The Criterion Collection has just released Ingmar Bergman’s film, The Seventh Seal (1957), in 4K UHD.
When I first saw the film in 1999, it intrigued me, but it also bored me.
Now, having seen Criterion’s pristine 4K transfer, I appreciate the moody disquiet the movie conjures. It’s a beautifully wrought death-dream. Heavy-handed, but very well made.
Death (Bengt Ekerot) tries to claim a knight from the Crusades (Max von Sydow). To stall, the knight challenges Death to a game of chess. His hope: to gain some meaning from life. The reprieve does not last long. But the knight has a trick up his sleeve.
Ok, so that’s the gist of the story. As he rides across the country, the knight and his squire (Gunnar Bjornstrand) meet a sunny troupe of performers, Joseph (Nils Poppe), his wife (Bibi Andersson), and their baby son. The knight and his squire also view death, waste, and destruction. The knight sees the beauty inherent in life, but the hopelessness, too. He seeks evidence of a just and fair God… But God is silent. Absent.
Bergman directed far more affecting, thought-provoking films. He spent the next decade coming to terms with the silence of God. (He tried, at least.) The Seventh Seal, a movie that’s not afraid to ask some big questions, has atmosphere to spare. Its obviousness—for example, the heavy-handed visualization of a figure of Death popping in and out of a bleak medieval landscape—is both its chief asset and its major flaw.
But again, the movie conjures a dark, dreamlike mood. This carries us. It’s an enchanting vision of a scarred world, and that more than anything else sets it apart. It’s not entertaining, per se, but Bergman (sorry, folks, I have to say it) rarely is. The film is navel-gazing Art—in all the best and worst ways.
I’m not a Bergman scholar. But I’m getting there. The Seventh Seal marked Bergman as a director with a certain eye and a particular approach. It put him on the map.
Criterion produced the 4K in its set from a 4K scan of the original 35mm negative restored by the Swedish Film Institute. Any grain is slight. The detail in the film is superb. The only special feature included for the 4K disc is an audio commentary by Peter Cowie. Included in the set is a Blu-ray of the film with this commentary and a round of special features that came with Criterion’s 2009 Blu-ray release of the film. Among these supplements are an introduction and afterword by Bergman, Bergman Island, an interview with Max von Sydow, an interview with Woody Allen on Bergman, Bergman 101, and a copy of the theatrical trailer.
