The Seventh Seal
The Seventh Seal broke ground in its own time, no doubt, but to a present-day viewer it’s pretty obvious stuff.Watching it, I kept thinking of Eddie’s dismissive line in Diner: “I went to Atlantic City a hundred times, I never saw Death walk on a beach.”(I do wonder, now, how he’s watching that at the end of 1959.The film came out in 1957 but didn’t get over here until late 1960, from what I can tell.Unless this isn’t the only Bergman film with Death walking on a beach, which is a distinct possibility.)
It does have the whiff of homework — and I can’t be the only person who kept looking at the baby and wondering, between the amount of time he spent sitting on adults’ arms and the scenes in which he’s sitting bare-ass on the grass and his parents wonder why he’s fussing, when someone would add it up and put a diaper on the kid; of all the distractions you’d expect from a Bergman film, a bare-ass toddler isn’t on the list, but there you go — and the clown/performer bits drag, in the style of the “comedic” subplots in Hong Kong kung fu.It’s worth a look in spite of the staginess, though, for Bengt Ekerot’s controlled performance as Death, and for a few beautiful (and duly famous) shots, especially the handheld-y procession shot through the townspeople.
Tags: Bengt Ekerot Ingmar Bergman kung-fu movies
I’m so glad I’m not the only one distracted by baby-ass. I had a bf taking film studies or something, and watched with him. I kept trying to think “ok, I’m watching this back when it came out, this is momentous, noone’s ever seen the like” and yet, I yawn.
And for the actor who plays the squire, who steals every scene he’s in.
Re: Diner. It is indeed Seventh Seal and I think Levinson has said that he fudged the dates.
My favorite part is Eddie: “What am I watching?” Billy: “It’s symbolic.” Eddie (best side-eye glance ever) “This is symbolic…
I have unrealized plans for a mini-film festival with a fellow classical singer and St. Olaf College classmate who’s part-Scandinavian and is married to a Norwegian:
The Seventh Seal
Bergman’s 1975 The Magic Flute
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s 1975 Carmina Burana
I wouldn’t trade my hard-boiled, picky realist side for some schmoopy alternative, but I have to say, being able to disengage it and throw myself into the epic, operatic side of things (even if I have to be critically generous with a work now and again to do so) is also a joy of life that’s not to be missed.
One of my music history teachers in college used the Seventh Seal as one of the best possible recreations of how secular and sacred music intersected during the Black Plague era and I completely agree.
Sure, I can see how some might see it as slow and somewhat obvious, but I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s definitely up in the 20s of my film list.
@Carey: Good to see some love for Gunnar Bjornstrand. He showed wonderful comedic timing in early/middle Bergman films like Smiles Of A Summer Night and (to a lesser extent) this one, but he got fewer opportunities to demonstrate that as the films became increasingly bleak from the 1960s on. Still, perhaps his greatest filmed performance was as the protagonist of Bergman’s Winter Light, and there aren’t many laughs in that. On its own terms, it’s about as close to perfection as a film can be, but it’s nearly airless.
Unusual among Bergman’s astonishingly gifted screen troupe (Max von Sydow, Erland Josephson, the two unrelated Andersson women, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, et al), Bjornstrand didn’t speak English at all, let alone fluently. There’s an amusing scene in the English-language version of Autumn Sonata in which they attempt to finesse that. He has a small role as the manager/confidante of the concert pianist played by Ingrid Bergman, and all he does is chuckle at everything she says, or occasionally venture a monosyllabic agreement.
@Sars: I love The Seventh Seal, and I wouldn’t go as far as “obvious,” but I don’t think it’s aged as well as some of the others. I always have preferred IB’s other big worldwide breakthrough, Wild Strawberries, from around the same time, for various reasons. I think it’s the more relatable, “universal” film. There are things in it that seem primitive alongside the best of the later Bergman, but considering that it was the work of a still fairly young filmmaker, I’m touched by its compassionate portraits of these people in all stages of life, from infancy through extreme old age.
I always confuse this movie in my mind with “The Seventh Sign” and I always think, “How did Bergman direct Demi Moore?” Duh.
@Sara – I honestly clicked the link for this post expecting a review of a Demi Moore movie, so I’m glad I’m not alone in brain lapses.