Swedish-born director Ingmar. Bergman in the United States director Woody. In Alan's eyes, he was the perfect mentor in Wim. In Wenders' mouth, he was a huge lighthouse. He always focuses on the struggles of human life and death, spirit and flesh, love and desire. As the most eminent film artist of the twentieth century, Bergman took the lead in elevating "cinema" to a philosophical topic, and presented human struggles and nothingness through dreamlike light and shadow and cold thinking like ice edges. "Does God exist" is the core of his films, and through this question, we can see Bergman's concern about the direction of human destiny.
Today, we are going through the test of death, and if Bergman is still there, he will surely ask, "Why does God suffer from aphasia and death wander the earth?" Unfortunately, this master of art is long gone, and we can only think about the problems of life and death, existence and nothingness through his works left in this world. I always admire Bergman's films with a sense of respect, for I cannot express my preference for him in any elaborate vocabulary, though such a preference is heavy and sad.
In 1957, Bergman made a film called The Seventh Seal, which was a milestone in Bergman's film career and thus began the poetic and philosophical journey of film. In this film, Bergman focuses on the issues he has been thinking about all his life: religious belief, life and death. Through this film, we can walk into Bergman's struggling heart and his incomprehensible "heavenly question".
The wildness of the pirate period, the chaos of the late Middle Ages, the defeat of the North Sea conquest, the caution of the Napoleonic Wars... This is a historical silhouette of Sweden in eastern Scandinavia, Northern Europe. Summers here are short and pleasant, while winters are long and boring. History has given this land thickness and simplicity, and the environment has given this land a beautiful light and shadow.
In the land of Asia, those filmmakers are trapped in realism and cannot extricate themselves, trying to find a way to express their hearts through the creative intention of realism. On the Western European continent, the spread of Romanticism allowed people to find a brief moment of comfort in it, like Luc. As Besson said, "Cinema is not a medicine for the world, just a piece of aspirin." Hollywood directors are immersed in the dream-making function of movies, trying to use technology to present the dreams in people's minds. In the land of Northern Europe, the film art seems to prefer the unpredictable light and shadow and the cold and alienated environment.
Standing in the Nordic lands, Bergman draws nourishment from ancient legends and deep historical cultures, his gaze through the mysterious forest, with a predilection for fantasy, all of which are integrated into his own films. When we talk about Bergman's films, we must start with The Seventh Seal, and to understand the Seventh Seal, we need to turn on Bergman's Magic Lamp.
The Magic Lantern is the only autobiography of the giant Bergman, five years after filming Fanny and Alexander, announcing the end of his film career. This book is not only his personal autobiography, but also the "confession" he wrote. In this book, he seriously reveals the source of his creation and the course of his life, and he does not shy away from his shortcomings, fear, anger, and his youthful obsession with nazis and lust. Important moments in his life can be found in this book.
Bergman once said, "All of my work is actually based entirely on childhood impressions." I can always go back to the situation. In general, what I did of some value can be traced back to childhood. Dialectically speaking, I have never been separated from my childhood, and I have always had a dialogue with my childhood. There is no doubt that the book "The Magic Lantern" is the best population to understand Bergman's creative process, following Bergman's narrative, as if returning to the ancient and mysterious Nordic land, back to Bergman's serious and repressed childhood.
Bergman was the son of a priest, and ritual moments such as baptisms, weddings, and funerals constituted the main memories of his childhood. However, he failed to let his father talk about death as calmly as he did, and he was full of fear and horror about death because his loyal and honest uncle was buried under the wheels of the train, the gentle and beautiful maid died because of the shame of being pregnant unmarried, the only brother attempted suicide when he was young, and his third wife was accidentally killed in a car accident... In the face of these ensuing deaths, Bergman had only one voice in his heart, "Where has God gone?" ”
Death was like Bergman's shadow that accompanied him throughout his life. So, with The Seventh Seal, this film is Bergman's reflections on death, he longs for God's salvation, and finally finds that only love and hope are the salvation medicine.
In The Seventh Seal, Bergman's torture is ubiquitous, and these tortures originate from his childhood, which is his lingering memory. When the knight and death play chess, he is torturing, where is God, the heroic knight who has gone through the Crusades, why he is playing chess with death. Bullock said he needed God's help and needed God's redemption. But God never appeared, never redeemed Him because He was a hero.
The intellectuals that Bullock represented at this time were in an era of turbulent change, the rapid development of material civilization, the disintegration and reconstruction of spiritual civilization, and the gradual fragmentation of faith in the trend of history. Bullock, who had lived through the war, had made God his faith, and he thought that he had been able to come back alive because of God's help. However, when he returned from the battlefield, he saw the god of death.
From birth to death, Bullock's faith gradually disintegrated, and he began to look for bits and pieces related to God in his memories, he saw love, deception, death, but did not see God. In fact, love itself is God. It's just that Bullock never believed in love. In the end, Bullock encloses himself on an island of human nature, questions the existence of God, wields a sword to cut off all relations with faith, and eventually, also goes to death.
