The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman
**Overview of "The Seventh Seal" by Ingmar Bergman**
"The Seventh Seal," directed by Ingmar Bergman, is a seminal film that explores profound existential themes through the story of a knight, Antonius Block, returning home from the Crusades. Upon his return, he encounters Death and challenges him to a game of chess, hoping to delay his fate. This iconic imagery of a knight playing chess with Death reflects the film's central exploration of mortality and the human quest for meaning in the face of inevitable death.
As Block journeys with his skeptical squire, Jöns, they encounter various characters, including a troupe of actors, who each contribute to the film's rich tapestry of reflections on faith, doubt, and the human condition. The narrative juxtaposes the knight's quest for answers about God and the meaning of life with the stark realities of a plague-ridden world. Key moments include Block's compassionate act of relieving an accused witch's pain and his conversations about faith and existence, culminating in a poignant meditation on the search for meaning amidst silence and despair.
The film concludes with a haunting vision of characters dancing with Death, encapsulating the inevitability of mortality and the question of whether any meaning can be found in the transient moments of life. "The Seventh Seal" is not only a cinematic masterpiece but also a profound philosophical inquiry into the nature of existence, making it a significant work for those interested in the intersections of film, philosophy, and spirituality.
The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman
First published:Det Sjunde inseglet, 1956 (English translation, 1960)
Edition(s) used:The Seventh Seal, in Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman, translated by Lars Malmström and David Kushner. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960
Genre(s): Drama
Subgenre(s): Historical fiction (fourteenth century); screenplay
Core issue(s): Death; doubt; faith; fear; God; holiness
Principal characters
Antonius Block , a knightJöns , the knight’s squireDeath Jof , an actorMia , Jof’s wife and fellow actorRaval , the man who had inspired Block to join a crusade
Overview
Antonius Block, a knight newly returned from a crusade, turns around from his morning prayers to encounter Death. Block challenges Death to a game of chess, asking to live while the game is in progress and to be released if he wins. Death agrees, and they begin to play. The images of a knight playing chess with Death and of Death leading a communal dance (in the film’s last sequence) are two images that Ingmar Bergman saw as a boy in churches. They suggest the inevitability of death, no matter the strategies we employ: All must eventually dance with him.
Jöns, the knight’s skeptical, irreverent squire, wakens, and he and Block resume their journey to the knight’s castle, passing a wagon in which sleep a troupe of actors.
Jof, one of the actors, tells his wife, Mia, of a vision he has had of the Virgin Mary and her child. Sometimes he makes up stories, he admits, but he asserts this vision was real. The names Jof and Mia are meant to make us think of the Holy Family. Jof and Mia’s infant son, Mikael, can be considered a type of Christ, for the apocalyptic vision that ends the book of Daniel mentions the coming of Michael, a great prince, just as the Christian book of Revelation refers to the coming of Christ at the end of time.
The knight and Jöns enter a church, and Jöns converses with an artist painting a fresco of The Dance of Death. He describes to Jöns the horror of death by plague and mentions the mobs of people who believe it is God’s punishment and so travel the country flagellating themselves. Meanwhile, the knight approaches a confessional and talks to the figure there. Block confesses he is not content with faith and wants God to reveal himself. His life has been a futile pursuit, and he wants to perform one meaningful deed. He reveals his strategy only to learn he has been talking to Death.
Outside, Jof and Mia’s performance of a farce is brought to a halt by a dismaying procession of monks and flagellants. Patrons in an inn discuss the plague, omens, and the judgment day. A farmer suggests that if the rumors are true, one should try to enjoy life as long as one can, and a woman mentions people who have died purging themselves with fire to atone for sins. Also in the inn is Raval, the man who ten years earlier had convinced Block to join the crusade. Jöns recently came upon him menacing a girl who had found Raval robbing the dead. After disarming him, Jöns invited the girl to travel with him. Now, entering the inn, Jöns finds Raval and a smith tormenting Jof (the smith’s wife had run off with Skat, the director of the acting troupe). Jöns slashes Raval’s face, while Jof escapes.
