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THE SEVENTH SEAL
(1956)
Ingmar Bergman's medieval morality play about man in search of the meaning of life is set in 14th-century Sweden. But it's a magically powerful film�the story seems to be playing itself out in a medieval present. A knight (Max von Sydow), tormented and doubting, returns from 10 wasted years in the Crusades, and Death (Bengt Ekerot) comes to claim him. Hoping to gain some revelation or obtain some knowledge before he dies, the knight challenges Death to a game of chess. As they play, the knight observes scenes of cruelty, rot, and suffering that suggest the tortures and iniquity Ivan Karamazov described to Alyosha. In the end, the knight tricks Death in order to save a family of strolling players�a visionary, innocent, natural man, Joseph (Nils Poppe), his wife (Bibi Andersson), and their infant son. The knight, a sane modern man, asking to believe despite all the evidence of his senses, is childlike compared with his carnal atheist squire (Gunnar Bj�rnstrand). The images and the omens are medieval, but the modern erotic and psychological insights add tension, and in some cases, as in the burning of the child-witch (Maud Hansson), excruciation. The actors' faces, the aura of magic, the ambiguities, and the riddle at the heart of the film all contribute to its stature. (Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies)
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| Original title: |
Det sjunde inseglet ["The seventh seal"] |
| Production: |
Svensk Filmindustri |
| Distribution: |
Svensk Filmindustri |
| Premiere: |
16 February 1957 (Röda Kvarn, Stockholm) |
| Running time: |
96 minutes |
| Language: |
Swedish |
| Filmed: |
on location at Östanå, Viby, Skevik, Gustafsberg, and Skytteholm outside of Stockholm; at Hovs hallar in southern Sweden; and at Råsunda Studios, Stockholm; from 2 July to 24 August 1956. |
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| CREDITS |
| Producer: |
Allan Ekelund |
| Director: |
Ingmar Bergman |
| Screenplay: |
Ingmar Bergman, based on his play,
Trämålning ["Wood painting"] |
| Cinematography: |
Gunnar Fischer |
| Art Direction: |
P.A. Lundgren |
| Music: |
Erik Nordgren |
| Editor: |
Lennart Wallén |
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| REVIEWS |
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"This initially mystifying drama...slowly turns out to be a piercing and powerful contemplation of the passage of man upon this earth. Essentially intellectual, yet emotionally stimulating, too, it is as tough�and rewarding�a screen challenge as the moviegoer has had to face this year....an uncommon and fascinating film."
� Bosley Crowther, The New York Times (14 October 1958)
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"Bergman's portentous medieval allegory takes its title from the Book of Revelations�'And when he (the Lamb) opened the seventh seal, there was a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.' In the opening scene, a knight returning from the Crusades is challenged to a game of chess by the cloaked figure of Death (Ekerot), and from this point onwards an air of doom hangs over the action, like the hawk which hovers in the air above them. The time of Death and Judgment prophesied in the Bible has arrived, and a plague is sweeping the land. Bergman fills the screen with striking images: the knight and Death playing chess for the former's life, a band of flagellants swinging smoking censers, a young witch manacled to a stake. Probably the most parodied film of all time, this nevertheless contains some of the most extraordinary images ever committed to celluloid. Whether they are able to carry the metaphysical and allegorical weight which they have been loaded is open to question."
� Nigel Floyd, Time Out
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| COMMENTARY |
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"The Seventh Seal is one of the few films really close to my heart. Actually, I don't know why. It's certainly far from perfect. I had to contend with all sorts of madness, and one can detect here and there the speed with which it was made. But I find it even, strong, and vital."
� Ingmar Bergman, Images: My Life in Films (1990)
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"The final scene when Death dances off with the travelers was�shot at Hovs hallar. We had packed up for the day because of an approaching storm. Suddenly, I caught sight of a strange cloud. Gunnar Fischer [the cinematographer] hastily set the camera back into place. Several of the actors had already returned to where we were staying, so a few grips and a couple of tourists danced in their place, having no idea what it was all about. The image that later became famous of the Dance of Death beneath the dark cloud was improvised in only a few minutes. That's how things can happen on the set. We made the film in thirty-five days."
