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131-556: The Seventh Seal ( Swedish : Det sjunde inseglet ) is a 1957 Swedish historical fantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman . Set in Sweden during the Black Death , it tells of the journey of a medieval knight ( Max von Sydow ) and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death ( Bengt Ekerot ), who has come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play Wood Painting . The title refers to
262-445: A common gender with the definite suffix -en and the definite article den , in contrast with the neuter gender equivalents -et and det . The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number . By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to
393-477: A guttural or "French R" pronunciation in the South Swedish dialects ; consequently, these dialects lack retroflex consonants . Swedish is a stress-timed language, where the time intervals between stressed syllables are equal. However, when casually spoken, it tends to be syllable-timed . Any stressed syllable carries one of two tones , which gives Swedish much of its characteristic sound. Prosody
524-605: A Summer Night . Bergman rewrote the script five times and was given a schedule of only thirty-five days and a budget of $ 150,000. It was to be the seventeenth film he had directed. All scenes except two were shot in or around the Filmstaden studios in Solna. The exceptions were the famous opening scene with Death and the Knight playing chess by the sea, and the ending with the dance of death , which were both shot at Hovs Hallar ,
655-537: A change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long, close ø , as in the Old Norse word for "island". By the end of the period, these innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish-speaking area as well, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas. Old Swedish (Swedish: fornsvenska )
786-528: A conversation. Due to the close relation between the Scandinavian languages, a considerable proportion of speakers of Danish and especially Norwegian are able to understand Swedish. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries , but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish ), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as
917-493: A direct voyage to Heaven and has no implications of purgatory . On the other hand, some Protestants who believe in soul sleep have used a reading which emphasizes "I say to you today", leaving open the possibility that the statement was made today, but arrival in Heaven may be later. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to
1048-710: A feeling of pessimism, an increase in a penitential style of piety that was slightly masochistic, all aggravated by various disasters such as the Black Death, famine, the Hundred Years' War between France and England, and the Papal schism . This is sometimes called the crisis of the Late Middle Ages , and Tuchman regards the 14th century as " a distant mirror " of the 20th century in a way that echoes Bergman's sensibilities. Ingmar Bergman originally wrote
1179-747: A group. According to the 2000 United States Census , some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on the degree of language proficiency. Similarly, there were 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Although there are no certain numbers, some 40,000 Swedes are estimated to live in the London area in the United Kingdom. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. In
1310-629: A large proportion of the remaining 100,000 in the Scandinavian countries, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia. Over three million people speak Swedish as a second language, with about 2,410,000 of those in Finland. According to a survey by the European Commission , 44% of respondents from Finland who did not have Swedish as a native language considered themselves to be proficient enough in Swedish to hold
1441-486: A loud voice, and gave up the ghost"). And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. From Psalm 31 :5, this saying, which is an announcement and not a request, is traditionally called "The Word of Reunion" and is theologically interpreted as the proclamation of Jesus joining God the Father in Heaven. The words of Luke 23:46, or
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#17327733239071572-425: A more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e. g., jag måste tvätta hår et ("I must wash my hair"). Adjectives are inflected in two declensions – indefinite and definite – and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are usually created by adding
1703-435: A noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in
1834-474: A painting by Albertus Pictor in Täby church. Just prior to shooting, Bergman directed for radio the play Everyman by Hugo von Hofmannsthal . By this time he had also directed plays by Shakespeare , Strindberg , Camus , Chesterton , Anouilh , Tennessee Williams , Pirandello , Lehár , Molière and Ostrovsky . The actors Bibi Andersson (with whom Bergman was in a relationship from 1955 to 1959) who played
1965-517: A part of the elaborations in the diverse retellings of Jesus' final hours. He does, however, argue in favour of the authenticity of the Mark/Matthew saying, in which Jesus seems to describe himself as forsaken by God. This would have been an embarrassment to the early Church , and hence would likely not have been invented. Leslie Houlden suggests that Luke may have deliberately excluded this saying from his gospel because it did not fit in with
2096-533: A passage from the Book of Revelation , used both at the very start of the film and again towards the end, beginning with the words "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal , there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour." Here, the motif of silence refers to the "silence of God," which is a major theme of the film. The Seventh Seal is considered a classic in the history of cinema , as well as one of
2227-446: A repentant Plog. Block enjoys a picnic of milk and wild strawberries that Mia has gathered and promises to remember that evening for the rest of his life. He then invites Plog and the actors to shelter from the plague in his castle. When they encounter Skat and Lisa in the forest, she returns to Plog, while Skat fakes a remorseful suicide. As the group moves on, Skat climbs a tree to spend the night, but Death appears beneath and cuts down
