CheckmateIngmar Bergman has died. The legendary Swedish filmmaker (the 'Swedish' is in there to inform you of Bergman's nationality; the phrase is both apt and operative without it) passed away Monday at the age of 89, leaving behind an indelible stamp on the world of cinema matched only by the most accomplished of his peers. Bergman, who was also an accomplished theater director and writer, helmed roughly 50 films in his lifetime, including such divisive masterpieces as Wild Strawberries, Scenes From a Marriage, Cries and Whispers, and Fanny and Alexander. His style, though it defies neat categorization, is often described as 'Nordic'; one assumes this refers both to his unadorned, though hardly spartan, visual style and the heavily philosophical slant of his work.
Inevitably, the item in Bergman's ouvre that will command the most attention on the occasion of his passing is also the film that first established his reputation as a master filmmaker, and remains his most beloved work - The Seventh Seal. Set in plague-ridden medieval Sweden, the film is concerned with a knight, Antonius Block, who, following a ten year absence owing to his participation in the Crusades, is attempting to return to his wife and home. Along the way, Block (played by Max Von Sydow) and his companions are confronted by scenes of a society seemingly in its death throes, reeling from an apocalyptic cocktail of hedonism, religious fanaticism, and fatalism.
The film's classic set piece, referenced in the above photograph, is the chess match between Block and Death (vividly personified by actor Bengt Ekerot). Death, already abound in Sweden, has come for Block as well; the game is knight's desperate attempt to play for more time. If The Seventh Seal is a rich meditation on the nature of man's struggle with his own mortality, the chess match is the sweep of life's second hand made palpable, the seconds turning to minutes turning to hours draining away to reveal an inevitable terminus.
In the New York Times' outstanding obituary, Bergman is quoted as saying "When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying. But now I think it is a very, very wise arrangement. It's like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about." Transcending what film historian Peter Cowie characterizes as "the fear of Death, rather than the fact of Death" - this is the triumph that lies at the heart of The Seventh Seal, and, it seems, a fitting epitaph for Mr. Bergman as well.
Inevitably, the item in Bergman's ouvre that will command the most attention on the occasion of his passing is also the film that first established his reputation as a master filmmaker, and remains his most beloved work - The Seventh Seal. Set in plague-ridden medieval Sweden, the film is concerned with a knight, Antonius Block, who, following a ten year absence owing to his participation in the Crusades, is attempting to return to his wife and home. Along the way, Block (played by Max Von Sydow) and his companions are confronted by scenes of a society seemingly in its death throes, reeling from an apocalyptic cocktail of hedonism, religious fanaticism, and fatalism.
The film's classic set piece, referenced in the above photograph, is the chess match between Block and Death (vividly personified by actor Bengt Ekerot). Death, already abound in Sweden, has come for Block as well; the game is knight's desperate attempt to play for more time. If The Seventh Seal is a rich meditation on the nature of man's struggle with his own mortality, the chess match is the sweep of life's second hand made palpable, the seconds turning to minutes turning to hours draining away to reveal an inevitable terminus.
In the New York Times' outstanding obituary, Bergman is quoted as saying "When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying. But now I think it is a very, very wise arrangement. It's like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about." Transcending what film historian Peter Cowie characterizes as "the fear of Death, rather than the fact of Death" - this is the triumph that lies at the heart of The Seventh Seal, and, it seems, a fitting epitaph for Mr. Bergman as well.
