An Analysis of The Seventh Seal

An Analysis of The Seventh Seal

by Edward Hopf

"When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour."
- Revelation 8:1-2

"I do not belittle the importance of faith; on the contrary. Faith is the highest gift to man, and I consider it dishonest for philosophy to substitute something else for faith, and make light of it."
- Soren Kierkegaard

The Seventh Seal deals with man's search for God. The basic conflict is that the knight cannot kill God within him, yet he cannot find that God exists. The knight lives in a world of violence, fear and injustice. He feels that if there isn't an existence after death, then life is
meaningless and a mockery. He says to Death, "I want knowledge, not belief, not faith, not supposition, but knowledge."

Antonius Block is the opposite of Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith. Kierkegaards' Knight of Faith has faith because of his faith; because of the absurdities and irrationality of Christianity. But Bergman's knight needs a rational, realistic basis for his belief in God.

Bergman creates visual poetry with the opening scene: the titles fade in to a shot of a dramatically lighted sky. A sea eagle glides against the sky; a text from the Apocalypse is read. There is an over-head shot of two horses on a beach, but the next shots are of the
knight, the chessboard, and the knight's squire. The knight prays and shortly thereafter, Death appears. The two play chess and Death picks the black pieces and the knight the white.

Another important scene occurs in the church. The scene fades in on the knight at the altar. There is a close-up of the suffering face of Christ on the cross; the knight then speaks to a priest and expresses his doubts about life. He reveals his strategy to the priest who turns
out to be Death. After Death leaves the knight says,

"This is my hand. I can move it, feel the blood pulsing through it. The sun is still
high in the sky and I, Antonius Block am playing chess with Death."

One of the most striking scenes in the film is the procession of the flagellants. Jof and Mia are performing on the stage when suddenly they are interrupted by the singing of Dies Irae. Out of the mist proceed flagellants bearing crosses and whipping each other. They symbolize the
enslavement of man to ritualized beliefs. The atmospheric lighting gives the scene a gothic touch. (Throughout the film, Gunnar Fischer creates a sense of conflict with his stark lighting and photography.) The people fall down on their knees in awe; they mock art which is
represented in the play, but they kneel in fear to the procession of the flagellants which represents their fears. The people are finally confronted with the reality of their situation. The hysterical flagellants finally disappear into the mist. The scene fades out on the ground.

Another scene of importance is the scene where the knight eats strawberries and drinks milk with Jof, Mia, the mute girl, and the squire. The milk and strawberries symbolize the blood and body of Christ. The knight sees that Jof and Mia are happy in their simple existence;
they live with love, simplicity and purity. Before the knight leaves them he says,

"I shall remember this moment. The silence, the twilight, the bowls of strawberries and
milk, your faces in the evening light, Mikael sleeping, and Jof with his lyre. I'll try to
remember what we talked about. I'll carry this memory between my hands as carefully as
if it were a bowl filled to the brim with fresh milk."

The scene of Skat's death is a parallel to the beginning of the film. Skat pretends to commit suicide. He goes to sleep in a tree, but Death comes and saws the tree down. A squirrel jumps onto the tree stump: where there is death, a new life carries on. The parallel is between this scene and the scene of the corpse and the dog on the beach.

The scene of the burning of the witch symbolizes Christ's crucifiction. She is on a cross, and at her feet stands a soldier and a woman praying. Death is her only certainty.

The knight finally loses his game to Death. He meets his wife, the mute girl, Plog, Lisa and his squire at the castle. The knight's wife reads a text from Revelation and then Death enters. The mute girl speaks for the first time and says, "It is finished." This is an allusion to Christ's last words on the cross. Outside, Jof sees Death leading a dance toward the dark lands; Jof, Mia and Mikael depart on their wagon. This last scene is an impressive montage of
film.

The knight is a person torn between belief in God (Romanticism) and a belief that nothing exists after death (Realism). At one point in the film, the knight tells Death, "We make an idol of our fear, and call it God." Yet he cannot give up his belief in God, because
this is his only hope. He prays up until his death, even though he sees faith as a torment. He sees the ideal existence mirrored in Jof, Mia, and Mikael. The knight represents Bergman himself.

The squire, on the other hand, is very cynical. He says, "The crusade was so stupid that only an idealist could have thought it up." When the witch is burned he says that the real horror in her face is that she sees emptiness instead of eternity. Even though the squire is cynical, he is compassionate too; he saved the mute girl's life.

Jof, Mia, and Mikael represent the Holy Family. They are very innocent, trusting, and loving. Nils Poppe and Bibi Anderson do an excellent job of acting out their roles. Mia and Jof are persecuted because they are actors; at one point in the film Mia says to Jof, "People don't like one with too many ideas and fantasies." Mikael represents either the Christ child or the archangel Michael. Jof says that one day Mikael will be able to do a trick that no juggler
could ever do before. He says that he will be able to juggle a ball and make the ball stand still in mid-air.

Death is shown as an old gentleman with a stone white face and a black cape. He is not the villain; he merely has a job to do. He hides no secrets. He knows nothing.

The composition throughout the movie is very effective. when you first see Mia, Jof, and Skat, their heads form a triangle symbolizing the Trinity. The shots of the isolated village create depth because of the way in which they are placed. The faces of the people in the castle are well placed; the faces in the foreground and background not only give the picture a sense of depth, but they also create a rhythmic pattern.

The interrelation of the different scenes is very important. For example, Bergman goes from a compassionate scene with Jof and Mia to a scene of the cynical church painter, then to a scene with the knight in church. The way the scenes are interwoven creates a conflict, It
seems as if Bergman tries to mock Christianity at times, while at other times he tries to show the beauty of it (with Jof and Mia). The Seventh Seal is an excellent film. The acting is realistic and the choreography is striking, especially in the procession of the flagellants and the dance of death. The scenery is very poetic with the stark beach, the mysterious forests, and the bawdy tavern. The music is theatrical, but effective; the language is a little
stilted, but the thoughts are very philosophical.

The Seventh Seal is an allegory and its theme is universal. The bubonic plague symbolizes our present day hydrogen bomb. We live in a time when our whole planet could be destroyed. So, to our age, it is very important for life after death to exist. Bergman neither denies nor accepts Christianity, he just tries to give a realistic picture of what he sees.

A Brief Postscript on The Seventh Seal

by Professor Donald Bohl

Such a subtle and complex film has never been made! It defies interpretation in less than a book-length work of criticism. One might note that, with his emptiness and conflict, our knight wishes to do "one significant deed" before he dies. This he accomplishes when he distracts Death (tips the chess-board), allowing Jof and Mia to escape.

Much critical ink has been spilled over one question: who is in that final shot? When we listen to the names that Jof gives as he watches, counts the figures, etc.,we discover that the mute girl is not with them! Has she been spared? Is she a key to Bergman's meaning? Jof  is, of course our man of faith. He seems too simple-minded for "well-educated" Christians to accept as a model. His religion and relationship to the world seems as much pagan as Christian. Yet, Bergman is saying much with him.