2358-533: A rocky, precipitous beach area in north-western Scania. In the Magic Lantern autobiography Bergman writes of the film's iconic penultimate shot: "The image of the Dance of Death beneath the dark cloud was achieved at hectic speed because most of the actors had finished for the day. Assistants, electricians, and a make-up man and about two summer visitors, who never knew what it was all about, had to dress up in
2489-411: A series of pictures which carry that swell of contributions and contradictions so effortlessly that you could tell the story to a child, publish it as a storybook of photographs and yet know that the deepest questions of religion and the most mysterious revelation of simply being alive are both addressed." The Jesuit publication America identifies it as having begun "a series of seven films that explored
2620-492: A six-year-old child, Bergman used to help the gardener carry corpses from the Royal Hospital Sophiahemmet (where his father was chaplain) to the mortuary. When as a boy he saw the film Black Beauty , the fire scene excited him so much he stayed in bed for three days with a temperature. Despite living a Bohemian lifestyle in partial rebellion against his upbringing, Bergman often signed his scripts with
2751-636: A special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok , a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and Sweden. From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia , particularly on
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#17327733239072882-442: A suffix ( -t or -a ) to the common form of the adjective, e. g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs"). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e. g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). Swedish pronouns are similar to those of English. Besides
3013-413: A village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak a Swedish dialect and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although their dialect is most likely facing extinction. From 1918 to 1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as
3144-676: Is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family , spoken predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland . It has at least 10 million native speakers, making it the fourth most spoken Germanic language , and the first among its type in the Nordic countries overall. Swedish, like the other Nordic languages , is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during
3275-588: Is also parodied in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991), with the titular characters meeting Death and challenging him to several contemporary games. The film is referred to in several songs. The plot is recapitulated in Scott Walker 's "The Seventh Seal" from his album Scott 4 . There is a passing reference in Bruce Cockburn 's song "How I Spent My Fall Vacation", from his album Humans , in which
3406-892: Is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages . In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages , together with Danish , separating it from the West Scandinavian languages , consisting of Faroese , Icelandic , and Norwegian . However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian (Faroese and Icelandic), and Continental Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish), based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particularly Danish) on Norwegian during
3537-529: Is based on the verb šǝḇaq / šāḇaq , 'to allow, to permit, to forgive, and to forsake', with the perfect tense ending -t (2nd person singular: 'you'), and the object suffix -anī (1st person singular: 'me'). In Hebrew, the saying would be " אֵלִי אֵלִי, לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי " ( ēlī ēlī, lāmā 'azabtānī in Biblical Hebrew , eli eli lama azavtani in Modern Hebrew pronunciation), while
3668-481: Is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible. Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. Capitalization during this time
3799-538: Is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles . The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative , a highly variable consonant phoneme . Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number . Nouns are of common gender ( en form) or neuter gender ( ett form). The gender determines
3930-621: Is most appealing to the eye." In January 2002, the film was voted at No. 82 on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the National Society of Film Critics . In 2012, the film ranked 93rd on critic's poll and 75th on director's poll in Sight & Sound magazine's 100 greatest films of all time list. In the earlier 2002 version of the list the film ranked 35th in critic's poll and 31st in director's poll. In 2022 edition of Sight & Sound's Greatest films of all time list
4061-637: Is not quoting the canonical Hebrew version ( ēlī ēlī lāmā 'azabtānī ), attributed in some Jewish interpretations to King David himself, but rather the version in an Aramaic Targum (translation of the Bible). Surviving Aramaic Targums do use the verb šbq in their translations of the Psalm 22. In the next verse, in both accounts, some who hear Jesus' cry imagine that he is calling for help from Elijah ( Ēlīyā in Aramaic). The Aramaic word form שבקתני šəḇaqtanī
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4192-568: Is often one of the most noticeable differences between dialects. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages , V2 , which means that the finite verb (V) appears in the second position (2) of a declarative main clause . Swedish morphology is similar to English; that is, words have comparatively few inflections . Swedish has two genders and is generally seen to have two grammatical cases – nominative and genitive (except for pronouns that, as in English, also are inflected in
4323-638: Is one of the official languages of the European Union , and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for interpretation or translation costs. The Swedish Language Council ( Språkrådet )
4454-485: Is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call." Melvyn Bragg notes that the concept of the "Silence of God" in the face of evil, or the pleas of believers or would-be-believers, may be influenced by the punishments of silence meted out by Bergman's father, a chaplain in the State Lutheran Church. In Bergman's original radio play sometimes translated as A Painting on Wood ,
