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Whistle Stopper - The Seventh Seal
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List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $14.50
Your Save: $ 15.45 ( 52% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Homevision
Starring: Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Bibi Andersson
Directed By: Ingmar Bergman
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786303107332
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6303107338
Label: Homevision
Manufacturer: Homevision
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Homevision
Release Date: 2000-06-16
Running Time: 92
Studio: Homevision
Theatrical Release Date: 1958-10-13
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Most Popular Swedish Language Film of All Time
Comment: It is- just look at the rankings above. This movie is pretty much in the dictionary next to "art house cinema," for a certain population group, you saw it in college at the art house theater, for their children- watch the DVD. This movie is, compared to other Bergmann, a rolicking good time- so be ready to laugh- and despair.
Another good Criterion Collection edition- is there any other way to watch the classics of european cinema?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Knight asks questions on our behalf, gets no answers
Comment: Or maybe he does, but not until after Death leads him and some of his friends away with him.
In stark black and white, the story unfolds of a crusader, just back home in Sweden after ten years overseas, disillusioned and tired. He asks if there is a God or not, how he can believe when he can no longer make himself do it, and why he has to die, among other questions. Death does not answer anything directly but is also not presented as an evil force. The plague is more terrifying than Death is, in this situation.
If you like foreign films, existentialism, and black and white photography, you will enjoy this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Death? A Reason to Believe? 14th Century Black Plague? Readon
Comment: Simple, cutting, to the point; Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" is a movie with a message, yes, a message that tells a story about a man and his chess board. The opponent, a pale man with a simple mission greets the knight Antonius Block in the 14th century Sweden; returning home to a disease ravaged land, yes the Black Plague has eaten its way to his home. Job I mean Block meets his match in this cunning story that was put together one summer with a bunch of friends of Ingmar and his girl friend Mary, the leading lady.
--Ross
Customer Rating:
Summary: A film with brains
Comment: Of Ingmar Bergman's early black and white films, The Seventh Seal (1957) is my personal favorite. The story takes place in the middle of the 12th century. The black plague strikes Europe. A knight (Max von Sydow) and his squire, Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand) return from the Crusades: the Crusades were a series of military campaigns by western European Christians to recover the Holy Land from the Saracen Muslims. The ocean delivers Antonius and his squire to a beach. The sky is half lit; the ocean is restless; the sun is almost under the horizon. A black bird--a scavenger--hangs over Antonius. He prays. But he and his squire are not alone. Nearby stands a tall figure in a long black robe. His face is pale and familiar--he is Death. Antonius is ready, but first he must challenge Death to a game of chess. If Death prevails, Antonius dies; if Antonius prevails, Death must allow him to live. Death agrees; his chess figures are black. The game begins.
Death and the chessboard vanish, the sun burns overhead, and once again, Antonius and his squire are alone on the beach. They find two stray horses and begin their inland journey. Deeper inland, they encounter symbols of death and danger. The clouds are light and unable to cool the sun. Antonius and his squire encounter the corpse of a monk. They stroll past an old rundown wagon. Three troubadours--Jof (Nils Pope), his wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson), and Skat (Erik Strandmark)--sleep inside the wagon. They will travel to the Saint's Festival in Elsinor, and the lead actor shall play the role of Death in a play on the church steps. Antonius and his squire visit the church in Elsinor. There, an artist is painting a fresco. Within this fresco, Death leads a ghoulish parade of corpses. The knight, Antonius Block, notices a priest inside of a small room. There, Block alleviates his conscience. Iron bars separate Antonius and the priest in the chamber who bears Antonius's confession. A black cloak obscures the priests face. Antonius speaks freely. His whole life has been meaningless. Is there a God? Antonius tells the priest of his scheme to stall Death with a game of chess. The chess game is a respite for Antonius to search out the meaning of life on earth. Antonius's confession amuses the priest. Antonius discloses his strategy: he shall outmaneuver Death with a bishop and a knight. Hearing this, the priest rises from his seat and shows his face: the priest is Death--the Knight has been fooled! Round one to Death.
