The Seventh Seal : a question
Amitabh Agrawal
Has anyone seen "The Seventh Seal". Someone told me that this was the
movie which for the first time brought surreal imaging to Motion
Pictures. I would love to hear your opinions.
Amitabh Agrawal
PS: The movie is supposed to have a debate(argument) with Death or
something.
AA
Cinderella Man
From agr...@lipari.usc.edu (Amitabh Agrawal) come these immortal words:
>Has anyone seen "The Seventh Seal". Someone told me that this was the
>movie which for the first time brought surreal imaging to Motion
>Pictures. I would love to hear your opinions.
I won't pretend to understand all of the intricate details
Bergman wove into THE SEVENTH SEAL -- I've only seen it once, and I
plan to watch it again on Laserdisk RSN. But it was a great
experience and a beautiful film for heart and mind.
Only other Bergman film I've seen was WILD STRAWBERRIES, which
I loved as well.
Derek L.
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Michel Hafner
>
>Has anyone seen "The Seventh Seal". Someone told me that this was the
>movie which for the first time brought surreal imaging to Motion
>Pictures. I would love to hear your opinions.
I don't think so. Depends on what you mean with surreal imaging. There
is "Un chien andalou" by Bunuel, there is "Spellbound" by Hitchcock and
some others before "The seventh seal".
M.H.
David Lee
>movie which for the first time brought surreal imaging to Motion
>Pictures. I would love to hear your opinions.
>PS: The movie is supposed to have a debate(argument) with Death or
>something.
Back in college in my younger days, these movies were very much THE rage..
We would all sit around debate, discuss and argue about the REAL meaning of
every little movement and word from each actor/actress. I think the ONLY
one who knows is the director; and I believe even he didn't actually put
most of those secret meanings into his movie... If you enjoyed the movie and
it has some deeper meaning to you that makes sense, fine and dandy!! If not,
don't worry about it. Go see a "shoot him up" western next time....Remember,
it's supposed to be entertainment!!?? Am I in the minority here???
.
.
.
..
Peter Reiher
Here's a short description of "The Seventh Seal". It was directed by
Ingmar Berman, and stars Max Von Sydow, looking very young and very gaunt.
A knight returns to Sweden from the Crusades. The country is racked with
plague and religious fervor is high. The knight's experiences, however,
have made him somewhat cynical, and certainly unhappy. Early on, he runs
into Death personified. He challenges Death to a game of chess, with the
stakes as his life. Death comes and goes, collecting various people here
and there despite their attempts to avoid him. The knight travels on to his
castle, meeting various people along the way, notably a small troup of
travelling players. Eventually, the chess game winds down to its inevitable
end - you don't win games with Death. Or do you? The knight actually achieves
a small, temporary victory, of sorts. Death doesn't mind, since he always
comes out ahead, in the end.
I wouldn't call "The Seventh Seal" surreal. It is filled with fantasy
images, but they all have a very clear purpose, and are grounded in the
medieval view of the world. The story is reasonably straightforward, though
Bergman (as usual) doesn't use classical American film technique to tell it.
The film is full of incident, and even some humor, and has quite a number of
very striking images - especially the final scene. I'd recommend it unless
you have great dislike for subtitled films (I suppose it must have been dubbed
at some point), or for films that require a little extra attention and thought.
As foreign films with great critical reputations go, "The Seventh Seal" is
rather accessible. Bergman comes a lot denser and more difficult than this
film, in particular.
Peter Reiher
rei...@onyx.jpl.nasa.gov
. . . cit-vax!elroy!jato!jade!reiher
Shane Bouslough
Cut me some slack folks! How about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari done in
1919? Can't get much before that! Talk about surrealism, the sets were
fantastic!
BTW, my video version of this is pretty sad, lots of bad cuts where the
film broke, etc. I seem to remember a much higher quality copy when I
first saw it. Does anyone know if there are multiple versions of the film?
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Peter Reiher
>
>Better yet, try to see a short parody of THE SEVENTH SEAL called
>DA DUVA (The Dove) --
It's actually a more general parody of Bergman's films of the sixties. Lots
of stuff in it takes off directly on "Wild Strawberries", for instance.
It's much, much funnier if you've seen several Bergman films of this period,
but it's fairly funny even if you haven't. I've seen it as a filler on
cable TV movie stations several times.
Marc Rossner
> If you enjoyed the movie and
> it has some deeper meaning to you that makes sense, fine and dandy!! If not,
> don't worry about it. Go see a "shoot him up" western next time....Remember,
> it's supposed to be entertainment!!?? Am I in the minority here???
Better yet, try to see a short parody of THE SEVENTH SEAL called
DA DUVA (The Dove) -- it runs about 15 minutes and all the dialogue is
in this fake "Swedish-style" language with English subtitles. (I remember
specifically the word for "cigar" was "phallica-symboola" and "cow" was
"moomooska". Madeline Kahn is one of the performers, and the plot concerns
a guy who has a badminton game with Death (straight out of TSS, of course),
but in this one Death loses so he just goes away.