4585-476: Is reunited with his wife and the party shares a final supper, interrupted by Death's arrival. The other members of the party then introduce themselves, and the mute servant girl greets him with " It is finished. " Jof and his family have sheltered in their caravan from a storm, which he interprets as the Angel of Death passing by. In the morning, Jof sees a vision of the knight and his companions being led away over
4716-475: Is termed nusvenska (lit., "Now-Swedish") in linguistics, and started in the last decades of the 19th century. It saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written form that approached the spoken one. The growth of a public school system also led to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally, "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With
4847-527: Is the predominant language; in 19 municipalities , 16 of which are located in Åland , Swedish is the sole official language. Åland county is an autonomous region of Finland. According to a rough estimation, as of 2010 there were up to 300,000 Swedish-speakers living outside Sweden and Finland. The largest populations were in the United States (up to 100,000), the UK, Spain and Germany (c. 30,000 each) and
4978-455: Is the regulator of Swedish in Sweden but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French . However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up
5109-407: Is the sole official language of Åland (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland), where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland as a whole, Swedish is one of the two "national" languages, with the same official status as Finnish (spoken by the majority) at the state level and an official language in some municipalities . Swedish
5240-631: Is the term used for the medieval Swedish language. The start date is usually set to 1225 since this is the year that Västgötalagen ("the Västgöta Law") is believed to have been compiled for the first time. It is among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script and the oldest Swedish law codes . Old Swedish is divided into äldre fornsvenska (1225–1375) and yngre fornsvenska (1375–1526), "older" and "younger" Old Swedish. Important outside influences during this time came with
5371-618: Is to love and not to hate the body and the mortal as the Church urges in Bergman's metaphor." Melvyn Bragg writes: "[I]t is constructed like an argument. It is a story told as a sermon might be delivered: an allegory...each scene is at once so simple and so charged and layered that it catches us again and again...Somehow all of Bergman's own past, that of his father, that of his reading and doing and seeing, that of his Swedish culture, of his political burning and religious melancholy, poured into
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5502-511: Is traditionally called "The Word of Distress" and is compared and contrasted with the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. Only John records this saying, but all four gospels relate that Jesus was offered a drink of sour wine (possibly posca ). In Mark and Matthew, a sponge was soaked in the wine and lifted up to Jesus on a reed; John says the same, but states that
5633-465: The Gustav Vasa Bible , a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri . The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to
5764-467: The French vous (see T-V distinction ). Ni wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du , the singular second person pronoun, used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these class distinctions became less important, and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though
5895-554: The Stations of the Cross , a Christian meditation that is often used during Lent , Holy Week and Good Friday . The Dominican author Timothy Radcliffe sees the number seven as significant, as the number of perfection in the Bible. He writes that as God created the world in seven days, "these seven words belong to God's completion of that creation". James Dunn considers the seven sayings weakly rooted in tradition and sees them as
6026-589: The Syriac-Aramaic phrase according to the Peshitta would be Syriac : ܐܝܠܝ ܐܝܠܝ ܠܡܐ ܫܒܩܬܢܝ , romanized : ʔēl ʔēl lǝmā šǝḇaqtān (Matthew 27:46) or Syriac : ܐܠܗܝ ܐܠܗܝ ܠܡܢܐ ܫܒܩܬܢܝ , romanized : ʾalāh ʾalāh lǝmānā šǝḇaqtān (Mark 15:34). This saying is taken by some as an abandonment of the Son by the Father. Another interpretation holds that at the moment when Jesus took upon himself
6157-518: The United States , particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a significant Swedish-speaking immigrant population. This was notably true in states like Minnesota , where many Swedish immigrants settled. By 1940, approximately 6% of Minnesota's population spoke Swedish. Although the use of Swedish has significantly declined, it is not uncommon to find older generations and communities that still retain some use and knowledge of
6288-585: The Viking Age . It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish , although the degree of mutual intelligibility is dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker. Standard Swedish , spoken by most Swedes , is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century, and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties and rural dialects still exist,
6419-463: The greatest films of all time . It established Bergman as a director, containing scenes which have become iconic through homages, critical analysis, and parodies. Disillusioned knight Antonius Block and his cynical squire Jöns return from the Crusades to find the country ravaged by the plague . The knight encounters Death, whom he challenges to a chess match, believing he can survive as long as
6550-581: The nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies , dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän , Dalsland , western Värmland , western Dalarna , Härjedalen , Jämtland , and Scania , could be described as intermediate dialects of
6681-410: The object form) – although it is debated if the genitive in Swedish should be seen as a genitive case or just the nominative plus the so-called genitive s , then seen as a clitic . Swedish has two grammatical numbers – plural and singular . Adjectives have discrete comparative and superlative forms and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness . The definiteness of nouns
