Detailed analysis of the church scene in Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal”

The sequence is 4’ 51’’ long and is composed of 17 shots.

Shot 1. 16’

Straight angle, long shot of Block in the apse of the church. We see his back as he moves toward the altar with a crucifix above it. The apse has frescoes and is lit by two small windows at the side of the crucifix casting oblique light beams on the flolor. Against the left wall of the apse, a large, dark statue. Diegetic muffled sound of bells.

Shot 2. 3’’

Medium close up, left high angle of Block, who is looking up, presumably at the crucifix. Light falls on Block’s face and shoulders. A beam of light hits the floor diagonally.

Shot 3. 2’’

Block’s POV. Close up of the crucifix, representing a suffering Christ with a contorted face.

Shot 4. 3’’

Back to 2. Block turns his face left when he hears something in the confessional.

Shot 5. 5’’

Medium close up of Death, in the position of the confessor, behind a grate, with a crucifix on the wall at his right. Death turns and motions toward the wall as if to leave but stops, turning to his right.

Shot 6. 12’’

Back to 4. A pan to the right developing into an American shot follows Block as he moves to the confessional. Block gets to the grate and places his right hand on the wall. At the sides of the grate, two dark wooden statues.

Block: “I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void.”

Shot 7. 37’’

Medium close up of Block in profile, his right hand on the wall, on the right of the frame. Behind the grate is Death.

Block: “The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror.”

(He places his face on the wall by his hand)

“My indifference to man has shut me out.”

(Forward dolly to a close up of Block)

“I now live in a world of ghosts; a prisoner of my dreams.”

Death:”Yet you do not want to die.”

Block: “Yes, I do.”

(Block lifts his head, eyes to the heaven, while behind the grate the frontally lit face of Death appears)

Death: “What are you waiting for?”

(Block’s head rapidly turns towards the crucifix above the altar.)

Block: “Knowledge.”

Shot 8. 2’

Block’s POV. Close up of the crucifix

Death: “You want a guarantee.” (Off camera)

Shot 9. 4’’

Back to 7

Block: “Call it what you will.”

(Block, keeping his hand on the wall, kneels down.)

Shot 10. 17’’

Close up of Block’s lit backhead and shoulders. On the left of the frame the grate, casting a shadow on the wall on the right.

Block: “Is it so hard to conceive God with one’s senses? Why must He hide in a mist of vague promises and invisible miracles?”

(Block lifts and turns his head towards the crucifix)

Block: “How are we to believe the believers when we do not believe ourselves?”

Shot 11. 6’’

Back to shot 9

Block: “What will become of us, who want to believe but cannot?” (Off camera)

Shot 12. 20’’

Back to the end of 10.

Block: “And what of those who neither will nor can believe? Why can I not kill God within me? Why does he go on living…”

(Slight panning to the left and up with Death appearing. Slow dolly to a close up of Death behind the grate.)

Block: “…in a painful and humiliating way? I want to tear Him out of my heart. But He remains a mocking reality which I cannot get rid of. Do you hear me?”

Death: “Sure.”

Shot 13. 1’ 55’’

Countershot, with the camera behind Death, who turns to the right hiding his face from Block. The grate casts shadows the face of the knight, who is on the other side; Block’s gaze is fixed and his left hand grabs the grate.

Block: “I want knowledge. Not belief. Not surmise, but knowledge. I want God to put out his hand, show his face, speak to me.”

Death: “But he is silent.”

Block: “I cry to him in the dark, but there seems to be no one there.”

Death: “Perhaps there is no one there.”

Block: “Then life is a senseless terror. No man can live with death and know that everything is nothing.”

Death: “Most people do not think of death or nothingness.”

Block: “Until they stand on the edge of life and see the darkness.”

Death: “Ah, that day.”

Block: “I see. I must make and idol of our fear….and call it God.”

Death: “You are uneasy.”

Block: “Death visited me this morning. We are playing chess. This respite enables me to perform a vital errand.”

Death: “What errand?”

Block: “My whole life has been a meaningless search. I say it without bitterness or self-reproach. I know it is the same for all. But I want to use my respite for one significant action.”

Death: “So, you play chess with Death?”

Block: “He is a skillful tactician, but I have not yet lost one piece.”

Death: “How can you outwit Death?”

Block: “By a combination of bishop and knight I will break his flank.”

Shot 14. 8’’

Countershot. Death turns his face towards Block, showing himself.

Death: “I shall remember that.”

