THE SEVENTH SEAL.
Sweden, 1956, 96 minutes, Black and white.
Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bengt Ekarot, Nils Poppe, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Anders Ek.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman.
The Seventh Seal was the film that brought Ingmar Bergman to the attention of the world. He had been working in the Swedish industry since the 1940s, making a great number of very striking and sombre films including Summer Interlude and Summer With Monika. He had the light touch in Smiles of a Summer Night.
However, with The Seventh Seal, he created the metaphysical drama with religious undertones and overtones. Max von Sydow portrays Block, a knight returning from the crusades to his native Sweden, surveying the countryside which has been devastated by the Black Plague. He becomes disillusioned with his mission, with his life, asking questions about the existence of God and God’s providence. He is also pursued by Death. In the most famous scene, stills of which are always reproduced, Block plays chess with Death. However, Death perseveres – and the film concludes with a striking mediaeval dance of death.
Max von Sydow was a strong actor of the Swedish industry at this time and was to appear in a number of Bergman’s films, especially The Virgin Spring. However, he eventually went to Hollywood for The Greatest Story Ever Told and had a forty-year-plus career in many Hollywood films, good, bad and sometimes very bad.
Several of Bergman’s troupe are in this film including Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bibi Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom. The next year Bergman was to make Wild Strawberries, his explanation of old age, with Victor Sjostrom, the veteran Swedish director.
In the 1960s he made the trilogy, metaphysical and religious, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence. He also made the intense trilogy, Persona, The Hour of the Wolf and Shame. Moving to colour in the 1970s he made the classic film of suffering and death and redemptive love, Cries and Whispers. He also moved into television with Scenes from a Marriage. He continued to make fewer films as he grew older but made a follow-up to Scenes from a Marriage, Saraband, in 2003. He was one of the masters of film-making of the 20th century.
1. The quality of the film as an Ingmar Bergman film? A film of the 1950s? A film reflecting his experience of silence, silence of God? A religious film?
2. The quality of the black and white photography, the re-creation of a mediaeval world, the use of light and darkness, shadows and silhouettes, night and day, the seasons, the weather, the dark and the dry, the storms and the thunder and lightning? Interiors and exteriors? An artificial world, an authentic mediaeval world?
3. The range of musical score - orchestral score, light mediaeval comedy music, the music of theatre, the overtones of solemn chant and religious music, the Dies Irae?
4. The significance of the title, the quotation from the Book of the Apocalypse, the apocalyptic atmosphere of the film - symbols, numbers, images for religious message? The eschatological tone and themes of the film? Angels, the seven seals, heaven and hell, death and judgment, omens, the Riders of the Apocalypse, animals and birds? The visual presentation of horses, birds?
5. How effective was the film as a fable? About the journey of human life? The film as an allegory of life - the knight as the hero, the confrontation with Death, the various characters as aspects of the encounters of life? The film as a pageant ? Of the mediaeval world, imaging the universal world? The characters as types of all time? The importance of clowns, jugglers, wives, knights? The importance of the theatre and its atmosphere, the masks? The relationship of all these attributes to the development of the plot and the treatment of themes?
6. The focus on death - death as personified, as the companion along the way, his appearance, face, dress, the game of chess and the playing and gambling with Death, Death as a trickster and the hearing of the confession, his continual reappearance, his taking the people with him at the end, the dance of death? The various images of death e.g. the masks, the skeleton from whom the squire asked the way and his comment on its eloquence? The reality of death of the main characters? The atmosphere of plague in the Middle Ages and plague as a symbol of death? The discussions about plague and death e.g. of the squire with the painter?
7. The central figure of the knight - as hero, his relationship with his squire and their complementarity, the noble with the ordinary man - with the touch of vulgarity, the background of the Crusades and all that that meant in Christian terms and quests, courage and endurance, participation in war, religious motivations? The squire's later discussion of the Crusades and their futility? The knight and the squire as pilgrims? The search for home, the arrival on the seashore, the knight as living and the confrontation with death, holding death at bay with the game of chess, using tricks? The confession and the knight's presumption in telling his moves and the continual reference to the crucifix and the Crucified Christ? The various confrontations of the knight with death and the significance symbolically and religiously of the pieces for the chess game? The importance of the various encounters that the knight had with the juggler and his wife, with the actors., with the painters, with the smith and his wife? What did he learn throughout his experience? How did his speech about the silence of God indicate his religious torment and search? The knight as a saviour figure especially of the witch? His returning home and re-meeting his wife yet distant from her? The achievement of his life and the inevitability of his death? The knight as a symbol of the Christian? A sombre view of the Christian and his duty through life?