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#17327733239076812-595: The penitent thief , and commends his spirit to the Father. In John , he speaks to his mother, says he thirsts, and declares the end of his earthly life. This is an example of the Christian approach to the construction of a gospel harmony , in which material from different gospels is combined, producing an account that goes beyond each gospel. Since the 16th century, these sayings have been widely used in sermons on Good Friday , and entire books have been written on theological analysis of them. The Seven Last Words from
6943-524: The 'art' of film, and it quickly became a staple of high school and college literature courses... Unlike Hollywood 'movies,' The Seventh Seal clearly was aware of elite artistic culture and thus was readily appreciated by intellectual audiences." The representation of Death as a white-faced man who wears a dark cape and plays chess with mortals has been a popular object of parody in other films and television. Several films and comedy sketches portray Death as playing games other than or in addition to chess. In
7074-507: The 15th century. In addition, the main period of the Crusades is well before this era; they took place in a more optimistic period. With regard to the relevancy of historical accuracy to a film that is heavily metaphorical and allegorical, John Aberth, writing in A Knight at the Movies , holds the film only partially succeeds in conveying the period atmosphere and thought world of the fourteenth century. Bergman would probably counter that it
7205-399: The 1950s, when their use was removed from all official recommendations. A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen . Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr." or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs." or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was considered
7336-485: The 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , evolved into Old Norse. This language underwent more changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects: Old West Norse (Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). The dialects of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish , while
7467-668: The Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. The film was included in " The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" in 2002. Empire magazine, in 2010, ranked it the eighth-greatest film of world cinema. In a poll held by the same magazine, it was voted 335th 'Greatest Movie of All Time' from a list of 500. In addition, on the 100th anniversary of cinema in 1995, the Vatican included The Seventh Seal in its list of its 45 "great films" for its thematic values. The film
7598-461: The Cross are an integral part of the liturgy in the Catholic , Protestant , and other Christian traditions. Several composers have set the sayings to music . In the following table, the seven sayings are arranged according to their traditional order. However, all seven sayings cannot be found in any one account of Jesus' crucifixion. The ordering is a harmonisation of the texts from each of
7729-498: The European film community, and the critics and readers of Cahiers du Cinéma , among others, discovered him with this movie. Within five years of this, he had established himself as the first real auteur of Swedish cinema. With its images and reflections upon death and the meaning of life, The Seventh Seal had a symbolism that was "immediately apprehensible to people trained in literary culture who were just beginning to discover
7860-646: The Greek transliteration of Aramaic שבקתני šəḇaqtanī, meaning "forsaken me". Both versions can be said to be in Aramaic rather than in closely related Hebrew because of the verb שבק ( šbq ) "abandon", which exists only in Aramaic. The Hebrew counterpart to this word, עזב ( zb ), is seen in the second line of the Old Testament 's Psalm 22 , which the saying appears to quote. Thus, Jesus
7991-471: The Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative [ʃ] and later into [ɧ] . There was also the gradual softening of [ɡ] and [k] into [j] and the fricative [ɕ] before front vowels . The velar fricative [ɣ] was also transformed into the corresponding plosive [ɡ] . The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today
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#17327733239078122-601: The Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the spelling dictionary Svenska Akademiens ordlista ( SAOL , currently in its 14th edition) and the dictionary Svenska Akademiens Ordbok , in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Although the dictionaries have a prescriptive element, they mainly describe current usage. In Finland,
8253-513: The Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 30th Academy Awards , but was not nominated. On Rotten Tomatoes , the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 9.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Narratively bold and visually striking, The Seventh Seal brought Ingmar Bergman to the world stage – and remains every bit as compelling today". On Metacritic ,
8384-417: The actors are performing. There, Skat is enticed away for a tryst by Lisa, wife of the blacksmith Plog. The stage show is interrupted by a procession of flagellants led by a preacher who harangues the townspeople. At the town's inn, Raval manipulates Plog and other customers into intimidating Jof. The bullying is broken up by Jöns, who slashes Raval's face. The knight and squire are joined by Jof's family and
8515-502: The administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of speakers remain. Swedish dialects have either 17 or 18 vowel phonemes , 9 long and 9 short. As in the other Germanic languages, including English, most long vowels are phonetically paired with one of
8646-482: The basis of these two passages, often connect Mary with the "woman" of Genesis 3:15 , and the " woman clothed with the sun " in Revelation 12 , and therefore see this title of "woman" as a justification for the veneration of Mary as a second Eve . And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And
8777-441: The book Swedish Film Classics , writes The international response to the film which among other awards won the jury's special prize at Cannes in 1957 reconfirmed the author's high rank and proved that The Seventh Seal regardless of its degree of accuracy in reproducing medieval scenery may be considered as a universal, timeless allegory. Much of the film's imagery is derived from medieval art. For example, Bergman has stated that
