Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film The Seventh Seal is a work of stark and powerful imagery, with one strong image succeeding another to build a whole, not unlike watching a medieval tableau whose scenes are intended to teach a lesson. Underlying this film is a strong sense of the theatrical. In a sense, this is true of any great film, but in the case of The Seventh Seal concepts of drama and the theatrical are inherent in the structure of the work and in the way the director shapes the material, as if moving from one scene in a play to the next, and all the while doing so by drawing attention to the theatricality as a way of enhancing the meaning of the whole. The film is a philosophical work in which ideas are embodied in human actions, in symbolism, and in the dramatic elements of the film. In this sense, the filmmaker is developing his philosophical ideas out in the open, in the way a dramatist would, using allegorical elements and powerful dramatic moments as punctuation. The film's stark look should not mask the fact that it is not a realistic work but a symbolic one using the fantastic as its mode of presentation.
The sense of the theatrical is evident in the opening frames. After a legend setting forth the time, the place, and the situation--Sweden at the time is plagued by the Black Death--the film begins with a dramatic flourish as if a stage is being set--light blasts forth from the heavens, accompanied by a heavenly choir underlining the fact that God is powerful over all that follows.
The first several scenes on the beach are again shaped as tableau, with the vassal asleep, the knight sitting by his chessboard, the horses nuzzling the edges of the sea, and the sun rising above all. These scenes have both a sense of timelessness as the ocean breaks on the rocks and a feeling of time stopped. The imagery is stark, and the appearance of a personification of death on the beach is in keeping with the sense of doom and ...