8. The contrast with Jons, the squire? His initial song and its vulgarity, his attitude towards women, asking the way of Death, his drinking and earthiness, the discussion with the painter about the plague and the religious symbolism, with the smith, with the young girl who could be the servant? His comment on life as meaningless, of the Crusades, of his seeming lack of interest in life and deeper realities?
9. The character of the young girl and her quest, her possibility of being a maid, her accompanying the group, what she had learnt, the fact that she would die and join the dance of death? The smith and his encounter with Jons and the drinking, the wife and her watching the play and her going off with the actor? What did they represent about the ordinary struggle of marriage? The fact that they would go with the knight also to death? Skat and his life with Joseph and Maria, his waking up, the mask, his role in the theatre, his taking the smith's wife, the fights, his going to death?
10. How well did the film communicate the atmosphere of plague, the atmosphere of penance, the painter and his philosophy of life, his representing these things in art, the impact that they would have on an audience? (Bergman himself as performing the equivalent function of the painter in giving us the canvas of the film for our response ? learning, being frightened, moral experience?) The fanatics and their flagellation and the contrast with the theatre and the ordinary people enjoying the play, the xl witch and her executioners? The people caught up in this frenzy? The critique of the black side of the Christian Middle Ages?
11. The contrast with Joseph, Maria and their little boy? The presentation of the family group, the overtones of a holy family? Seeing them in the woods, the atmosphere of goodnessp Joseph having a vision and our sharing it, the presence of the Madonna and child to him and his joy? A man of Heaven rather than of Hell? The bond with Maria, the scenes of their mutual love and joy, their love for their child? Their moving through the countryside, Skat and his presence with them? The play and its success? Their experience of fear? Maria as the portrait of the idealised feminine and the echo with the Madonna?
12. Joseph as clown, the quality of his song, a nice and pleasant man, his skill at juggling and play, his visions both real and made up, the fear in the forest and their being saved? The importance of his final vision and that it was he who saw the dance of death? The play and the reflections about the soul of man? Joseph as the good man, the player, the lover and the poet?
13. The significance of the detail of the conversation with thepainter, the situation of the church, the background of the Crusades? Jons and his list~ ening and not listening, his mockery, his comments on women?
14. The significance of the scene with the witch, the knight and his horror, the witch and the brew and her test, her being taken to Death and the ugliness of a civilisation that in the throes of plague could persecute to death?
15. The introduction of Raval, his background, his stealing, the irony of the squire's commenting on his way of life? His previous advice about going to the Crusades?
16. The play within the film - Skat, Joseph and Maria and their acting, the people and their response, the smith's wife? The intrusion of the monks, the monk's speech and the contrast between organised and institutionalised religion and spontaneous religion?
17. The importance of the encounter between the knight and Maria? A man very masculine in his approach to life and in his career being touched by the gracious feminine?
18. The visual presentation of the forest and fear, the witch, the carriage going through the night, the sounds and the winds?
19. The final appearances of Death and the recapitulation of the chess game, the various manoeuvres and their symbolic significance?
20. The character of Karin and her symbolising the knight's home, welcoming the knight, the encounter between the two and the distance, the passing of the years and the absence of love, the knight's goals, the group being welcomed into the house, hospitality and the meal, the significance of Karin's reading the Scriptures and recapitulating the scriptural themes?
21. The group as it faced Death - the significance of the experience of each of those who died, the mediaeval symbol of the dance of death and all joined? The visual of the dance of death - and our sharing the vision of Joseph?
22. The overall effect of the film - experiencing another world, a religious experience, fear, the significance of the painter's remarks about the effect of art? Our sharing a vision and a dream?