8908-553: The cinematography, but soon went on to describe the film as "a horror film for children" and said that beyond the superficial, it is mostly reminiscent of Bergman's "sophomoric films from the 40s." Bergman's international reputation, on the other hand, was largely cemented by The Seventh Seal . The film ranked 2nd on Cahiers du Cinéma 's Top 10 Films of the Year List in 1958. Bosley Crowther had only positive things to say in his 1958 review for The New York Times , and praised how
9039-504: The colloquial spoken language of its day, it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography . It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden, which
9170-415: The comment "that the scripture might be fulfilled". The Jerusalem Bible cross-references Psalm 22:15: "my palate is drier than a potsherd, and my tongue is stuck to my jaw". When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. This statement is traditionally called "The Word of Triumph" and is theologically interpreted as the announcement of
9301-737: The costumes of those condemned to death. A camera with no sound was set up and the picture shot before the cloud dissolved." Upon its original Swedish release, The Seventh Seal was met with a somewhat divided critical response; its cinematography was widely praised, while "Bergman the scriptwriter [was] lambasted." The film won the Nastro d'Argento for Best Non-Italian Film in 1961. Swedish journalist and critic Nils Beyer, writing for Morgon-tidningen , compared it to Carl Theodor Dreyer 's The Passion of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath . While finding Dreyer's films to be superior, he still noted that "it isn't just any director that you feel like comparing to
9432-531: The cross is traditionally called "The Word of Forgiveness". It is theologically interpreted as Jesus' prayer for forgiveness for the Roman soldiers who were crucifying him and all others who were involved in his crucifixion. Some early manuscripts do not include this sentence in Luke 23:34. Biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman have argued that it was omitted by some scribes because of anti-Judaic sentiment around
9563-403: The declension of the adjectives . For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a noun of common gender ( en fisk ) and can have the following forms: The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix ( -en , -n , -et or -t ), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den , det , and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of
9694-541: The dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish . The dialects are described as "runic" because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet . Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which had only 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes , such as
9825-440: The disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. This statement is traditionally called "The Word of Relationship" and in it Jesus entrusts Mary , his mother, into the care of " the disciple whom Jesus loved ". Jesus also addresses his mother as "woman" in John 2:4. Although this sounds dismissive in English, the Greek word is a term of respect or tenderness. Catholic commentators, on
9956-522: The end of the earthly life of Jesus, in anticipation for the Resurrection. The Greek word translated "It is finished" is tetelestai ( τετέλεσται ). The verse has also been translated as "It is consummated." The utterance after consuming the beverage and immediately before death is mentioned, but not explicitly quoted, in Mark 15:37 and Matthew 27:50 (both of which state that Jesus "cried with
10087-479: The figure of Death in a Dance of Death is represented not by an actor, but by silence , "mere nothingness, mere absence...terrifying...the void." Some of the powerful influences on the film were Picasso 's picture of the two acrobats, Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana , Strindberg 's dramas Folkungasagan ("The Saga of the Folkung Kings") and The Road to Damascus , the frescoes at Härkeberga church, and
10218-498: The film has a rating of 88/100 based on 15 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The Seventh Seal significantly helped Bergman in gaining his position as a world-class director. When the film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival , the attention generated by it (along with the previous year's Smiles of a Summer Night ) made Bergman and his stars Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson well known to
10349-463: The film ranked 72nd in the director's poll. In 2012 it was voted one of the 25 best Swedish films of all time by a poll of 50 film critics and academics conducted by film magazine FLM. In 2018 the film was ranked 30th in BBC's list of The 100 greatest foreign language films. In 2021 the film was ranked at No. 43 on Time Out magazine's list of The 100 best movies of all time . The film was selected as
10480-411: The final scene of the 1968 film De Düva (mock Swedish for "The Dove"), a 15-minute pastiche of Bergman's work generally and his Wild Strawberries in particular, the protagonist plays badminton against Death, and wins when the droppings of a passing dove strike Death in the eye. The photography imitates throughout the style of Bergman's cinematographers Sven Nykvist and Gunnar Fischer . The film
10611-545: The firm establishment of the Christian church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, Middle Low German became very influential. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of Low German -speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their native languages into
10742-724: The four canonical gospels. Three of the sayings appear only in Luke and three only in John . One other saying appears both in Matthew and Mark , and another ("It is finished") is only directly quoted in John but alluded to in Matthew and Mark. Quotations here and throughout this article are taken from the King James translation , except where otherwise noted. Traditionally, these seven sayings are called words of: The sayings form part of