And so the story progresses. Most of Bergman's early films-- Wild Strawberries, Smiles of a Summer Night, The Virgin Spring, etc.--were allegorical. The Seventh Seal is the best known of his earlier films, all of which were done in black and white. I loved this film the first time I saw it. Bergman's films and characters speak to you. Bibi Andersson--who plays one of the traveling troubadours in the film-- has starred in many of Bergman's early black and white films such as The Seventh Seal, Smiles of a Summer Night, and the Magician. Also, she has starred in many of Bergman's latter color films such as Scenes From a Marriage and Persona. Max von Sydow starred in several of Bergman's earlier films. The Seventh Seal is a glass of wine--drink it and enjoy.
author of Gotta Be Down!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Comment: One of the things that separates a great artist from a lesser one is his ability to switch forms, themes, and the like, yet still imprint that unmistakable essence that lets a viewer know which artist they are dealing with immediately. Rarely has there been a greater and more vivid example of this reality than in comparing the two films Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman released in 1957: The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries.
The first film, which is the subject of this essay, is stark, cosmic, spare, allegorical, and unremitting in its view of life, whereas Wild Strawberries is rich, personal, realistic (even if it uses symbolism), and open to several viable interpretations. Both films starred many of Bergman's `stock actors from the 1950s: Max Von Sydow as Knight Antonius Block, Bibi Andersson as Mia, the wife of Jof the jester (and utterly gorgeous, as opposed to mere cuteness in Wild Strawberries), and Gunnar Björnstrand as Block's squire Jöns, a pragmatic Sancho Panza to Block's spiritual Don Quixote. While Björnstrand is nominally the third lead in the film, behind Sydow and Bengt Ekerot as the personification of Death, in truth he is the dominant lead character, with by far the most, and the best, lines of dialogue. And while this film is an allegory loaded with symbolism, it is also a very simple story of a middle 14th Century knight's return to Sweden from the Crusades of the Middle Ages.... The acting is uniformly excellent. Sydow is utterly transparent as Block. We see every cranny of doubt and belief written on his face. Poppe, as Jof, shows what Roberto Benigni might be like, if he had a dram of depth, Ekerot's Death is frightening only in his pomp and banality, but Björnstrand gives a truly great performance in the most difficult of the roles- treading between comedy and drama, realism and absurdism, as the squire who seems to be the wisest of all the characters. While this film was made at the height of the early Cold War, and many early reviewers took the Plague as an allegory for nuclear war, the film is far more than a simplistic political screed. At 96 minutes it also is not tool long that it batters the viewer with its message, nor too short that it slips quickly by. This film proves why black and white is still a vital tool in filmmaking. Had it been shot in color its dreamy quality would be rent, for shadows and depth are far easier to portray in black and white, and are far more suggestive of moodiness and inner turmoil. One problem is that the DVD version of the film I have, from The Criterion Collection, errs in allowing the black and white English words to be used, rather than colorizing them for clearer and speedier reading, thus detracting from the visual cornucopia onscreen. This is why watching the film, a second time, with or without comments, is recommended, for many visual subtleties are revealed that are lost in a first viewing's necessity to read the dialogue
All in all, it's little wonder why speed-addicted, and Lowest Common Denominator afflicted American viewers have never taken to films like this, of such high quality. Yes, the writing is spare, but it is not meant to be realistic, and some of the imagery, and acting is straight out of silent German Expressionism, which only reinforces the revery-like feel of the film. And while Americans are noted for cherishing their dreams as hopes, how few ever recall their dreams as theater?
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Editorial Reviews:
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Movie lovers will always return to The Seventh Seal, regarded by many as one of the greatest films of all time. Bergman combines symbolic imagery, realistic details, and wry humor for the moving medieval tale of a knight searching for God in a world ravaged by plague. As the honorable knight, his cynical squire, a troupe of carefree actors, and black-robed Death, a superb cast of Bergman regulars portray the cruelty and charity that coexisted during this dark era.
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