I know you film society types can rent this on 16mm but otherwise it's
probably hard to find.
Marc Rossner
jahangir!ma...@uunet.uu.net
Marc Leone
>Cut me some slack folks! How about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari done in
>1919? Can't get much before that! Talk about surrealism, the sets were
>fantastic!
I tried e-mail, but couldn't reach. Sorry, but no slack for you;
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is expressionistic. Surreal images are
'super-real', they are un-real things made to appear as if they are
real. You know, that famous melting clock painting(Dali wasn't it?),
and the guy who did those YES album covers has a lot of surreal works.
Expressionism is more bold, exaggerated, angular, warped and less real,
which is why it works so well in black and white, lots of contrast.
I could go with "The Seventh Seal" being a (mavbe even one of the
first) surreal movie because of the images involved, but then I'm
easy. Even without pigeon-holing it with a label like that, it is a
very well made film. If you want modern surreal, then check out a
Terry Gilliam film ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", "Brazil",
"Time Bandits", "Meaning of Life of Brian"...). Does "Siesta"
qualify (not as a Gilliam, but as surreal)?
Ciao
--
>< Marc Leone @ APT Technology Inc., San Jose, CA
>< le...@apt.bungi.com {apple,sun,pyramid}!daver!apt!leone
>< VOICE: 408 377 9950 FAX: 408 377 0374
Aviad Abiri
>"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is expressionistic. Surreal images are
>'super-real', they are un-real things made to appear as if they are
>real. You know, that famous melting clock painting(Dali wasn't it?),
>and the guy who did those YES album covers has a lot of surreal works.
>Expressionism is more bold, exaggerated, angular, warped and less real,
>which is why it works so well in black and white, lots of contrast.
Actually, you may be surprised to know (just as I was), that the first
film to be considered expressionistic, the German "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"
from the '20s, considered THE black & white film of all times, was actually doneIN COLOR!!!!!!!!!!
Yes!
Of course, in the era of the silent films, Technicolor was still not around,
but what they'd sometimes do was color the WHOLE film, using a different color
for each scene in a color that bears SOME significance to the scene. (i.e.
red for the love scenes, blue for night sequences, etc.) A forgotten UNCUT
print from 1920s of Dr. Caligari was recently found in Portugal. The head
of the German Institute of Film is touring around the world with this COLOR
UNCUT print of Dr. Caligari with a live pianist that wrote ORIGINAL MUSIC to
accompany the film. I saw it last month right here in the Tel Aviv Cinematheque
and it was quite an experience. I highly recommend watching this film to every
serious movie lover.
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Sean D. O'Neil
>>Cut me some slack folks! How about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari done in
>>1919? Can't get much before that! Talk about surrealism, the sets were
>>fantastic!
>
>I tried e-mail, but couldn't reach. Sorry, but no slack for you;
>"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is expressionistic. Surreal images are
>'super-real', they are un-real things made to appear as if they are
>real.
Why is it neccessary to define surreal so narrowly? Looking in
Webster's Third I find the definition of "surreal" as "having
the intense irrational reality of a dream," which seems to fit
the bill for THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI quite admirably, both
in a stylistic as well as a logical sense.
Sean
Jack Campin
> le...@apt.bungi.com (Marc Leone) writes:
>> "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is expressionistic. Surreal images are
>> 'super-real', they are un-real things made to appear as if they are real.
> Why is it neccessary to define surreal so narrowly? Looking in
> Webster's Third I find the definition of "surreal" as "having
> the intense irrational reality of a dream," which seems to fit
> the bill for THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI quite admirably, both
> in a stylistic as well as a logical sense.
You're both missing the point. Surrealism is not just a label for certain
kinds of visual imagery; it's a combined political ideology, way of life,
and literary/artistic programme with a specific historical origin. It is
only accurate to describe an action or art work as "surreal" if it has some
historical connection with this tradition. (See Nadeau's "The History of
Surrealism", or the writings of Franklin Rosemont, for the details). The
Surrealists themselves acknowledged certain antecedents, including Hegel
and de Sade in philosophy and Lautreamont in literature; I don't know if
"Caligari" was among them, but the Melies Brothers animated films - from
well before WW1 - were.
The Surrealists were the original channel-hoppers; they developed a way of
watching films that involved running from one cinema to another and seeing
only a few minutes of a movie at a time, to guarantee that you didn't get
caught up in conventional narrative thought.
One movie the Surrealists were wildly enthusiastic about was the original
silent version of "Fantomas"; has anyone reading this ever seen it?
Websters' definition is just more evidence for me that its compilers are a
gobble of clueless turkeys. How did this thing ever get taken seriously?
--
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