10873-468: The game continues. The knight and his squire pass a caravan of actors: Jof and his wife Mia, with their infant son Mikael and actor-manager Jonas Skat. Waking early, Jof has a vision of Mary leading the infant Jesus , which he relates to a smilingly disbelieving Mia. Block and Jöns visit a church where a fresco of the Danse Macabre is being painted. The squire chides the artist for colluding in
11004-448: The hillside in a Dance of Death. The title refers to a passage about the end of the world from the Book of Revelation , used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal , there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" ( Revelation 8:1). Thus, in the confessional scene the knight states: "Is it so cruelly inconceivable to grasp God with
11135-401: The ideological fervor that led to the crusade. In the confessional , Block tells the priest he wants to perform "one meaningful deed" after what he now sees as a pointless life. Upon revealing to him the chess tactic that will save his life, the knight discovers that it is actually Death with whom he has been speaking. Leaving the church, Block speaks to a young woman condemned to be burned at
11266-552: The image of a man playing chess with a skeletal Death was inspired by a medieval church painting from the 1480s in Täby kyrka , Täby , north of Stockholm , painted by Albertus Pictor . Generally speaking, historians Johan Huizinga , Friedrich Heer and Barbara Tuchman have all argued that the Late Middle Ages of the 14th century was a period of "doom and gloom" similar to what is reflected in this film, characterized by
11397-430: The industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature . Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the emerging national language, among them prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding , Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg . It
11528-634: The initials "S.D.G" ( Soli Deo Gloria ) — "To God Alone the Glory" — just as J. S. Bach did at the end of every musical composition. Gerald Mast writes: "Like the gravedigger in Hamlet , the Squire [...] treats death as a bitter and hopeless joke. Since we all play chess with death, and since we all must suffer through that hopeless joke, the only question about the game is how long it will last and how well we will play it. To play it well, to live,
11659-614: The islands (e. g., Hiiumaa , Vormsi , Ruhnu ; in Swedish, known as Dagö , Ormsö , Runö , respectively) along the coast of the Baltic , communities that today have all disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament , and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine , where they founded
11790-511: The juggler's wife Mia, and Max von Sydow , whose role as the knight was the first of many star parts he would bring to Bergman's films and whose rugged Nordic dignity became a vital resource within Bergman's "troupe" of key actors, both made a strong impact on the mood and style of the film. Bergman grew up in a home infused with an intense Christianity, his father being a charismatic rector (this may have explained Bergman's adolescent infatuation with Hitler , which later deeply tormented him). As
11921-467: The knight playing chess with Death and decides to flee with his family, while Block knowingly keeps Death occupied. As Death states "No one escapes me", Block knocks the chess pieces over but Death restores them to their place. On the next move, Death wins the game and announces that when they meet again, it will be the last time for all. Death then asks Block if he achieved the "meaningful deed" he wished to accomplish. The knight replies that he has. Block
12052-484: The language, particularly in rural communities like Lindström and Scandia . Swedish is the official main language of Sweden. Swedish is also one of two official languages of Finland. In Sweden, it has long been used in local and state government, and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language with no official status in law until 2009. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by
12183-490: The last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars from the 16th to 18th centuries, and
12314-550: The model of Jesus he was presenting. Michael Licona suggests that John has redacted Jesus' authentic statements as recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Where Matthew and Mark have Jesus quote Psalm 22:1, John records that "in order that the Scripture may be fulfilled, Jesus said, 'I am thirsty'." Jesus' final words as recorded in Luke are simplified in John into "It is finished." Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. This first saying of Jesus on
12445-496: The movie's medieval theme a compelling and urgent contemporary relevance... Yet the film succeeds to a large degree because it is set in the Middle Ages, a time that can seem both very remote and very immediate to us living in the modern world... Ultimately The Seventh Seal should be judged as a historical film by how well it combines the medieval and the modern." Similarly defending it as an allegory, Aleksander Kwiatkowski in
12576-577: The narrowest possible margin (145–147) due to a pairing-off failure. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag , and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Swedish
12707-421: The national standard languages. Swedish pronunciations also vary greatly from one region to another, a legacy of the vast geographic distances and historical isolation. Even so, the vocabulary is standardized to a level that make dialects within Sweden virtually fully mutually intelligible. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish In
12838-473: The ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? This is the only saying which appears in more than one gospel. In both accounts, the words spoken by Jesus have been transliterated from Aramaic into Greek, and there are slight differences between the two versions (Mark: Ἐλωΐ, Ἐλωΐ, λαμὰ σαβαχθανί ; Matthew: Ἠλί, Ἠλί, λεμὰ σαβαχθανί ). In both cases, σαβαχθανί seems to be
12969-424: The north. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é , as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin . There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as
13100-399: The old Danish master." He also praised the usage of the cast, in particular Max von Sydow, whose character he described as "a pale, serious Don Quixote character with a face as if sculpted in wood", and "Bibi Andersson, who appears as if painted in faded watercolours but still can emit small delicious glimpses of female warmth." Hanserik Hjertén for Arbetaren started his review by praising
