The Seventh Seal
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| Det sjunde inseglet | |
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| Directed by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Produced by | Allan Ekelund |
| Written by | Ingmar Bergman |
| Starring | Max von Sydow Gunnar Björnstrand Bengt Ekerot Nils Poppe |
| Cinematography | Gunnar Fischer |
| Editing by | Lennart Wallén |
| Distributed by | Svensk Filmindustri |
| Release date(s) |  16 February 1957 13 August 1958 |
| Running time | 96 min. |
| Language | Swedish |
| Budget | $150,000 (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Seventh Seal (Swedish: Det sjunde inseglet) is an existential 1957 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman about the journey of a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) across a plague-ridden landscape. Its best-known scene features the knight playing chess with the personification of Death, his life resting on the outcome of the game. It is widely considered to be one of Bergman's best films.
The title is a reference to the passage from the Book of Revelation used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words "And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" (Revelation 8:1).
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[edit] Synopsis
Antonius Block (von Sydow), a knight, returns with his squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand) from the Crusades and finds that his home country is ravaged by the plague. To his dismay, he discovers that Death (Bengt Ekerot) has come for him too. In order to buy time he challenges Death to a chess match, which allows him to reach his home and be reunited with his wife after ten years away. The knight's faith is war-weathered, and this theme is stressed in one of the scenes in the movie: the knight gives confession to a priest about his doubts whether God actually exists, he tells the priest how he challenged death to a game of chess and reveals his strategy, only to find that the "priest" is actually Death. The movie has very Kierkegaardian themes on death and meaning (see Kierkegaard on despair) and thus it is quite existential. In another powerful scene of a witch burning, the knight is asked by his squire whether he sees in the victim's eyes God or a vacancy. The disquieted knight refuses to acknowledge the victim's and, in a way, his own emptiness despite his doubts about God. The knight realises that he would rather be broken in faith, constantly suffering doubt, than recognise a life without meaning.
During the fateful journey they encounter several features of medieval society and the way it dealt with the fear of death: penitence of flagellators, the burning of a witch and travelling actors. Bergman is particularly critical in his depiction of the clergymen, who profit from the atmosphere of terror engendered by the plague. They offer no spiritual comfort to their people, and are represented as little better than thieves. Bergman contrasts the despairing unbelief of the knight and the bitterness of his squire with the simple spiritual faith of the acrobat player Jof (Nils Poppe) and his young wife Mia (Bibi Andersson), who, together with their infant son Mikael, may be symbolic of the Holy family. The squire (Gunnar Björnstrand), while forcefully atheistic and cynical, displays a sensitivity which drives him to protect and aid those he can, and sympathize with those (like the witch) he cannot. Bergman has been suggested to identify most closely with this character.
Eventually, the knight achieves the significant act which gives his life meaning, by enabling the escape of the young couple and their child. While the knight and his followers are led away over the hills in a medieval dance of death, the young family live to continue their journey.
[edit] Historical accuracy
The medieval Sweden portrayed in this movie is not totally accurate. For example, the self-flagellators never existed in Sweden, large-scale witch persecutions only began in the 1400s, and the theme of life and death as portrayed in the movie is more typical of existentialism in the 1950s than to the beliefs of medieval Swedes.[1]
However, some images are derived from medieval imagery. For example, an image of a man playing chess with Death in the form of a skeleton exists in a medieval church painting from the 1480s in Täby kyrka, Täby, north of Stockholm; it was painted by Albertus Pictor. Bergman has referred to this painting as the inspirational source for this scene in the movie.[2]
If the knight was coming home from a crusade, it is unlikely that he would arrive home in the middle of the Black Death, for the last crusade (the Ninth) ended in 1271, and the bubonic plague hit Europe in 1348. It should be noted that not all crusades were to the Holy Land. The Teutonic Knights of Germany were themselves granted land for their crusading efforts in what is now Eastern Europe and the Baltic. However, Jöns said in the movie that they were in the Holy Land.
Many find the historical inaccuracies of the The Seventh Seal to be irrelevant to the purpose of the film, concluding that Bergman intended it to be more philosophical than historical.
[edit] Production
In interviews and in his autobiography, The Magic Lantern, Bergman has said that The Seventh Seal was a low-budget affair. At times the low production value can be easily seen; for example, in the second shot of the film a hovering vulture is quite obviously a kite. Bergman had been given the go-ahead for the project from Carl-Anders Dymling at Svensk Filmindustri only after the success at Cannes of Smiles of a Summer Night, and on a schedule of thirty-five days, a short time for a film of this nature.
The famous opening scenes with Death and the Knight were shot at Hovs Hallar, a rocky, precipitous beach area in north-western Scania.
[edit] Impact
The Seventh Seal was Bergman's breakthrough film. Previously, he had had only a cult reputation among cineastes in France.[citation needed] When the film won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957, the attention generated by it (along with the previous year's Smiles of a Summer Night) made Bergman and his stars Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson well-known to the European film community, and the critics and readers of Cahiers du Cinéma, among others, discovered him with this movie. In Sweden as well, the film (and its evident success abroad) meant that Bergman, though known before as an interesting director, was treated with a new respect;[citation needed] within five years of this, he had established himself as the first real auteur of Swedish cinema.
With its reflections upon death and the meaning of life, The Seventh Seal became something of a figurehead for "serious" European films and, as such, has often been parodied. The representation of Death as a white-faced man in a dark cape has been the most popular object of parody, most notably in Woody Allen's Love and Death, and the film Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (in which Bill and Ted beat Death at Battleship, Clue, Electric football and Twister). Woody Allen also wrote a short play parodying the film (which appears in his book Getting Even) about a man visited in his apartment by Death, who in this incarnation is a hopeless, bumbling klutz. The man recalls seeing The Seventh Seal, in which Death played chess with a man wagering his life, and Death responds that he prefers Gin Rummy. The two play, and the man wins his life... and two dollars.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Said by Swedish historian Dick Harrison in an introduction to the movie on Sveriges Television, 2005. Reiterated in his book Gud vill det! ISBN 91-7037-119-9
- ^ Stated in Marie Nyreröd's interview series (the first part named Bergman och filmen) aired on Sveriges Television easter 2004.
[edit] External links
- Det Sjunde inseglet at the Internet Movie Database
- The Seventh Seal at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Seventh Seal at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
- Criterion Collection essay by Peter Cowie
- Analysis of film
- Dennis DeNitto's analysis of the film
| Films by Ingmar Bergman |
|---|
| 1940s: Crisis • A Ship to India • 1950s: Summer with Monika • A Lesson in Love • Smiles of a Summer Night • The Seventh Seal • Wild Strawberries • The Magician • 1960s: The Virgin Spring • Through a Glass Darkly • Winter Light • The Silence • All These Women • Persona • Hour of the Wolf • Shame • The Rite • The Passion of Anna • 1970s: The Touch • Cries and Whispers • Scenes from a Marriage • The Magic Flute • Face to Face • The Serpent's Egg • Autumn Sonata • 1980s: From the Life of the Marionettes • Fanny and Alexander • Karin's Face • After the Rehearsal • 1990s: In the Presence of a Clown • 2000s: Saraband |
