The Seventh Seal

Year 13, Day 11 - 1/11/21 - Movie #3,711

BEFORE: As planned, I've arrived at the Ingmar Bergman movies - and I asked a friend to recommend the best ones, to make sure I'm not missing anything important.  I already had five planned, now it's seven, but they're still going to link together, because this director tended to use the same bunch of actors, again and again.  At least, I think they're going to link together, even if I watch them in chronological order.  When in doubt, go earliest to latest, right? 

Max von Sydow carries over from "A Kiss Before Dying". 

THE PLOT: A man seeks answers about life, death and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.  

AFTER: This film has been on my DVR since December 30, 2019 - that's when TCM did a big Bergman retrospective and I nabbed four films.  Longtime Bergman actress Bibi Andersson had died a few months earlier, so this may have been as a tribute to her.  But then it took me so long to work out a way to watch them, that it's now early January 2021, and I'm watching them in tribute to von Sydow, who died the following year.  Sometimes TCM and I just manage to end up on the same page, or similar pages, anyway.  I think many of Bergman's films are now on HBO Max, but at the time I recorded these, I couldn't have known that would happen, because HBO Max wasn't even a thing in 2019.  

Back on January 1, I thought maybe "Parasite" was a perfect pandemic, or at least lockdown film.  You know, because of - wait, no spoilers here - but "The Seventh Seal", like "The Reckoning" a few days ago, is set during the time of the Black Plague.  What could be more appropriate, and I didn't even KNOW that about "The Seventh Seal" going in.  Could I have known on some unconscious level, or is it just another coincidence?  Either way, it seems very fitting to watch a movie that discusses the plague while I'm basically sequestered at home trying to avoid one myself.  Umm, except for half-days three days a week when I take the subway into Manhattan - which is I think the safest NYC borough right now, thank God I don't live or work in Staten Island!  

Of course everybody in modern times knows the iconic scene from this film - the one where the knight plays chess against Death himself.  What's weird is that if you're any kind of film buff at all, you know that scene even if you've never seen the whole film, like me, or have an awareness of what the context or deeper meaning of it is.  Possibly this is because it's been referenced and parodied so many times, most notably in "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey", where the title characters end up playing Battleship, Clue and even Twister against the Grim Reaper, who keeps calling for "best two out of three" and then "best three out of five".  Death, it seems, is a sore loser - or perhaps just always determined to win in the end. 

The other notable comedy film that pokes fun at the Grim Reaper is "Monty Python's Meaning of Life", when the Grim Reaper interrupts a dinner party to claim everyone who ate the tainted salmon mousse.  Now I believe that comedic scene is ALSO a parody of "The Seventh Seal", because at the end of the Bergman film, when Death finally comes for the knight, the fallout from the chess game is that he gets to take the souls of all the knight's companions, and he's at a similar-looking dinner table with many of the important characters from the film.  

Because this isn't just one story, you see, it's several small interconnected stories, there's a troupe of actors (hmm, just like in "The Reckoning...) who travel the countryside in a wagon, and they and the knight interact with people in the same town, and a number of things take place - one actor is falsely accused of stealing another man's wife, another of the actors actually DOES fool around with the blacksmith's wife, the knight's squire meets a mural painter and also an ex-priest who is now a thief, and the knight encounters a woman who is accused of consorting with the Devil, who is scheduled to be burned at the stake.  Through it all the knight searches for some proof of life beyond, even proof of the Devil, because that would be proof of God and the afterlife, even in a roundabout way.  But the condemned woman's' eyes show no proof of the Devil, he determines that she's just insane.  I wonder why the knight doesn't ask Death about the afterlife, wouldn't you think that he would know?  

Other characters try to parse out what they can about the meaning of life the best they can, while the conversation keeps turning back toward the plague. They even discuss the plague while they're out eating together at the inn, which shows an appalling lack of understanding about how disease is spread.  Thankfully, we modern people know that during a pandemic, we need to avoid getting together with friends whenever possible, stay at home and order take-out, and only leave the house for emergencies and to buy basic supplies. We know this, right? RIGHT? Filling up two carts at Wal-Mart with non-essential on a weekly basis is not considered a required trip, and if the store is crowded, that's putting yourself, and your family by extension, at risk, especially if you keep refusing to wear a mask.  As our newly-elected President keeps saying, this is not a political issue, it's a public safety issue.  And, collectively, we need to be smarter than all those people who died during past plagues, who just didn't know.  WE KNOW what will prevent the spread of airborne viruses, but we ALL have to do it, for it to be effective. 

There were other things I found particularly relevant in all the musings about life and death here, but since the film was in Swedish and I had to READ it rather than HEAR it, it seems that a good sleep has allowed me to forget most of them.  How about, "We must make an idol of our fear, and call it god."  A-HA!  God doesn't exist, he's just a construct of man's fears.  I knew it!  "Why does he hide in a cloud of half-promises and unseen miracles?  How can we believe in the faithful when we lack faith?  What will happen to us who want to believe, but can not?"  See, I knew I liked this knight character, he and I are sort of on the same page.  We've seen too much going wrong in the world to believe that there's anyone up in the sky, running the show, who loves us very much but also won't make himself visible to us, and if we don't listen to him and do what other people tell us he says, then he'll throw us into Hell forever and we'll burn for all eternity in agony.  Because he loves us.  See, it's all a bunch of hooey, malarkey!

The knight calls out to God in the darkness, but it's as if no one's there.  So perhaps there isn't anyone there, or he just remains silent.  That's the eternal question, isn't it?   But I'm not sure that life without God in it has to be a "preposterous horror".  What about living for today and trying to have a good time while you're here?  Sure, it's a bit impossible to do when we're setting new records every day for the number of people dying, but that's going to end in a few months, right? RIGHT?  Like the knight also says, we have to remember the twilight, the bowl of milk, the fresh strawberries, people sleeping, people talking, people playing music, and carry those memories with us on our journey, because they will sustain us, even if God doesn't answer us. 

Otherwise, if he can't do this, then his heart is a void, and he will be indifferent to others, living in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in his own dreams.  And Death walks along with us during our journey, always there, ready for a game of chess.  Better start practicing your game...and don't even think about accidentally knocking over the pieces, because he remembers where they were.  Tipping over the pieces is a forfeit, anyway, you shouldn't do that if Death is your opponent.  Death has a mean sense of ironic humor, too - he spotted that actor faking his own death with the trick knife, and then later chopped down the tree he was sitting in.  Not cool, death.  Funny, sure, but not cool.  

Wow, so that's a Bergman film, huh?  A lot of insight into life, death, love, and the meaning of it all, and there's nothing like a plague to bring all that into focus.  I wonder if this is the best of his films and it's all downhill from here, or what.  Guess I'll find out this week. 

Also starring Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Bibi Andersson, Inga Landgré (last seen in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"), Ake Fridell, Inga Gill, Erik Strandmark, Bertil Anderberg, Gunnel Lindblom, Maud Hansson, Gunnar Olsson, Anders Ek, Benkt-Ake-Benktsson, Gudrun Brost, Lars Lind, Tor Borong, Harry Asklund, Ulf Johanson.  

RATING: 7 out of 10 flagellants