The Seventh Seal (1957)

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Directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Starring Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Max von Sydow.

Endlessly imitated and parodied, Ingmar Bergman's landmark art movie The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet) retains its ability to hold an audience spellbound. Bergman regular Max von Sydow stars as a 14th-century knight, wearily heading home after ten years' worth of combat. Disillusioned by unending war, plague, and misery Von Sydow has concluded that God does not exist. As he trudges across the wilderness, Von Sydow is visited by Death (Bengt Ekrot), garbed in the traditional black robe. Unwilling to give up the ghost, Von Sydow challenges Death to a game of chess. If he wins, he lives--if not, he'll allow Death to claim him. As they play, the knight and the Grim Reaper get into a spirited discussion over whether or not God exists. To recount all that happens next would diminish the impact of the film itself; we can observe that The Seventh Seal ends with one of the most indelible of all of Bergman's cinematic images: the near-silhouette Dance of Death. Considered by some as the apotheosis of all Ingmar Bergman films (other likely candidates for that honor include Wild Strawberries and Persona), and certainly one of the most influential European art movies, The Seventh Seal won a multitude of awards, including the Cannes Film Festival prize. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Reviews and discussions

Re:Foreign Film Name Game
by yojimbo73 in Friends of Foreign Flicks

hasn't rated it.

"The Seventh Seal " [More]

Re:Recasting smaller productions
by Risselada in Recasting couch

loved it.

"[quote user="mercurial"]I thought of some, but most only count for about 90% of the film. There is Pi, which is mostly the main character throughout the film. Anatomy of Hell, a French film featuring only two actors fornicating for most of the film. The Dreamers, which is about 3 actors hauled up in an apartment doing all sorts of sordid things. The 24th Day which has two guys, one tied up, locked in an apartment. And I was thinking The Seventh Seal, but that is only two characters for about half of the film. As for a one man show, I would definitely love to see Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Molly Shannon, Peter O'Toole, and Maggie Smith. The only one man show I can actually recall is Paul Reubens doing Pee-Wee Herman at the Groundlings Theater (I think it was there) which is probably one of the funniest performances ever. I'd love to see him do something new.[/quote] Huh, I've never heard of Anatomy of Hell. The description doesn't sound like an endorsement, but I wonde ... " [More]

Re:Recasting smaller productions
by mercurial in Recasting couch

liked it.

"[quote user="Risselada"] Wow people really seem to get off on this group. I'm amazed. Where did everyone come from? Well it's almost too much mental energy for me to think up my full casts for all of the proposals you've made so far, much less spend the time looking over ever single submission. So I am proposing movies with smaller casts so it's easier. First of all what about recasting Secret Honor. There's only one actor in the whole thing, Phillip Baker Hall. Then I tried to think of other movies that only had one actor, and all I could think of was all of Spalding Gray's movies. But how could you possibly have someone else do Spalding Gray's material? It's basically a personal true story, so it wouldn't make sense for it to ever be remade. Then I surprised and saddened to realize I couldn't think of a single other production with only one actor. I did a search and actually found a movie called An Evening of Edgar Allen Poe starring (surpise) Vincent Price alone. The mo ... " [More]

Re:Why I got into foreign films
by Risselada in Friends of Foreign Flicks

loved it.

"Yeah that's awesome! I love that guy. I think it was in the middle of that class that the big movie theater in the new building on campus opened up. Many movies we watched I had seen before, but I don't see many movies on a big screen like that, especially older ones. You can't imagine how much more I loved some of my favorite movies after seeing them in there such as Bicycle Thieves, The Seventh Seal, and Seven Samurai. " [More]

classic
by hensdill in hensdill Blog

loved it.

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"when Hollywood makes a comedy and pokes fun at a Swedish film that was made long before the target audience was even born...well that tells you that it has indeed survived the test of time and translation... " [More]

Seventh Year of the Sublime Syl ...
by dibot in dibot Blog

is neutral about it.

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"I'm super behind again.I saw Sylvia on Lifetime, so I'm not sure how much they cut out of the film. I liked the mood and the way the film looked. It seemed to get more and more gray as Plath descended into her depression. Of course, Gwyneth Paltrow ("The Good Night") and Daniel Craig ("The Invasion") gave solid performances as poetess Sylvia Plath and husband Ted Hughes. I liked that as a biopic, it didn't try to encompass Plath's whole life, just the time from when she met Hughes to her suicide. But despite the good qualities, it just wasn't all that interesting.Sublime is further proof that one should never blind buy no matter how cheep the DVD is. The plot sounded good. The day after his 40th birthday, a man goes into the hospital for a routine colonoscopy but things go wrong and the hospital isn't everything that it seems. Creepy hospital. Botched surgery. A recipe for success? Alas, no. The production was good. Very nice lighting and ... " [More]

Re: Introducing myself to the g ...
by Risselada in Introduce Yourself

loved it.

