Word: seale
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Seventh Seal. Bergman's medieval allegory of life and death. Stars Max von Sydow...
Most appeared to be happy, though, as they walked out with assorted souvenir'., including stacks of plastic cups embossed--with the Inaugural seal...
...difficult passages from Bergman's past films. With Steene, Bergman's reaction to such topics was "Birgittal" but with Simon it is, "I will try to be honest." He does think about the past films, had seen Winter Light a few weeks before and was "very satisfied." The Seventh Seal is sometimes successful, sometimes not. Bergman even discards a major myth he had created. Concerning the endlessly quoted parable he wrote for Cahiers du Cinema (July, 1956), in which he compared himself to an anonymous artisan working on the cathedral at Chartres, he now tells Simon: "Very romantic, Forget...
JUST AS MANY PEOPLE think of John Simon only as a malicious theater critic, so for many the quintessence of Bergmanism remains, unfortunately, The Seventh Seal. Simon mentions the film only a few times, and in passing; his omission is one of his best critical judgments. In 1956, the film made Bergman intellectual chic. In later years, its fame, coupled with its lack of substance, led many to a premature disenchantment not only with Bergman but with foreign films as a group. The labored allegory's saintly sheen cannot disguise its sanctimony; stark and serious do not by themselves make...
Viewed in perspective--as a compelling project Bergman had to get off his chest--The Seventh Seal can be recognized as an impressive failure. Its ostentatious images, with a couple of exceptions (the witch-burning, the flagellants), make better stills than film. But the concerns of the film find more coherent treatment elsewhere. The spiritual plagues are more carefully distilled in Winter Light; the worldly ones are more powerful in The Clown's Evening...