despite his personal skepticism of religion, Ingmar Bergman had a grasp firmer than any other European filmmaker outside of Dreyer on how Christianity has had profound influence on western history and art. Namely, in the way that art can navigate the dualism of faith in God and the fear of death. The latter begets a singular question that is asked in nearly every Bergman film in some capacity: Is there really anything after death? Depictions of heaven and hell, like those in Bergman’s The Devil’s Eye (1960), are structured and finite, but whatever lies in between the mortal and immortal worlds is undefined. In the penultimate scene in The Seventh Seal (1957), Antonious (Max von Sydow) and others dance linked hand in hand. With wind blowing, their human shapes become more amorphous and they sway in no particular direction though death seems to be tugging them along. Religion in imagery like this serves the purpose of reckoning with the ambiguities of life after death and the uncertainty of what exists there beyond our mere beliefs. Antonius continually asks for answers from the afterlife as he tries to extend his existence in a game of chess against death. In the similarly medieval-centric The Virgin Spring (1960), Töre (also von Sydow) has a reckoning with God and a demand for answers over the death of his daughter that are never given through gospel and sermon. These mysteries are a constant struggle for Bergman’s characters, specifically those played by von Sydow, are proxies for the questions and doubts Bergman himself has about anything beyond this world. Von Sydow recounted in an interview with Charlie Rose that Bergman had begun to believe in an afterlife again as he aged, and vowed to von Sydow that they would meet “on the other side.” One hopes after a career of asking what lies beyond, Bergman is at peace in knowing he ultimately found an answer.