For the latest entry in this journal, the spotlight falls upon Ingmar Bergman's 1957 expressionist masterpiece, The Seventh Seal. Until recently, it has not been a movie I have had as many opportunities to view, enjoy, and dissect, as has been the case with other favored classics such as Citizen Kane, Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior, Diabolique and numerous titles from my library I could list here. But having found the film available online, I've been able to do a bit of catching up in that regard. Eventually, I will get around to adding my own examinations of the philosophical aspects of this singular celluoid allegory. But for the moment, I intend to focus on the imagery of The Seventh Seal as composed by Bergman and cinematographer Gunnar Fischer which made it such a rich feast for the mind. And if this post rambles a bit, then it is a result of the difficulty I have had in coalescing my own thoughts regarding all I have experienced from this ninety-six minute work of moving art. So do bear with me.
Bergman stated in several interviews that one of the main sources of inspiration for Der Sjunde Inseglet was church frescoes rendered by Albertus Pictor (who appears in the movie as a character in a dialogue scene with the squire Jons) circa 1480: most notably the depiction of a chess match between a knight and Death on the walls of Täby kyrka in the Diocese of Stockholm. Church frescoes and murals served much the same function as motion pictures in our present day, telling moral stories through vivid imagery (necessary in order to communicate with a largely illiterate population in that era).
Let's start with the first images confronting the viewer:
"Antonius Block and his squire, after long years as crusaders in the holy land, have at last returned to their native Sweden. A land ravaged by the Black Plague." And then fades in a vision of the doom-laden cloudscape of the Apocalypse to open the movie.
Next, a transition to the seabird hovering motionless against the heavy sky, suggests an unsettling, almost vulture-like connotation of the Holy Ghost watching over the knight and his squire on the bleak rocky beach, presaging the appearance of Death in the movie.
In this frame, the long-shot serves to establish Block's isolation from the world.
Block kneels to pray, but cannot bring himself to do so because of his own inner emptiness. Beyond him, the surf pounds in past the rocks and we see the distant sun; here symbolizing the grace and enlightenment the knight seeks but which eludes him. Notice the shadow covering half of Block's face, which shows the viewer the two conflicting halves of his nature: the man who wants to believe in God, and the man who cannot do so because of all he has seen and lived through in ten years of war. The overall effect of the composition renders a wonderful poetic image of Block's turmoil.
And thus, in just two minutes worth of film and without dialogue, Bergman effectively illustrates the knight's troubled soul and lays the groundwork for his particular story. The sequence unfolds with wonderful economy, wasting not a single frame in establishing the main conflict and foreshadowing the ultimate fates of the knight and squire.
Death on the beach, confronting Antonius Block for the first time three minutes into the movie. The sudden drop-out of the background noise of the surf accentuates the visual impression of the scene. Death is himself a force of nature here, having come to cull Block from the world of the living as his time has arrived and bringing in his wake a silence on earth and in heaven.
The smallness of man in comparison to nature is further emphasized to very great effect by this long angle view of Block and his squire shot through the two cliffs as we see here:
Death's stalking of the characters is illustrated with three images symbolizing his omnipresence: in the one when Jons finds a dead shepherd, skin bleached and eyes plucked out of their sockets. The next is the death-mask carelessly hung on a tree branch by Skat which foreshadows his fate. A third is that same mask hanging on the brake lever of the wagon as Jof happily strums out a tune on his lute, quite unaware of the danger hanging over himself, his family and new-found friends.
There are numerous parallel scenes and triplets riven throughout The Seventh Seal which are integral to the advancement of the narrative. The most effective use of this device in the movie is to be found with the three rounds to the chess match between the knight and Death, mirroring Block's mood in each particular phase of the story. In the first, Block has marshaled his courage for battle against Death, illustrated effectively by the contrast of the game against the bleak seascape.
In the second, Block has gained an advantage and is full of confidence, even amused by the contest; the game is set against a pleasant summer evening. However, the presence of the family set in the background between Block and Death presages the battle the knight will now have to fight for far higher stakes than his own life. Indeed, this very scene telegraphs the shift in mood for the final third of the movie. Block is enjoying a last moment in the sunlight of hope, but the future is unavoidably moving in Death's direction. Here, the dark tones are all on Death's side of the frame: the Black chess pieces, Death himself, and the foliage behind him. The imagery for most of the remainder of the film is progressively nighmarish as the entourage travel into the dark forest. In and of itself, this scene is brilliant for how it sets up the deterioriation of the knight's fortunes leading to his ultimate fate.