13231-441: The only acceptable way to begin conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni —the standard second person plural pronoun)—analogous to
13362-537: The only appearance of the word " Paradise " in the gospels ( παραδείσω , paradeisō , originally from Persian pairidaeza , " paradise garden "). A seemingly simple change in punctuation in this saying has been the subject of doctrinal differences among Christian groups, given the lack of punctuation in the original Greek texts. Catholics and most Protestant Christians usually use a version which reads "today you will be with me in Paradise". This reading assumes
13493-402: The original Germanic three- gender system. Nouns , adjectives , pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the extant nominative , there were also the genitive (later possessive ), dative and accusative . The gender system resembled that of modern German , having masculine, feminine and neuter genders. The masculine and feminine genders were later merged into
13624-647: The play Trämålning ( Wood Painting ) in 1953 / 1954 for the acting students of Malmö City Theatre . Its first public performance, which he directed, was on radio in 1954. He also directed it on stage in Malmö the next spring, and in the autumn it was staged in Stockholm, directed by Bengt Ekerot , who would later play the character Death in the film version. In his autobiography, The Magic Lantern , Bergman wrote that " Wood Painting gradually became The Seventh Seal , an uneven film which lies close to my heart, because it
13755-402: The possibility of faith in a post-Holocaust, nuclear age". Likewise, film historians Thomas W. Bohn and Richard L. Stromgren identify this film as beginning "his cycle of films dealing with the conundrum of religious faith". Medieval Sweden as portrayed in this movie includes creative anachronisms. The flagellant movement was foreign to Sweden, and large-scale witch persecutions only began in
13886-480: The reform was not an act of any centralized political decree, but rather the result of sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years, from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The use of ni as a polite form of address is sometimes encountered today in both the written and spoken language, particularly among older speakers. Swedish is the sole official national language of Sweden , and one of two in Finland (alongside Finnish ). As of 2006, it
14017-468: The rune for the vowel u , which was also used for the vowels o , ø and y , and the rune for i , also used for e . From 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark, creating a series of minor dialectal boundaries, or isoglosses , ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland , Österbotten and northwestern Finland in
14148-812: The scene in which Antonious first meets Death. In 2016, composer João MacDowell premiered in New York City at Scandinavia House the music for the first act of The Seventh Seal , a work in progress under contract with the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, sung in Swedish. The work was under production by the International Brazilian Opera (IBOC) as part of the celebrations for the Ingmar Bergman centenary in 2018. Swedish language Swedish ( endonym : svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] )
14279-545: The second century. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. This saying is traditionally called "The Word of Salvation". According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was crucified between two thieves (traditionally named Dismas and Gestas ), one of whom supports Jesus' innocence and asks him to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. Jesus replies, "Verily I say unto thee..." ( ἀμήν λέγω σοί , amēn legō soi ), followed with
14410-408: The senses? Why should He hide himself in a mist of half-spoken promises and unseen miracles?...What is going to happen to those of us who want to believe but aren't able to?" Death, impersonating the confessional priest, refuses to reply. Similarly, later, as he eats the strawberries with the family of actors, Antonius Block states: " Faith is a torment – did you know that? It is like loving someone who
14541-444: The short /e/ (transcribed ⟨ ɛ ⟩ in the chart below). There are 18 consonant phonemes, two of which, / ɧ / and /r/ , vary considerably in pronunciation depending on the dialect and social status of the speaker. In many dialects, sequences of /r/ (pronounced alveolarly) with a dental consonant result in retroflex consonants ; alveolarity of the pronunciation of /r/ is a precondition for this retroflexion. /r/ has
14672-428: The short vowels, and the pairs are such that the two vowels are of similar quality , but with the short vowel being slightly lower and slightly centralized. In contrast to e.g. Danish, which has only tense vowels, the short vowels are slightly more lax, but the tense vs. lax contrast is not nearly as pronounced as in English, German or Dutch. In many dialects, the short vowel sound pronounced [ɛ] or [æ] has merged with
14803-460: The sins of humanity, the Father had to turn away from the Son because the Father is "of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong" ( ESV ). Other theologians understand the cry as that of one who was truly human and who felt forsaken. Put to death by his foes, very largely deserted by his friends, he may have also felt deserted by God. Others see these words in the context of Psalm 22 and suggest that Jesus recited these words, perhaps even
14934-432: The song's narrative is bracketed by two young men watching the film in a cinema. On Iron Maiden 's album Dance of Death (2003), the title track was inspired by the final scene of The Seventh Seal where, according to guitarist Janick Gers , "these figures on the horizon start doing a little jig, which is the dance of death." The song "The Hawthorne Passage" from Agalloch's Album The Mantle contains an audio sample from
15065-546: The sponge was affixed to a hyssop branch. This may have been intended as symbolically significant, as hyssop branches are often mentioned in the Old Testament in the context of the use of sacrificial blood for ritual purification. This statement of Jesus is interpreted by John as fulfilment of the prophecy given in Psalm 69 :21, "in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink"; hence the quotation from John's gospel includes