� Ingmar Bergman, Images: My Life in Film (1990)
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"Since at this time I was still very much in a quandary over religious faith, I placed my two opposing beliefs side by side, allowing each to state its case in its own way. In this manner, a virtual cease-fire could exist between my childhood piety and my newfound harsh rationalism. Thus, there are no neurotic complications between the knight and his vassals. Also, I infused the characters of Jof and Mia with something that was very important to me: the concept of the holiness of the human being. If you peel off the layers of various theologies, the holy always remains."
� Ingmar Bergman, Images: My Life in Films (1990)
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"I had recklessly dared to do what I wouldn't dare to do today. The knight performs his morning prayer. When he is ready to pack up his chess set, he turns around, and there stands Death. 'Who are you?' asks the knight. 'I am Death.' Bengt Ekerot and I agreed that Death should have the features of a white clown. An amalgamation of a clown mask and a skull. It was a delicate and dangerous artistic move, which could have failed. Suddenly, an actor appears in whiteface, dressed all in black, and announces that he is Death. Everyone accepted the dramatic feat that he was Death, instead of saying, 'Come on now, don't try to put something over us! You can't fool us! We can see that you are just a talented actor who is painted white and clad in black! You're not Death at all!' But nobody protested. That made me feel triumphant and joyous."
� Ingmar Bergman, Images: My Life in Films (1990)
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"The Seventh Seal was always my favourite film, and I remember seeing it with a small audience at the old New Yorker Theater. Who would have thought that the subject matter could yield such a pleasurable experience? If I described the story and tried to persuade a friend to watch it with me, how far would I get? 'Well,' I'd say, 'it takes place in a plague-ridden medieval Sweden and explores the limits of faith and reason based on Danish�and some German�philosophical concepts.' Now this is hardly anyone's idea of a good time, and yet it's all dealt off with such stupendous imagination, suspense, and flair that one sits riveted like a child at a harrowing fairy tale. Suddenly the black figure of Death appears on the seashore to claim his victim, and the Knight of Reason challenges him to a chess game, trying to stall for time and discover some meaning to life. The tale engages and stalks forward with sinister inevitability. Again, the images are breathtaking! The flagellants, the burning of the witch (worthy of Carl Dreyer), and the finale, as Death dances off with all the doomed people to the nether lands in one of the most memorable shots in all movies."
� Woody Allen, "Through a Life Darkly," New York Times Book Review (18 September 1988)
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| AWARDS |
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 1957 Folket i bild silver statue (Sweden)
1958 Grand Prix International du Film d'Avant-garde (French Motion Picture Academy)
1958 Joseph Burstyn Award for Best Foreign Film
1959 Finnish Film Journalists Award
1959 Silver Laurel Medal
1960 Trofeo Federaci�n Nacional de Cine Clubs (Valladolid, Spain)
1961 Nastro d'Argento [silver ribbon] (Italian Film Critics)
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| BIBLIOGRAPHY |
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REVIEWS
Bianco e nero, February-March 1961, p. 121-127.
Cahiers du cinéma, no. 83 (May 1958), p. 43-46.
Cinema nuovo, no. 143 (January-February 1960), p. 45-46.
Daily Telegraph [London] (8 March 1958), p. 11.
Film Ideal, no. 68 (1964), p. 26.
Film Quarterly, no. 3 (Spring 1959), p. 42-44.
Films and Filming 5, no. 7 (April 1958), p. 22-23.
Films in Review 9, no. 9 (November 1958), p. 515-517.
Filmfacts 1, no. 42 (19 November 1958), p. 194-195.
Monthly Film Bulletin (May 1958), p. 59.
New York Herald Tribune (14 October 1958), sec. 2, p. 5.
