This film had a few interesting points but it seemed to squander what little bit of mystique that I thought it may have had. At the risk of sounding abrasive...... this film was very boring and dry.
shareI have to agree with OP.... PAINFULLY boring. Only the death scenes caught my attention.
BTW was I the only one not OK with the fact that the Jof couldn't juggle those balls if his life depended on it even though he was SUPPOSED to! WTF
The problem is the Seventh Seal is too famous. People who are new to foreign or classic films usually start with the Seventh Seal, Seven Samurai, Breathless, 8 1/2 and the 400 Blows. You don't see people on more obscure classic foreign film boards saying the movie is boring, because only people who are really into film will watch those. But everyone with even a mild interest in film will watch this one. So you're more likely to have a wider range of reactions, since juvenile and unsophisticated people will watch this movie.
Also, "boring" is never an accurate adjective. You can be bored, perhaps because you don't understand, or have a short attention span or very particular interests...but a film, or anything else, is not in itself "boring." Use more precise words please.
When I first saw this movie, I thought it was good but definitely not one of Bergman's best. But seeing it a 2nd time (three weeks later), I liked it a lot more. I think CrimeAndPunishment is on the money when he/she said that this movie is too famous. People expect a lot from it and high expectations only bring low results. This movie isn't an epic but a very cerebral comic-drama. Some its images are so iconic (the personification of death as hooded figure for example) that they have been parodied (Family Guy comes to mind) and now they have sadly lost some of their power.
It is an amazing film nonetheless. And I admit I'm a little irritated by people who say "I expected a lot from it but it didn't impress me" because it's hardly the movie/Bergman's fault. Films like The 7th Seal should be watched with an open mind, as if you are seeing them opening day.
"It's hard for me to watch American Idol because I have perfect pitch."
-Jenna, 30 Rock
You can be bored, perhaps because you don't understand, or have a short attention span or very particular interests...but a film, or anything else, is not in itself "boring.
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The word "boring" is hereby retired from IMDB. If you can offer well-articulated criticism of this film (or any other) without using the word "boring", and a compelling argument for dismissing it, I will award you the house cup.
For me, "boring" is never a valid complaint. Whether it's a film, a novel, a picture, or a song, if you find it "boring", that is indicative of your own inability to intellectually or emotionally connect with the material, not of any artistic flaws on behalf of the material.
Is the Seventh Seal a "slow-moving" film? Perhaps by the contemporary standards of mainstream American cinema, this could be considered slow. It offers very little action and is not simple. By Bergman's standards, or 1950s/1960s international arthouse standards, it is hardly slow. Clever, complex and even funny, for myself, and countless others, The Seventh Seal is the pinnacle of Bergman's career and one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences of all time.
If you did not find the performances, the cinematography or the writing rewarding or engaging, it would baffle me, and I would ask you to explain yourself. "Boring" just means you didn't understand it.
I'm really not trying to be condescending, but I'm truly tired of seeing "boring" everywhere. Offer valid criticism or none at all, that's my motto.
The Black Death began almost 100 years before the last crusade. There are many other similar stupidities in the movie. By contemporary standards this movie has little to say. I gave it only 5.
share"The Black Death began almost 100 years before the last crusade. There are many other similar stupidities in the movie."
This is a fictional movie, which means it is not bound to any standard of historical accuracy whatsoever.
"By contemporary standards this movie has little to say. I gave it only 5."
Why are you framing it in contemporary standards? Is it a contemporary film?
The standards of cinema are constantly changing. We should dismiss decades of cinema, silent films for example, because they don't conform to modern standards of audible dialogue, rapid-fire pacing and special effects? The themes in this film are about faith, life and death. Arguably the most universal themes that can be explored in a film. There is a reason why, 55+ years after it's release, people continue to revisit and study it. Try looking at it from the perspective of Bergman in 1957.
This is like dismissing music from early decades for not conforming to modern standards of studio mixing and recording. There are countless different styles and standards of filmmaking throughout the past 100+ years. The same goes for literature, art, etc. Would you review a Jackson Pollock based on the standards of 1400's Italian Renaissance art?
The reason I found the movie boring is not solely because of the slow-pace and black/white colors, but the remaining part (the dialogue and cinematography) doesn't inspire anything in me as a lifelong sceptic and atheist. The dialogue poses questions and wants you to think about what life is, but it feels more like an introduction to a debate than a statement and thus I'm left with the feeling that while the movie tackles important human issues it seems not to go anywhere with it uniquely on its own part. This (and this is just an assumption) might be because the need to question these things and set up a philosophical thought to the wider population was much bigger back then when Europe was only slightly moving out from the Industrial society to the Information-based one.