15196-640: The stake for consorting with the Devil . He believes she will tell him about life beyond death, only to find that she is insane. In a deserted village, Jöns saves a mute servant girl from being raped by Raval, a theologian who ten years earlier persuaded the knight to join the Crusades and is now a thief. Jöns vows to destroy his face if they meet again. Jöns kisses the servant girl, who resists his advance. He then tells her to repay her debt by becoming his servant. She reluctantly agrees. The group goes into town, where
15327-585: The subject in a clause, a trait that is restricted to North Germanic languages: Sayings of Jesus on the cross The sayings of Jesus on the cross (sometimes called the Seven Last Words from the Cross ) are seven expressions biblically attributed to Jesus during his crucifixion . Traditionally, the brief sayings have been called "words". The seven sayings are gathered from the four canonical gospels . In Matthew and Mark , Jesus cries out to God. In Luke , he forgives his killers, reassures
15458-485: The themes were elevated by the cinematography and performances: "the profundities of the ideas are lightened and made flexible by glowing pictorial presentation of action that is interesting and strong. Mr. Bergman uses his camera and actors for sharp, realistic effects." Film critic Pauline Kael called it "A magically powerful film." The film is now regarded as a masterpiece of cinema. The Village Voice ranked The Seventh Seal at number 33 in its Top 250 "Best Films of
15589-420: The tree. Meeting the condemned woman being drawn to execution, Block asks her to summon Satan so he can question him about God. The girl claims she has done so, but the knight only sees her terror and gives her herbs to take away her pain as she is placed on the pyre. They encounter Raval, stricken by the plague. Jöns stops the servant girl from uselessly bringing him water, and Raval dies alone. Jof then sees
15720-534: The two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ – and sometimes as a' – though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a , and "oe" became o . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä , å and ö . The first time the new letters were used in print
15851-517: The two natural genders han and hon ("he" and "she"), there are also the two grammatical genders den and det , usually termed common and neuter . In recent years, a gender-neutral pronoun hen has been introduced, particularly in literary Swedish. Unlike the nouns, pronouns have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form. Hon , for example, has the following nominative, possessive, and object forms: Swedish also uses third-person possessive reflexive pronouns that refer to
15982-439: The vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration, general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. The League also brought a certain measure of influence from Danish (at the time Swedish and Danish were much more similar than today). Early Old Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and also retained
16113-492: The whole psalm, "that he might show himself to be the very Being to whom the words refer; so that the Jewish scribes and people might examine and see the cause why he would not descend from the cross; namely, because this very psalm showed that it was appointed that he should suffer these things." After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. This statement
16244-584: The written language is uniform and standardized . Swedish is the most widely spoken second language in Finland where its status is co- official language . Swedish was long spoken in parts of Estonia , although the current status of the Estonian Swedish speakers is almost extinct. It is also used in the Swedish diaspora , most notably in Oslo , Norway, with more than 50,000 Swedish residents. Swedish
16375-484: Was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography finally stabilized and became almost completely uniform, with some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish of today. The plural verb forms appeared decreasingly in formal writing into
16506-656: Was in Aff dyäffwlsens frästilse ("By the Devil's temptation") published by Johan Gerson in 1495. Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska ) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation . After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible . The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as
16637-429: Was included in film critic Roger Ebert 's list of " The Great Movies " in 2000. Entertainment Weekly voted it at No. 45 on their list of 100 Greatest Movies of All Time . In 2007, the film was ranked at No. 13 by The Guardian 's readers poll on the list of "40 greatest foreign films of all time". Indian film maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan praised the film saying "One can watch 'Seventh Seal' even without subtitles as it
16768-495: Was made under difficult circumstances in a surge of vitality and delight." The script for The Seventh Seal was commenced while Bergman was in the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm recovering from a stomach complaint. It was at first rejected by Carl-Anders Dymling , head of Svensk Filmindustri and Bergman was given the go-ahead for the project from Carl-Anders Dymling only after the success at Cannes of Smiles of
16899-433: Was never his intention to make an historical or period film. As it was written in a program note that accompanied the movie's premier "It is a modern poem presented with medieval material that has been very freely handled... The script in particular—embodies a mid-twentieth century existentialist angst... Still, to be fair to Bergman, one must allow him his artistic license, and the script's modernisms may be justified as giving
17030-523: Was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface that was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often Antiqua ). Some important changes in sound during
17161-537: Was the sole native language of 83% of Swedish residents. In 2007, around 5.5% (c. 290,000) of the population of Finland were native speakers of Swedish, partially due to a decline following the Russian annexation of Finland after the Finnish War 1808–1809. The Fenno-Swedish - speaking minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish
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