New York Times (14 October 1958), p. 44.
New Statesman (8 March 1958), p. 303.
Saturday Review (18 October 1958), p. 58.
Sight and Sound 28, no. 4 (Spring 1958), p. 199-200.
La stampa [Turin] (10 October 1968), n.p.
Süddeutsche Zeitung [Munich] (16 April 1962), n.p. (Roos)
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ARTICLES & ESSAYS
Björkman, C. Dagens nyheter (17 February 1957), n.p.
Cine cubano 4, no. 22 (1964), p. 55-60.
Cowie, Peter. Films and Filming 9, no. 5 (February 1963), p. 37-38.
Crowther, Bosley. The Great Films: Fifty Golden Years of Motion Pictures (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1967), p. 218-222.
Ericsson, Arne. "Film är inte litteratur" [Film is not literature]. Sydsvenska dagbladet snällposten (8 March 1958), p. 13.
Études cinématographiques (Autumn 1961), p. 207-216.
"Film of the month." Films and Filming 5, no. 7 (April 1958), p. 18-19.
Filmnyheter 11, no. 17 (1956), p. 4-6.
Filmnyheter 11, no. 18 (1956), p. 1-2.
Filmrutan 13, no. 1 (January 1970), pp. 37-40.
Films and Filming 9, no. 4 (January 1963), p. 25-29.
Folket i bild (2 May 1958), p. 10-11, 48.
Franzén, L.-O. Ghöteborgske spionen, no. 1 (1957), p. 13-14.
Gessner, Robert. "The Obligatory Scene." The Moving Image (New York: E.P. Dutton), p. 203-211.
Harrie, I. Expressen (2 March 1957), n.p.
Holland, Normand. "Iconography in The Seventh Seal." Hudson Review 12, no. 2 (Summer 1959), p. 266-270.
Image et son, no. 119 (February 1959), p. ii-vii.
Kosmorama 24, no. 137 (Spring 1978), p. 55-57.
Landkvist, J. Aftonbladet (25 February 1957), n.p.
Pressler, Michael. "The Idea Fused in the Fact: Bergman and The Seventh Seal." Film/Literature Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1985), p. 95-101.
Rohmer, Eric. Arts (23-29 April 1957), p. 4.
Sarris, Andrew. Film Culture 19 (April 1959), p. 51-61.
Schein, H. Bonniers litterära magasin 26, no. 4 (April 1957), p. 350-353.
Sight and Sound 26, no. 4 (Spring 1957), p. 173.
Steene, Birgitta. "Det sjunde inseglet: Filmen som ångestens och nådens metafor" [The Seventh Seal: Film as metaphor of angst and grace]. Svensk filmografi, 1950-1959 (Stockholm: Svenska Filminstitutet), p. 592-595.
Steene, Birgitta. "The Milk and Strawberry Sequence in The Seventh Seal." Film Heritage 8, no. 4 (Summer 1973), p. 10-18.
Stubbs, J.C. Journal of Aesthetic Education 9, no. 2 (1975), p. 62-76.
Svantesson, A. Svensk kyrkotidning, no. 11 (1957), p. 163-164.
Svensk filmografi, 1950-1959 (Stockholm: Svenska Filminstitutet), p. 592-595.
Télé-Ciné, no. 77 (August-September 1958), fiche 33, 13 p. (special issue)
Variety (29 May 1957), p. 22.
Variety (22 October 1958), p. 6.
Wiseman, T. Cinema (London: Cassel, 1964), p. 145-147.
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BOOKS
Bragg, Melvyn. The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet) (London: British Film Institute, 1993). 69 p., credits, ill.
Slayton, Ralph E. "Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal," dissertation (Columbia University, 1960). 220 p.
Steene, Birgitta, ed. Focus on The Seventh Seal (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972). 182 p., credits, ill., index.
[Study guide] (Folkuniversitetets Filmbyrå, Upsala, 1969).
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