I finally saw my first Bergman film last night. Given everything I'd heard about him throughout my adult life, I was actually surprised at how accessible it was. I thought it was going to be much more difficult.
I knew he was supposed to be dark and gloomy. I honestly did not know that he was also supposed to be an existentialist who was obsessed with God. If I'd known that, I would have watched him a long time ago. I was thinking Ibsen when I should have been thinking Kierkegaard (but without the leap of faith). I did find it interesting that he didn't answer the faith questions either in the affirmative or the negative. It's neither nihilistic existentialism nor theistic existentialism. It's more like agnostic existentialism - unable to commit either way.
But I did find it interesting that Bergman took the classic existential paradigm—i.e. to live the day as if it's your last and make significant choices based on the over-arching fact of death—and turn it into a meditation on what choice the knight would make when confronted with imminent death. And the choice is not simply to play chess and kick death down the road a little. The choice is to use the chess match to distract death long enough for the young family to escape. That is, he chooses to do something noble, something of significance. That doesn't mean death won't catch up with the family the next day. But they at least wake to see the next morning.
For me, the film was actually refreshing. It reminded me of Giles Mitchell—my mentor in undergrad/grad school—who was a brilliant existential literary critic back when such things still existed. I adored Giles. He died a few years ago, but he was amazing.
I watched The Seventh Seal out of sort of an obligatory sense that I needed to see something by Bergman before I died. His death gave me the impetus to do so. I decided on The Seventh Seal because the chess match with Death sounded potentially cool. But I still assumed that the film would be just another depressing piece of Nordic naturalism. In other words, I fully expected to hate Bergman. I expected this to be my first Bergman film... and my last. Instead, after seeing The Seventh Seal, I watched in quick succession: Virgin Spring, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence, Hour of the Wolf, and Shame. I just couldn't get enough... but I took a break after Shame.
What struck me about The Seventh Seal was that Bergman is asking the right questions about life, death and faith. American cinema (American culture itself!) has become so full of meaningless bluster. But this film does not insult its viewer's intelligence. It deals seriously with the existence or non-existence of God in the face of potential human annihilation. It stares into the abyss straight on, but still offers hope.
In the beginning, when the actor Joseph sees a vision of the Virgin Mary teaching Baby Jesus to walk, we don't know if he's imagining it or is truly a visionary. Later in the film, though, he truly does see what no one else can: the knight playing chess with Death—and ultimately, Death leading Joseph's former traveling companions in the Dance of Death (die Totentanz or Danse Macabre).
Bergman may have been a skeptic (the view embodied in the war-weary knight and squire), but he's too honest to provide an easy answer. And in a time when everybody claims to know everything, that was refreshing.
Here's the opening sequence (through the beginning of the chess match with death):
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