The Seventh Seal (1957)
I do get it that Ingmar Bergman made it to help himself conquer his fear of death, and I’m glad it seemed to help. But I don’t really understand what all the fuss is about. I do remember liking Bergman once — Scenes From a Marriage, that sort of thing. But even then I had some reservations, it all seemed somewhat of a downer. How can one not be grim about death, or perhaps one should be, I’m just saying that particular sensibility is not as interesting to me as let’s say Fellini’s somewhat lighter touch. I am someone who has not experienced death very much (knock on wood). My friend Larry Clemson died of AIDS, I often write about him, and my friend David Pond also died of AIDS — I don’t write as much about him, but both were in other cities, and there was just a final phone call. My friend Ken McDougall died — but we were not really friends anymore. I was supposed to be in a film with him, filmed at Casey House, while he was dying. I couldn’t do it, which has to do with what a coward I am — but also I knew Daniel MacIvor would take my place, and that’s who Ken was actually in love with— not me, and it only seemed right for Daniel to be there at the end. I’m not able to watch it (it’s called The Last Supper) which probably speaks to my own lack of a certain kind of what — character? And then there is my mother’s death, which I was present for, but she was unconscious, and at that point she had left my life long ago. And — oh yes. I was not there when my father died, but two weeks before, he collapsed on the floor and couldn’t get up, and I did help him up. I remember how bewildered he looked. I wish I had seen some of that bewilderment in this film. There is a confidence about The Seventh Seal which pretty much amounts to arrogance; and I know I sound very arrogant in these blogs, but there’s really nothing else you can do in an essay like this. I feel as if the reader wishes me to be certain of what I am saying, or else why listen? Of course sometimes I feel dreadfully uncertain, and am quite honest about it. And that’s okay too, I feel, as long as you are one way or the other. I’m on the train to Montreal and I yelled at one of the conductors, or attendants, or what are they? You know one of those people who order you around, and there are so many of those everywhere these days. I suppose it’s a good thing, in a way, because people need jobs, and there are lots of jobs now for cleaners, security guards, and people who like to order you around. Well, anyway, it’s all very odd here no on VIA because up until now we could choose our seats and were spaced out, and didn’t have to wear masks. Suddenly we do have to wear masks and the trains are packed, but oddly, we still get to choose our seats. So it’s kind of chaos. But we don’t really get to choose our seats, because sometimes we sit in the ‘wrong’ places. So here we were my (partner/friend/lover/significant other/or some other completely inadequate term) sitting, of course, beside each other and a woman comes up wearing one of those orange outfits with a big yellow cross on it, which used to indicate school crossing guard, I think now it just means ‘COVID-19-beware!’ She told us we couldn’t sit together, and we were confused, then she said you have to move, sit someone else, in a four seat area. This confused us as there were couples sitting together everywhere, and I had not heard a rule that couples could not sit together, and then it suddenly occurred to me that this women did not actually consider us a couple, and I got more and more agitated by her telling us we couldn’t sit together —shouldn’t that have initiated a lightbulb? Anyway I went a bit off my noodle (I think it’s because I’m smoking less) and said ‘why are you being prejudiced against us!' —which I know is over the top. But she triggered me -- it seemed like homophobia — maybe it wasn't, but what else could it be? Well maybe it was just ignorance, but aren’t ignorance and homophobia the same thing? Anyway, it’s over now, though the person I am traveling with (I won’t attempt to describe our relationship) was not very pleased with my outburst and I had to sit penitent, for awhile. He said we could have been kicked off the train, which is the kind of thing you have to think about nowadays, or worse yet, becoming a headline on everybody’s iPhone that says “Strange large Effeminate Man with too many Tattoos let Loose with Incoherent Tirade on VIA’. But to get back to The Seventh Seal, it seems arrogant to me, because it’s just brimful of philosophizing, it’s a film about death where people talk about death all the time, like: “Fate is a villain crawling with worms!” or " You — bloated with complacency — don’t you see this could be your final hour” Or probably my least favourite moment -- when someone who is going on about the plague -- (oh yes, did I tell you, this movie takes place in the ‘time of plague’) says to a pregnant lady: “You woman filled with the lust of life. Will you wither and fade before dawn?” That sort of thing. As far as I can see this movie is just a big Party for Protestants, and protestants don’t really party, they get together just to feel guilty about everything and think about how death is such a punishment — which is really what’s going on in The Seventh Seal. I‘m really not fond of Nordic melancholy, or any melancholy, though I do get that way, but certainly not all the time, and I don’t think there’s anything necessarily profound about it. The latest COVID-19 news — speaking of plagues — is that the ‘inflammation’ that they found in children turns out (they’ve done tests) not to be related to COVID-19 at all, but (surprise!) doctors are still convinced it is. You know there is something I love about how convinced all these doctors are about things that are not true, it reassures me once again that we haven’t abandoned art, or artists — as scientist are artists, and Fauci is more a poet than a doctor. And like Bergman, he is painting an unconvincing and somewhat unbalanced picture of our devastating lives, but if it makes him feel better (as I say, for Bergman, it apparently did the trick) then more power to him. But we’re such a long time dead anyways; it just makes little sense to me to contemplate that hole in the ground, even if we are digging our own graves.