Death in Bergman's films is not a fate but a trial, as seen in other films. Many directors will make death the focus of human destiny, thus giving birth to a sense of nihilistic fatalism. Bergman is not like this, he has a sense of salvation, he uses death as a judgment, to judge the sinful, although God will be absent, but death will not, death is fair and sober, he will eventually take away those who are guilty, leaving those who have love and faith.
When Bergman was born, his mother was suffering from a severe Spanish cold, and Bergman was born with a severe lack of nutrition. One old doctor even decided that Bergman would die prematurely. As soon as Bergman was born, he played a game of chess with the god of death, and since then he has never stopped thinking about death.
In The Seventh Seal, we can see Bergman's attitude toward death, which stems from his childhood experiences. After reading the "Magic Lantern", you can find that everything in the "Seventh Seal" can be found in the corresponding description in the "Magic Lamp". "The Magic Lantern" is a description of Bergman's life, and "The Seventh Seal" is about Bergman's torture of life and death. So, the Seventh Seal is the shadow cast on the wall by the Magic Lantern, and between the light and the dark is the hope of life and the silence of death.
Perhaps Bergman did not expect that "The Seventh Seal" would bring such a big shock to the audience. Because history is strikingly similar, wars and plagues have always existed, and people's discussion of life and death, God and death, has never stopped. The Seventh Seal is a door, a door for people to understand the past, and a door for people to spy on the future.
On the seashore of the mighty waves, the brave knight Bullock is playing chess with the god of death, and in the gap between chess games, he looks back on his life. The Crusades, the plague ravaged the land of Europe, and also met happy couples with a happy future, couples who looked like they were in harmony, and also encountered serious memorial ceremonies. Finally, the knight and his friends meet Death again, and in the storm they dance hand in hand with Death, and then fade into darkness.
The Seventh Seal begins with "Genesis" and ends with "Revelation", and the mighty sea is like a newly separated world, with rolling waves on one side and vast earth on the other. The book of Revelation at the end is a revelation of life and death, and some people can get the forgiveness of the god of death because of love and piety, while those who think they are heroic and wise cannot escape the judgment of fate.
It is important for the artist to maintain a high level of sensitivity to his time, especially for artists like Bergman. He is nourished by past experiences, but he needs the soil of reality even more. Look for fragments in reality, combine them, and reflect the changes of the entire twentieth century. In Bergman's films, we can follow his torture to clearly see the traces left by the times, as well as the choices of individuals in this torrent of history.
Set in the Middle Ages, The Seventh Seal deals with two historical events, the Crusades and the plague that ravaged Europe. The former occurred in the twelfth century and the latter in the fourteenth century. Bergman puts two events in the film, using memories to outline the bits and pieces that have happened, making the film theme have a heavy feeling at the beginning.
In the era when "The Seventh Seal" was filmed, the whole world was in a state of uneasiness and chaos, the Korean War, the vietnam war against France, the confrontation between the two major socialist camps, the second Middle East war, the launch of the first intercontinental missile of the Soviet Union... War brings death, death brings decay, and decay brings plague. The Seventh Seal is like a prophecy, revealing a disaster that has long been forgotten. Obviously, the Crusades symbolized the world situation in the fifties and sixties, and the plague symbolized the collapse of civilization.
How did human civilization come about? It's war, not technology. Humanity's path to civilization is paved with shady tiles. Desire drives human society forward, but also brings many disasters, if war means the expansion of ambition, then the plague that follows is the judgment from God. From World War I to World War II, where the war spread, life was ruined, and the war ripped off the last fig leaf of mankind, transmitting bloodthirsty desires to everyone, just like the spread of the plague, and the god of death, at this time, is hiding in the shadows and sneering.
"The Seventh Seal" is by no means a tragedy, and Bergman still retains compassion and love for human society in his heart. Knight Bullock once met a couple who worked in the circus, and the husband believed in the gods religiously, and the wife obeyed the order. Because of love and faith in their hearts, they were forgiven by the God of Death. At a time when all had to go to their deaths, they moved toward a new beginning.
War is Bergman's "seventh seal", which points directly to the sin in the human heart, disintegrates people's goodness and love, and releases the oldest and true desires in people's hearts.
Hegel once said that the lesson of history is that people never know to learn the lessons of history. In 1957, after the release of "The Seventh Seal", it caused an uproar in the film industry, who expressed their amazement at such a grand proposition and admired Bergman's calmness and sobriety. Filmmakers, critics, and philosophers analyze the film from different perspectives, connecting the film with the future destiny of mankind. They give the film supreme honor, they indict humanity's indulgence of desire, they accuse the cruelty of war, however, they do not learn any lesson from it.
Today, we are not looking back at history, and proud human beings will never learn from history, but "Why does God suffer from aphasia and death wander the earth?" Bergmanian torture still exists, because human beings are cowardly and selfish after all, they are born with original sin, and they need to spend their lives on trial, waiting for the unsealing of the "seventh seal", waiting for the unknown fate.