"The Seventh Seal? It's probably Ingmar Bergman's most iconic movie, and my favorite of his of the handful that I've seen.So that picture is from a French movie poster? Is it from a French movie? If so, what movie???I haven't made a list of my top 10 or 20 movies. I used to have one in the past that I listed on a different website, but I think that site is defunct now. And that was years ago so I would have to make a new one, and that would require a whole lot of time and fighting for myself about which ones should make the cut. I do have a list on Spout of my absolute favorite movies though. Basically everything I've given 10 stars out of 10. Right now there's 141 items on the list. Some of them are TV shows and other miscellaneous stuff that aren't necessarily full movies. But here is the list.If you want to link movies, just use that link icon at the top of the field where you type your messages. Then you can paste the link for the movie pag ... " [More]

Re: Introducing myself to the g ...
by Risselada in Introduce Yourself

loved it.

"Wow thanks for that. And what is that giant spider doing in your avatar! No matter.I get shiver moments like that too, but usually not during the same kind of sexual moments.They are usually more spiritual moments I would say. Not that sexuality can't be spiritual, but I can't think of any that are explicitly so at the moment.Here's a few examples.In The Seventh Seal. Well this movie might have the most shiver moments for me actually. I mean yes I get physical goosebumbs. It's awesome. It's happens many times often on queue. OOOh I'm getting them just thinking about it. I'll say the moment when the girl has her one line "It is finished" is one of them. Oh also when they are burning the "witch" and Antonius Block and his squire are trying to look into her eyes to find meaning.Also the scene in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly when they finally reach the cemetary and Tuco is running around past all of the grave sites. The music there and just the ... " [More]

Camille Paglia: Star Wars is a ...
by SpoutBlog in SpoutBlog on spout.com

hasn't rated it.

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"Once a month, cultural critic Camille Paglia publishes a lengthy assessment of the current moment in pop culture at Salon.com. This month’s installment went live today, and the meat of it is an Antonioni/Bergman inspired elegy for the art film. The whole piece is, as is the norm for Ms. Paglia, terribly quotable, but the part where she appears to elevate the entire Star Wars series to the status of those late Europeans’ “masterpieces” is probably the most controversial: On the culture front, fabled film directors Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni dying on the same day was certainly a cold douche for my narcissistic generation of the 1960s. We who revered those great artists, we who sat stunned and spellbound before their masterpieces — what have we achieved? Aside from Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather series, with its deft flashbacks and gritty social realism, is there a single film produced over the past 35 years that is arguably of equal philosophical weight or virtuosity ... " [More]

Re: Unlikely Double Features
by joem18b in Double Feature

hasn't rated it.

"First time I watched The Seventh Seal (1957), I was sooooo depressed. So I figure, why not follow it with Little Nicky (2000)?The Illusionist (ho hum) or The Prestige (ho hum) and The Magician (Bergman magic)Old and then young. Always cheers me up:Julie Christie - Away from Her and DarlingKatherine Hepburn - Long Day's Journey into Night and Little WomenClint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby and Revenge of the Creature...and btw, the double feature is dead, but surfing at the Metroplex is alive and well. A bit of POTC, Harry Potter, Chuck and Larry, and Transformers, and then the full Live Free or Die, and then a little Hairspray and Ratatouille and back to work... nothing better... And finally, my most enjoyable double-feature experience: slipping out of work, 1982, over to AMC. Me and two other patrons distributed maximally throughout the theater for Conan the Barbarian and Road Warrior, with a giant coke and popcorn. " [More]

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Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

loved it.

For filmgoers of a certain age (baby boomers who attended college between the late '50s and late '60s), The Seventh Seal was their first exposure to the films of Ingmar Bergman. And indeed, the film has been referenced by other directors, from Woody Allen to Barry Levinson, as well as becoming the subject of a popular parody short, Dove. Although other filmmakers, such as Jean Cocteau in Orpheus, had dealt with similar concerns, Bergman made them more accessible. The Seventh Seal is a skillful blend of realistic drama (the disillusioned knight returning from the Crusades in a land wracked by plague and madness) and the allegorical (most famously, the chess game and further encounters with a black-robed figure representing Death). The historical setting provides a convenient vehicle for Bergman to deal with issues of death and spirituality that are ultimately timeless. The film also gave major exposure to actors Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson, who both had small roles in Bergman's Wild Strawberries. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

Tags: chess , foreign , plague , ingmar-bergman , punishmentfromgod
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