Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) sits down with Death (Bengt Ekerot) for a friendly game of chess in Bergman classic
THE SEVENTH SEAL (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Tuesday, November 27, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15
Series runs November 27 – December 14
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
It’s almost impossible to watch Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal without being aware of the meta surrounding the film, which has influenced so many other works and been paid homage to and playfully mocked. Over the years, it has gained a reputation as a deep, philosophical paean to death. However, amid all the talk about emptiness, doomsday, the Black Plague, and the devil, The Seventh Seal is a very funny movie. In fourteenth-century Sweden, knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) is returning home from the Crusades with his trusty squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand). Block soon meets Death (Bengt Ekerot) and, to prolong his life, challenges him to a game of chess. While the on-again, off-again battle of wits continues, Death seeks alternate victims while Block meets a young family and a small troupe of actors putting on a show. Rape, infidelity, murder, and other forms of evil rise to the surface as Block proclaims “To believe is to suffer,” questioning God and faith, and Jöns opines that “love is the blackest plague of all.” Based on Bergman’s own play inspired by a painting of Death playing chess by Albertus Pictor (played in the film by Gunnar Olsson), The Seventh Seal, winner of a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, is one of the most entertaining films ever made. (Bergman fans will get an extra treat out of the knight being offered some wild strawberries at one point.) The Seventh Seal is screening November 27 at BAM, kicking off the BAMcinématek series “Max von Sydow,” consisting of twenty-two wide-ranging films celebrating the outstanding career of the now-eighty-three-year-old Swedish actor. Von Sydow has appeared in such other serious fare as Bergman’s The Virgin Spring and Shame, such thrillers as Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, such epics as Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror and Jan Troell’s The Emigrants, and such comedies as Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas’s Strange Brew and Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters. In addition, he’s been in two of the biggest bombs ever, Mike Gordon’s Flash Gordon (as Ming the Merciless!) and David Lynch’s Dune, was the older priest in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, and he even played Blofeld in Irvin Kershner’s Never Say Never Again opposite Sean Connery’s James Bond. Of course, no matter what the project, Sydow brings an elegance and grace to it, lifting it up and always making it a whole lot better just for his presence.