Certainly people wouldn't see anything new or refreshing in the way these topics are brought up today - merely either agree with it entirely or not having found anything more than the doubt they already had. Even if we talk books, this would not make for a good one if the author-audience setup is like this (according to me, as an affect of changing times).
And the cinematography is of course self-explanatory - Some of it feels (from a contemporary point of view) like cheap magic tricks and the immersion is half-broken at times.
And finally, as has been said before: If you are so ambitious that you want to tackle subjects that almost everyone has already made up considered opinions about beforehand, you better have one hell of a good and revolutionary case which is also interesting to watch. Faith, life and death is just not unexplored territory for most people and it could be argued that this doesn't add any new definitive layers to the subject.
Geez, what a long thread with so little to show for itself...
"The Seventh Seal" is one of the greatest films of all time.
'Cause I said so, that's why.
But seriously...
One of the more interesting paragraphs from the above posts was this one:
"I suppose "The 7th Seal" may not seem as spiritualy challenging to our modern senses because it suggests that the Christian God or no gods are our only two alternatives. All in all I am not one who believes that the spiritually heavy themes in "The 7th Seal" are what make it a great movie. It's Bergman's writing and directing, Fischer's camera, the the great ensemble cast which makes every scene a gem."
Can't agree with the first sentence. Only two alternatives? To me, TSS suggests there are more alternatives than we can even begin to imagine.
It's not just the incomprehensibility of death itself, or of one's own death, that is at stake here. It's: The. Black. Plague. Those crazy-ass monks whipping themselves in the streets are just one symptom of the subject that's on everybody's minds: Is this the end of the world? That's exactly what a lot of people in the mid-fourteenth century thought might be happening. It's no coincidence that the film's title comes from the Book of Revelation.
Faced with that incomprehensibility, the only proper artistic response for a filmmaker is one that might indeed seem "boring" to people who think the artists' motivation was to make a film that people can understand. The previous comments about love being the only thing that makes life worthwhile are about as close as anybody on IMDb has come to articulating an "understanding" of TSS. But I wouldn't go so far as to say I think the author of those comments actually understands TSS, as such. Quite simply, like so much else in life, it's not there to be "understood." This film displays the prime directive of Existentialist philosophy: the thing is what it is, regardless of what you think it is. Death. Life. Love. The intricate dance of fear and desire. The film itself.
So with that in mind, the final two sentences of the quoted paragraph above are right on the mark: The greatness is not in the thematic material itself. It's in how it is handled. The acting, the script, the cinematography. Certain utterly sublime moments: The actor who has seen Death tries to run away and hide in a tree. Death chops down the tree. Death triumphs! ... But wait, does he? Almost immediately, a squirrel hops onto the stump of the felled tree. Life has triumphed! ... or has it? There's something almost alien and menacing about this squirrel, something that is neither human nor inhuman, just as Death is always, and just as Block seems to be becoming, more and more. As he nears his end, his outlook becomes more and more transcendent.
In that context, RhoDaZZ's comments seem both interesting and frustrating to me: "The dialogue poses questions and wants you to think about what life is, but it feels more like an introduction to a debate than a statement"
I'd call it more an introduction to a journey than to a debate. "Debate" implies the possibility of a conclusion, a solution. The only solution to the riddle of Death, is the one that we find by dying. But yes, the movie is not a statement. It was never intended to be.
Similarly, this from RhoDaZZ (who I'm not knocking, by the way, just seeing things from a very different point of view): "If you are so ambitious that you want to tackle subjects that almost everyone has already made up considered opinions about beforehand, you better have one hell of a good and revolutionary case which is also interesting to watch."
Again, 'DaZZ, it's not about opinions and making cases; it's not about the intellectual abstractions we may draw out of it, not at all. You're looking in the wrong place, if that's where you're looking to find meaning here. "The Seventh Seal" portrays in visually poetic terms the experience of confronting the death of oneself, and perhaps of the whole world. The look. The feel. That perhaps is why it doesn't necessarily look and feel like the same movie every time you watch it. The first time I saw TSS, I hardly even noticed that squirrel hopping onto the stump. The second time, it just about spooked me out of my chair. For me, this is one of those movies I keep going back to because I know I'll never fully understand it. Or even ever fully appreciate it, for that matter.
"I don't deduce, I observe."
Funny, thats how I felt about your worthless assessment of this important, ground breaking film.
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Fascinating critique.
I want to shake every limb in the Garden of Eden
and make every lover the love of my life
You can love this movie or you can hate it
sharethis movie is one of the greatest films.
i am 15 year old and i loved it as hell.
is boring for someone that his fav. movie is transformes
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"This one is extremely creaky and dated".
Hm, existentialism has finally become dated. Run its course. Now what will be?
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
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