Jof rejoins Mia, who comforts him and introduces him to the knight, with whom she has been chatting. Block talks about the faith that torments him, comparing it to loving someone in the dark who never appears. However, in the company of this peaceful and loving family, such thoughts seem unimportant to him, and he says he will treasure his memory of the time.
When Block and Jöns resume their journey, the blacksmith and Jof’s family join them. In the forest, they come upon a girl they had seen earlier, who is accused of having had carnal intercourse with the devil. Now she is about to be burned to death. Block asks her about the devil, saying surely he knows about God, but when he looks into her eyes, he sees only fear and gives her a potion to ease her pain. Jöns tells him there is no God or devil to look after her, but only emptiness. As the journey continues, the blacksmith’s wife rejoins him, and Skat pretends to commit suicide. After the group travels on, Skat climbs a tree in which to sleep and is sawed down by Death.
When the travelers stop, Raval appears, begs for water, and then dies of the plague. Jof sees the knight playing chess with Death and tells Mia they must escape. The knight distracts Death by knocking over the pieces, while Jof, Mia, and Mikael get away unnoticed. Death tells Block that when they meet again, he will take the knight and those with him. Block asks if he will then divulge his secrets, and Death replies that he has no secrets.
When the knight and his companions arrive at his castle, his wife invites them in to eat while she reads from the book of Revelation about the breaking of the seventh seal. Death enters, and the knight and his guests respond to him in different ways.
The film ends with Jof describing to Mia his vision of the knight and others dancing with Death. (It may or may not be significant that he mentions Raval and Skat, who were not at the knight’s castle, but he does not mention the knight’s wife and the girl traveling with Jöns, who were.) Mia chides him about his visions and dreams.
Christian Themes
The Seventh Seal raises the related issues of the existence of God and of reality and meaning beyond this world. The film’s protagonist, the knight, returns from a crusade with his faith shaken. If God does not exist, he says, then life is “an outrageous horror. No one can live in the face of death knowing all is nothingness.” He is upset by the silence that answers his prayers and wants certitude about God. He also wants to perform a meaningful act.
During the course of the film, he does perform meaningful acts and he does find something to affirm life. He gives the accused witch a potion to stop her pain, for example, and he distracts Death so that Jof’s family can escape. Earlier they had shared their strawberries and milk with Block, and he had declared that his memory of communion with them would be for him “an adequate sign—it will be enough for me.”
However, it may not be enough for him when Death comes at the end. He cries for mercy to a God “who must be somewhere” and is still met with silence. Is the meaning people find in the here and now all there is, and if so, is it adequate, or must there be some transcendent basis of meaning? A secular existentialist would say this world is all there is, and the only meaning we find is that which we make. A Christian existentialist would say God speaks to us through the actions and experiences of the here and now. Bergman said the allegory of The Seventh Seal has a simple theme: the eternal human search for God, with death as our only certainty.
Sources for Further Study
Bergman, Ingmar. Images: My Life in Film. Translated by M. Ruuth. New York: Arcade, 1994. Bergman discusses how some of his films came to be. The Seventh Seal was inspired by medieval songs and religious art as well as the conflict between his childhood piety and adult rationalism. Jof and Mia embody his concept of human holiness, but the film is not otherworldly.
Gervais, Marc. Ingmar Bergman: Magician and Prophet. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999. Considers from a contemporary Christian viewpoint how Bergman’s films evolve and interact with Western culture. Analyzes a sequence in The Seventh Seal in depth, to show how meaningfulness emerges.
Kalin, Jesse. The Films of Ingmar Bergman. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Bergman’s achievement is moral and philosophic. In The Seventh Seal God and the devil are everywhere, but the evidence is not transcendent. Places Bergman with respect to existentialism, noting his differences from Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Camus.
Lauder, Robert. God, Death, Art, and Love: The Philosophical Vision of Ingmar Bergman. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1989. Finds in Bergman’s preoccupation with God, death, art, and love, from The Seventh Seal (1957) to Fanny and Alexander (1982), the development of a coherent philosophic vision.