zerocrossing: April 2008

and then came virgin spring

It's probably counter-intuitive, but I credit Ingmar Bergman—a man who lost faith—with helping me find my way back to the Catholic Church.

Actually, when it finally came time to see some Bergman, we didn't just put The Seventh Seal in the Netflix queue . We added Virgin Spring... mainly because of the connection with Last House on the Left.

Last House on the Left, you may know, was Wes Craven's first movie, and he was partnering with Friday the 13th producer Sean Cunningham (yes, we do know our way around slasher films!). Anyway, we thought it would be fun to do a Virgin Spring / Last House double-feature. I hadn't seen either film, so we would see the old Swedish folk tale on which they're based done both Arthouse and Grindhouse.

In the Swedish tale, the daughter of the house is raped and murdered during a trip into town by a gang of brothers that inadvertently takes hospitality that night at the parents' house. The parents, on learning of their daughter's death at the hands of their guests, take revenge. (Ever notice that it's always called "a shocking revenge"... regardless of whether the film publicist is talking about the Arthouse version or the Grindhouse version?).

Let me say up front that I was not much impressed with Last House on the Left. It's crudely plotted and poorly shot... and I saw it the day after taking a trip into the sublime. Virgin Spring , though, changed my life.

Bergman's film is set in Medieval Sweden. The parents are devout Catholics, thought there are still remnants of the ancient pagan religion surrounding them. On the day on which the film is set, they send their teenage daughter several miles into town to deliver candles to the priest for a feast day to the Blessed Virgin. The girl is young, exuberant, loving, full of life. When she is raped and murdered, we feel the nausea alongside the youngest (innocent) brother—a mere boy.

When the devout father exacts his revenge, we are shocked (as he soon will be) because his vengeance takes even the life of the boy. Bergman does not let us bathe ourselves in vengeance—as a more exploitative filmmaker would. Instead, he undermines the vengeance by the destruction of the innocent along with the guilty... and then showing the father stare down at the hands that have done this thing.

It's the final scene, though, that did something to me. As the father repents by the body of his dead child, a virgin spring of water spontaneously gushes from the ground... pure miracle and pure grace.

The next day, I was in a daze. About a month later, I was again a Catholic. Don't ask me how exactly it happened, but Bergman unleashed something in me... or rather, the Holy Spirit somehow worked through Bergman. Sweet irony, that.

Here's the prelude to the rape and murder of the girl:

a knight plays chess with death

When Ingmar Bergman died, I put the The Seventh Seal at the top of my Netflix queue and—on August 4, 2007—had my first encounter with a Bergman film. As I wrote on a film geek listserv the next day:

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):

sleeping in light

This afternoon, we watched the elegiac final episode of BABYLON 5, "Sleeping in Light," which takes place 20 years later. We have finished BABYLON 5.

The first time we watched Season 5 (about 10 years ago), it was difficult. We were dealing with the loss of Ivanova and with Lennier and Lyta plotlines that we hadn't really seen coming. That's not the fault of B5 creator JMS (J. Michael Straczysnki). It's obvious on second viewing that he laid in the groundworking for these plots in earlier seasons. But the first time around, we were caught up in the more obvious plotlines - Londo's tragic ascension to the Centauri throne and Garibaldi's alcoholic relapse. So we didn't notice the more subtle plots as they were developing. And then they hit us, very painfully, over the head.

I used to think that Season 5 got screwed up by the loss of Ivanova because Straczynski had to re-organize some plot elements. I also thought that having to rush the plot in Season 4 (since he didn't know if he'd get a Season 5 in which to finish the story) had messed things up. I really thought Season 5 was a letdown.

Now I know it's not. It has a very different feel. But it's as brilliant as any of the seasons that came before it.

For any B5 fans out there, here's a wonderful tribute to the final episode, with highlights including Sheridan's passing beyond the rim and the decommissioning of the Babylon 5 station: