Swedish director Ingmar Bergmann has been hailed as one of the most eminent directors of the 20th century, woody Allen calling him "the greatest mentor" and Wim Wenders calling him a "giant beacon", whose work often explores issues of life and death, love and hate, spirit and existence in a cold image style and revelatory philosophical reflections. He was the first director to elevate cinema to a philosophical level, and 1957's The Seventh Seal is undoubtedly a landmark work of art of his career that still exudes a fascinating brilliance.
The work was completed in only 35 days, involving countless religious metaphors and philosophies of life, many people will be confused when they first watch it, especially the appearance of the god of death to the departure, which seems to indicate that the whole movie is a farce, and life is like a game. But if the audience can calm down and watch the second and third times, they will be impressed by the exquisite language, figurative characters, ironic humor and optimistic spirit, and this film condenses Bergman's life experience experience and life philosophy thinking from childhood to adulthood. I summarize it into four points: home is an eternal refuge; God is often at a loss in the face of death and plague, but death will follow; the end of the world is not terrible, what is terrible is that the human heart is not ancient, and humanity is destroyed; only love and sincerity can achieve self-salvation.
Today, I will start from the above four points to unveil the long-standing philosophical confusion in Bergman's heart for the audience, read Bergman's heart, and the obscure meaning of this film will be solved.
Bergman's childhood was tragic and lonely, and he longed to experience the care of affection, but from childhood he witnessed devastated wars and plagues, and those memories of sin, death, and pain have been tormenting him bitterly, and inscribed in the imprint of thinking deep religious philosophical propositions about God, death, human nature, and so on.
Since ancient times, Sweden's Scandinavian Peninsula's short and pleasant summers and long lonely winters have bred a strong and fierce character lineage of the local inhabitants, and the Vikings, although fierce and vicious, have become the birthplace of ancient civilizations. As the son of a local priest, Bergman's father told stories about God and death all day long, and those harsh religious ideas were instilled in Bergman's mind all the time, in one case, children who made mistakes were not only punished with religious punishments, such as whipping and locked in dark closets, but also had to accept God's forgiveness for their mistakes.
In Bergman's autobiography "The Magic Lantern", he has mentioned his fear of death: his uncle died tragically under the wheel, his brother attempted suicide at the age of 20, the maid of the family committed suicide by becoming pregnant before marriage, and his third wife was killed in a car accident, each death adds weight to the thinking of philosophical propositions, and will be presented through Bergman's hot film form.
The story of the Seventh Seal is derived from the parable of God in the book of Revelation, when the Lamb unveils the seventh seal of the parchment scroll, the seven angels will bring the last judgment, and the original sin of man will be punished at this time. Although the film is full of religious origins and developments, not understanding the religious metaphors in it does not prevent the audience from understanding the connotation of the story, especially as an Eastern audience, and adopting an intuitive interpretation method will actually benefit the main theme of the film.
The story line of the film is that Bullock, a knight who has participated in the Crusades for nearly 10 years, and his servant Jones encounter the God of Death on the way home, and the knight and the God of Death make an agreement, and the victory or defeat of chess determines whether he can continue to survive. Along the way, Bullock meets clown actors, blacksmiths and other characters, whose lives are subjected to the dual pressure of faith and reality, integrating the fate and philosophical reflection of the characters into an easy-to-understand journey home, with obvious implications: the strong contrast between warm family affection and cold death arouses the audience's thinking.
The reason why the film is obscure is the profundity of the language content and the surreality of the way of expression. The visible god of death and the invisible plague, God are always like shadows, profoundly affecting everyone's life, and people's constant rebuke of faith is the indissoluble doubt of religion in their hearts. In the West, no one dares to present the thinking of religion so blatantly through such exaggeration, and no one constantly questions the existence of God and Death. This has also triggered controversy in the Western media about Bergman's films, but time can prove everything, this doubt still exists today, and has not changed in the slightest with the passage of time, which is the forerunner of the film's expression method and depth of thinking, Bergman has never stopped thinking, as the classic saying says, "As soon as human beings think, God laughs."
Bergman visualizes the illusory grim reaper, who is everywhere and ever-present, waiting for Brock's confession, which complements the image of God that never appears in the film. God often radiates the brilliance of saving the world, but in people's mouths, God did not save tens of thousands of people from the plague, whether God and death exist or not, and to what extent they will affect the behavior and thoughts of the world, this is the source of Bergman's thinking on religion.
To be clear, despite Bergman's deep hatred of religious ideas, he could neither prove their existence nor deny that religion was influencing people's lives, and for this reason he once said, "For me, religious issues have always accompanied me." There has never been a moment of concern for it. This is true every hour of the day, and God is both a resource and an obstacle."
Because of this, Bergman's answers are open-ended, with both objective facts and subjective reflections. For example, the god of death suddenly came, examining the fate of all people, when the blacksmith's wife cheated, he would decisively saw off the trees to punish the clown, and participate in the judgment of the fate of the world; the arrival of the plague caused innocent women to suffer, die in pain and struggle, people's fear of disease was not so much questioning God as it was fear of the unknown of his own world; did God's failure to sprinkle grace on the world mean the depth of the sins of the world, or the use of extreme forms to deepen the people's devotion to religion, God's fraternity? The film can be interpreted from a thousand perspectives, but in the final analysis, it lies in the recognition of the viewer's own value system.
The dualistic opposition between death and survival presents a humorous dramatic tension in the interesting story direction, Bullock dares to challenge the authority of the god of death, in the process saying "I have not yet lost a chess game", "my hands can do a lot of things", negotiate with the god of death, play with the god of death, dance with death, the image of the god of death becomes a personal practitioner of death, neither mysterious nor tall, but has a human symbol metaphor, compared with the plague that comes at any time and the "Lord" read by many people, death is no longer terrible and unknown, The process of returning home is accompanied by the occurrence of death, but at the end it becomes the god of death to lead everyone to "go home", facing the prophecy of the coming of the end, whether it is the terrible disease, the terrible nature of human nature, or the terrible death, I believe that everyone will have their own answer.