Block suddenly raises, grabbing the grate with both hands.

Dolly forward to a close up of Death. In the foregrong the left shoulder and hand of Block, and the grate.

Shot 15. 12’’

Back to 13

Block: “Traitor, you have tricked me! But I shall find a way out.”

Shot 16. 7’’

Back to 14.

Death: “We will resume our game at the inn.”

Death leaves the frame to the right. Block begins turning to the left, his back almost filling the frame.

Shot 17. 26’’

Medium close up. As Block continues the turning, non-diegetic music is heard. Block leans against the wall on the left of the frame. He looks at his raised and lit right hand and he slowly moves it. His left hand, in the shade is still grabbing the grate.

Block: “This is my hand. I can move it. The blood is pulsating in my veins…”

(He lifts his head to the left of the frame, looking up as his right hand closes to a fist)

Block: “…The sun is still at the zenit…”

(He turns his head to the right facing his hand)

Block: “… And I, I Antonius Block…”

(He opens his fist as he looks at it almost smiling)

Block: “… Play chess with Death.”

(The music ends).

Analysis

Shot 1 is a standard establishing shot, determining the locale in which the scene will develop. The straight angle framing, with the sound of bells produce a calm atmosphere which, however, is marred by the nature of the pictures on the front of the apse, the contorted face of the rucifix, and the dark statue on the left.

Shots 2-4, involving fast editing, the use of oblique planes (the angles are never straight but high or low), and POV’s, create a sense of uneasiness that prepares the viewer for the dramatic exchanges to come.

The POV of the crucifix and the agonized faces of Christ and Block set up a visual link between the two that parallels their philosophical connection. What links Christ and Block is the sense of abandonment. Christ’s passion culminates in his cry, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” In Bergman’s “Winter Lights” (1963), Algot tells pastor Tomas, whose faith vacillates, that the true passion of Christ must have been God’s silence at the end, when Christ is really alone on the cross. As we shall see, Block as well feels abandoned because although he would like to believe, he doubts God’s existence and God, here as in other Bergman movies, is silent.

Shot 5 reintroduces Death, this time in the guise of a confessor who will betray Block’s trust. The confessional, the place of help in the church, proves a hoax. Thus begins the criticism and condemnation of organized religion and its representatives climaxing in the procession of the flagellants. Note how Bergman here follows the well tried practice of higthening tension by letting us know what Block does not know, namely that he is confessing to Death.

Shot 6 starts the exchange between Death and Block, with the crucifix as a silent third party, that will continue through shot 16. Shot 7 begins the visual depiction of Block’s isolation from his fellow human beings and his reclusion in a personal world of despair by the use of the image of the grate, and its shadow, boxing Block in. In addition, from now to the end of the scene Bergman often uses hard sidelighting, which furthers the sense of uneasiness. At the end of shot 7, Block looks at the crucifix, asking God to reveal himself, and his desperate request is highlighted by shot 8, a POV of the agonizing Christ. Here the crucifix plays three roles: that of the visible image of the silent God, that of the abandoned Christ, and, as it becomes clear in shot 13, that of an idol, a carved piece of wood representative not of a supernatural reality but of its maker.

In shots 11-13, Block expresses his dread of the future, wondering what will happen to non-believers, willing and unwilling. In the next shot, he touches the core theme of the film, namely, the awful suspect that without God “everything is nothing”, namely, that nothing has intrinsic and everlasting value. In short, without God, Block fears, life is meaningless. Even more depressingly, if life is meaningless, then our image of God is but the reflection of our fears: the god we have created is not only vendictive but both victimizer and victim. Retrospectively, the crucifix, a lifeless piece of wood, takes on the new role of a representation of contorted and sick fears. The tone of despair is visually represented by Block’s fixed stare, his grabbing of the grate, and the harsh light coming from the top right of the frame. Still, Block hopes in some sort of secular redemption: he wants to keep Death at bay long enough to perform a significant action.

Shots 14-16 depict the consummation of Death’s betrayal.

Shot 17 closes the scene. Non-diegetic music is heard as Block continues his existentialist musing: he is still alive and able to choose and struggle, and that confers upon him a dignity perhaps capable of alleying his dark religious doubts. Perhaps, he seems to think, he does have capacity to give meaning to his life even if there is no God. Note how in this shot the main burden of the narrative is not carried by images but almost completely by a monologue, perhaps a remnant of the fact that originally Bergman conceived the story as a play.