The Seventh Seal (film)
"The Seventh Seal" is a landmark 1957 film directed by Ingmar Bergman, which significantly contributed to his reputation in international cinema and highlighted the medium's ability to address profound themes. Set in 14th-century Sweden amidst the Black Death, the film follows the knight Antonius Block, who returns home from the Crusades grappling with existential questions and the search for meaning in life. The narrative revolves around an iconic chess game between Block and Death, symbolizing the struggle against mortality and the desire for redemption. As the knight travels with his squire, they encounter various characters, including a young family, and confront themes of faith, despair, and the human condition.
The film is recognized for its striking visual style, developed in collaboration with cinematographer Gunnar Fischer, and is noted for its biblical references and motifs like the danse macabre, which illustrates the inevitability of death. "The Seventh Seal" won the Jury Special Prize at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival and has influenced numerous filmmakers and other media, including Woody Allen's works and various parodies. Despite its somber themes, the film combines moments of beauty and humanity, making it a profound exploration of life's complexities and a significant piece in the history of cinema.
The Seventh Seal (film)
- Release Date: 1957
- Director(s): Ingmar Bergman
- Principal Actors and Roles: Gunnar Björnstrand (Jöns); Bengt Ekerot (Death); Nils Poppe (Jof); Max Von Sydow (Antonius Block)
- Book / Story Film Based On: Wood Painting by Ingmar Bergman
The Seventh Seal is a landmark 1957 film that helped to establish director Ingmar Bergman as a major force in international cinema and elevate the cinema’s reputation as a medium that could be used to explore serious ideas and themes. It is also notable for Bergman’s use of cinematic language, including the stark images that he created in collaboration with the cinematographer Gunnar Fischer. The film features an extended chess game between the knight-hero and the figure of Death. It had a wide impact immediately upon its release and has often been parodied and imitated, exerting a major influence on the collective imagination.
Plot
The Seventh Seal is set in Sweden during the fourteenth century. The knight, Antonius Block, returns to Sweden with his squire, Jons, after both have fought in the Crusades. Sweden is in the grip of the Black Death and a sense of foreboding or imminent death pervades the entire film.
Block is in the midst of a dire personal crisis. Exhausted and pessimistic after many years of war, he is obsessed with finding a sense of purpose to his life and discovering whether God exists.
On a lonely beach he encounters Death, an appropriately frightening figure dressed in a black robe and cowl. The knight had been playing a game of chess by himself, and realizing that Death has come for him, he suggests that Death become his opponent. The knight’s hope is that he can postpone Death’s mission by extending the game for as long as possible and, indeed, it continues throughout most of the film.
The knight wishes to return to his castle, and while traveling with his squire he meets a young family consisting of two actors, Jof and Mia, and their infant son Mikael. Skat, another actor, is with them.
The knight and his squire then stop at a church where they see an artist painting the danse macabre, or "dance of death." The dance macabre is one of many haunting motifs in the film. It consists of Death leading a group of his followers or victims to their unavoidable fates.
At the church the knight attempts to give a confession only to discover that the priest who is hearing it is Death himself. During the confession the knight acknowledges that his life has been without purpose. He also expresses his fervent desire to do something meaningful or redemptive before he dies.
Later, Death makes another chilling appearance when he comes to claim Skat. At a climactic point in the chess game Death forcefully tells the knight that escape from him is impossible. Hoping to disprove him and redeem himself, the knight disrupts the chess game, distracting Death’s attention and giving Jof and his family an opportunity to flee. Death restores the pieces to their rightful positions, then checkmates the knight, who is nonetheless satisfied with the outcome of the game because he accomplished his goal.
Jof and his family sit out a storm, waiting for their opportunity to leave the country and the plague behind. Earlier in the film the squire had been the only character who could see Death but later Jof had discovered that he had the ability to do so. The morning after the storm passes he sees Death leading the knight and others away in the danse macabre.
Significance
The Seventh Seal won the Jury Special Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957. It was also named the eighth greatest film in the history of international cinema by Empire magazine.
Bergman was the son of a pastor and he clearly was preoccupied with the religious questions that haunt the knight. As critics have demonstrated, the film contains many biblical references. The title is an allusion to a passage in the Book of Revelation that contains the phrase "silence in heaven," and it is God’s silence or seeming indifference that so troubles the knight.
While the film can be undeniably morbid at times as a viewing experience it often leaves audiences entranced and even exhilarated as the film critic Peter Cowie points out. From a narrative point of view the obvious explanation is Bergman’s focus on redemption. Reflecting the full range of human experience, there are idyllic episodes such as the knight’s picnic with Mia, although, as Cowie further points out, Bergman has a tendency to juxtapose a lighthearted scene with one that is shocking in its brutality. Indeed, the film contains a number of frightening scenes, including one in which a young woman believed to be a heretic is burned alive. It also contains images of great beauty, many of them inspired by the religious imagery found in medieval art.
While The Seventh Seal has influenced many filmmakers it has had a particularly profound effect on Woody Allen, whose film Love and Death (1975) pays tribute to it. So, too, does Allen’s play Death Knocks (1968), which features a chess game between Death and the play’s protagonist, Nat Ackerman.
The film has also been parodied in a wide range of other media, including the hilarious short film De Duva (1968); Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975); an episode of Saturday Night Live in 1976; and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991). The musical group Roxette’s video "You Don’t Understand Me" (1995) pays homage to the film.
For a filmmaker as prolific and gifted as Bergman it is difficult to point to a period in his career that was especially productive. Still, as Cowie observes, Bergman made The Seventh Seal during the time when he directed a series of other classic films, including Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Wild Strawberries (1957), and The Virgin Spring (1960). Bergman will always be judged by his entire body of work, but The Seventh Seal remains one of his most provocative and influential films.
Awards and nominations
Won
- Venice Film Festival (1957) Jury Special Prize: Ingmar Bergman
Nominated
- Venice Film Festival (1957) Palm d'Or: Ingmar Bergman
Bibliography
Bergman, Ingmar, and Joan Tate. The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2007. Print.
Bergman, Ingmar, and Marianne Ruuth. Images: My Life in Film. New York: Arcade, 2011. Print.
Bjorkman, Stig, et al. Bergman on Bergman: Interviews with Ingmar Bergman. Boston: Da Capo, 1993. Print.
Bragg, Melvyn. The Seventh Seal (BFI Film Classics). Southbank: British Film Inst., 1993. Print.
Cowie, Peter. Ingmar Bergman: A Critical Biography. New York: Scribner, 1982. Print.
———. "The Seventh Seal." Criterion.com. Criterion Collection, 12 Oct. 1987. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/21-the-seventh-seal>.
Ebert, Roger. "The Seventh Seal." RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital, 16 April 2000. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-seventh-seal-1957>.
Giddons, Gary. "The Seventh Seal: There Go the Clowns." Criterion.com. Criterion Collection, 15 June 2009. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1171-the-seventh-seal-there-go-the-clowns>.
Koskinen, Maaret, ed. Ingmar Bergman Revisited: Performance, Cinema and the Arts. New York: Wallflower, 2008. Print.
Macnab, Geoffrey. Ingmar Bergman: The Life and Films of the Last Great European Director. London: Tauris, 2009. Print.
Mandelbaum, Jacques. Masters of Cinema: Ingmar Bergman. London: Phaidon, 2011. Print.
Shargel, Raphael, ed. Ingmar Bergman: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers). Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2007. Print.