The concept of doomsday is mentioned several times in the film, the doomsday judgment is accompanied by the unveiling of the seventh seal, everyone must accept God's judgment, Bergman did not give the doomsday a specific time, the doom is more like a sharp weapon to test human nature, witnessing the desire of everyone's heart.
As the Apocalypse Trial is about to begin, the greedy, selfish, and evil humanity in the film gives the apocalypse a powerful wake-up call. Bullock's perspective is more like that of a witness and witness to the judgment of the last days. He left his homeland at the instigation of the theologian Revere and fought outside for ten years, and it turned out that his wife, Carlyn, and the happy life, Jones once joked that "this is nothing but the desire of those in power", and the people became fish and meat on the chopping board. Over the past ten years, the souls of Bullock and Jones have been constantly questioned, and the film does not face the cruelty of war, but expresses its thinking about human nature with the people and things seen and heard on the post-war homecoming trip.
Bullock and Jones have pure hearts, but their battle-hardened experiences make them look down on life and death, Jones will help when he sees the woman in distress, and "coerce" the woman to become their housekeeper with "I saved you, you owe me"; the blacksmith's wife, who has a happy life, still seduces the clown actor Jonas out of her inner desire, causing Jonas's life to be taken away by the god of death; the clown Joseph takes advantage of his wife and children when he sees the death and Bullock playing against each other Revel went from being a believer in God to a thief of property. In the face of disaster, human nature is fragile and vulnerable, or it is the instinct of human beings to survive by seeking advantage and avoiding harm.
Is salvation necessary before the end comes? This is the question that Bergman most wants to explore. Will Bullock's struggles, Jones's determination, Revere's fall, Joseph's abandonment, The Blacksmith's Wife's adultery, human selfishness and desire lead to the withering of the flower of the heart? How does unrelenting despair affect life? Does self-redemption really have a meaning? In Bergman's mind, he used humor to give answers.
Salvation means physical death and spiritual rebirth. Although everyone fears death, we cannot prevent it from coming, as Bullock said in the face of death, "My flesh is afraid of you, but my spirit is not afraid of you." The inquiry into the meaning of life is what Brock is most concerned about, for which he can ask the "witch" who is being judged because the devil knows the truth about God. And when the childish "witch" faces death, the judge is actually the god of death in disguise, the destruction of the flesh will never consume the fire of a person's spirit, and death and rebirth become a cyclical process.
At the end of the film, Death takes Bullock and his party, but only Bullock's wife is left, and all the critics are stunned and unable to answer. In my opinion, Brock's wife is the embodiment of hope, she represents the courage and responsibility of human beings in the pursuit of happiness. And does death must symbolize death when it leads the people away? I don't necessarily see that no one can tell the relationship between God and Death, it is possible that they are stepping into the world of Elysium, or that they may be reborn in destruction.
The film downplays the background elements of the times, such as the Vietnam War against France, the Korean War, and the Second Middle East War in the same period, while using vivid characters and profound philosophical dialogues to let the audience experience the spiritual dilemma brought about by war and death. Bullock spent his life searching for the true meaning of life, until he met Joseph's family, when he saw Joseph and his son teach their son to walk, he experienced the beauty of the world and the happiness of the family, thus dissolving the despair and depression in his heart, and expressing the method of self-redemption: love and sincerity.
When Joseph and his wife brought out fresh wild strawberries to entertain Brock and Jones, Brock "when I sit here with you and your husband, faith suddenly becomes irrelevant, and I will remember this moment, this peaceful dusk, wild strawberries and milk, your face in twilight, Michael sleeping peacefully, Joseph playing the piano", life becomes glorious because of love, and it becomes precious because of cherishing.
Sincerity is another way of self-redemption, sincerity means maintaining an intimate relationship and a good attitude towards people, only by treating people sincerely and staying away from evil thoughts can we purify the soul and obtain a peaceful spiritual world. Joseph is the embodiment of sincerity. He meets "The Virgin Mary" in his dreams, but says "The Devil's Story" to amuse his wife, he will enjoy a simple and extreme family life, but he does not care at all that his destination is "plague city"; he pursues the simple happiness of the clown cause and laughs at others, but does not care at all about the sneering ridicule of others; he wants his son to become the heir to the clown cause, but he feels the preciousness of family affection and the charm of happiness in every laugh of his son.
In the end, what liberated Bullock was not faith in God, but the care and warmth of love, in the face of love and sincerity, faith is no longer important, and the exploration of the existence of God and death has become the unsolvable answer to the spiritual myth. In the face of suffering and sin, this simple happiness and warmth allows the audience to obtain spiritual relief, and return to peace and tranquility after countless hardships. Isn't our quest for the meaning of life, the existence of miracles, precisely to attain this inner salvation?
Bergman once expressed his views on love, "When I finished writing the first screenplay, I doubted that I had found a reason for God's existence, maybe God is love, all kinds of love, so I let the whole story develop under this big topic. But when the story ends, my faith begins to waver again, and I can't portray a God in my mind, is God always so silent?"
Rooted in Bergman's family environment and Western cultural traditions, The Seventh Seal reveals the spiritual origin of the quest for the meaning of life, and these deafening voices are as shocking as Nietzsche's words that "God is dead." The religious dilemma is not a debate between the presence and absence of God and Death, but the contradiction between the inherent religious needs of modern people and the religious outlook that actually exists. In the warning story of the apocalyptic crisis, the important values of love and sincerity are demonstrated.