In the third, while the entourage is stopped in the dark forest, a now demoralized Block has resigned himself to his fate, though remaining determined to play one last gambit to save Jof, Mia and their child from Death.
In these parallel scenes, Antonius Block appears behind bars: once in the chapel as he talks with Death (believing him to be a priest) through the confessional screen, and later when he asks the accused witch if he can meet the Devil so he can ask about God. Both serve as visual metaphor for Block's own self-exile from the society of his fellow human beings as well as desperate search for knowledge. He is forever on the outside looking in.
The impromptu supper in the clearing on a pleasant summer evening, in which Block finds a moment of peace and is very close to touching the perception of God with his senses that he has sought, though he will remain unaware of it, contrasts with the Last Supper in the inner depths of Block's estate, where all those gathered are utterly devoid of hope and in a sense are already in the tomb.
Bergman and Fischer play several games with the audience's perceptions, one of which was the closeup of Block praying on the beach in the opening sequence, which was shot in studio against a film back-projection (the lighting on Max Von Sydow's face is a dead giveaway). A far more subtle trick was pulled off in this frame here. According to the Internet Movie Database, the chapel that Block and Jons are approaching is just a model hung in the dead tree in the foreground, placed just so that it appears to be behind the fence and the stone arch. It seems almost impossible to credit, but the giveaway is the lack of a shadow stretching from the left of the building. To cover this, a false chapel building for closeups and visible through a tight shot focused on the stone arch was evidently erected.
However, the greatest visual tricks pulled off in this movie were ones that happened by pure accident: the squirrel that climbs onto the stump of Skat's tree after being felled by Death, the impromptu sunshine on Ravel after his death by the plague which was caught when the camera was left to continue rolling just at the moment the sun came out, and the final dance of death scene at the end of the movie: improvised on the spot by Bergman to take advantage of the cloudscape that had suddenly appeared in the sky over Hovs Hallar. The actors had gone home after the day's shooting so Bergman stuck anybody he could get into costumes, including tourists, and had them do the procession on the hilltop.
One of the most beautifully artistic sequences in the movie is Block's confession in the chapel. Starting with a long shot looking toward the chancel, the shadows again highlight Block's physical and spiritual isolation. The knight finds little comfort from institutional religion, as shown when he looks up at the crucifixion statue with its emaciated Christ figure staring down with a terrifying expression on its face.
Block begins his confession to the priest, who is actually Death. Bergman makes especially effective use of the shadowing within the confessional alcove to express the crusader's torment. He does not fear his physical death, but oblivion terrifies him and he needs more than a vague faith in an afterlife as promised by the Church.
"Is it so terribly inconceivable to comprehend God with the senses? Why does He hide in a mist of half-spoken promises and unseen miracles? How can we believe in the faithful when we lack faith? What will happen to those who want to believe, but cannot? What of those who neither want to nor can believe? Why can't I kill God within me? Why does He live on in me in this humiliating way despite my wanting to evict Him out of my heart? Why is He, despite all, a mocking reality that I cannot be rid of?"
During the confession, the camera pans up and to the left and then into a slow closeup as Death listens. Bengt Ekerot's silent acting as much as the camera work here truly makes this scene; the set of his eyes conveys his sympathy for the knight while he pours out his heart:
In ninety-six minutes, Ingmar Bergman unfolds a visual tapestry as rich as any medieval illumination or fresco. The imagery of The Seventh Seal has inspired both tributes and parodies through nearly six decades now and the chess match between Death and crusader-knight Antonius Block has become iconic to the point of cliche. It is one of the most beautiful movies ever made by anyone at any period in the history of the form. Its sheer artistry in and of itself constitutes a whole extant lesson in the craft of movie-making which any film student would do well to study in depth. Beyond that, the merger of text and imagery into a seamless whole serves to deliver to the audience what the writer, humorist and quantum philosopher Robert Anton Wilson would have classified as an "information-rich" movie. Each time you view it, you will find aspects to the story that you did not notice before. Like peeling back the layers of an onion, which is how it has so indelibly stamped itself into cultural memory.
