Det sjunde inseglet is a film by Ingmar Bergman. In this article we discuss how this movie reflects the humanistic approach of Bergman, how it sees man as the center of the universe. We will put the film in an existential context, relate it to philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and post-Freudian psychology.
deus absconditus
Antonius Block returns from the crusades and finds the country ravaged by the plague, he plays a game of chess with death. This is clearly existential scenery, inspired by Camus. Life is seen as a game, as a stage-play, the only way to gain something is to cheat and there is no way of really winning. The only thing we can be certain about facing death, in the times of the plague, is the silence of god and our helplessness.
But this is also the characterization of western society in a post-Kierkegaardian / Nietzschean world, the one of absence of faith and the absence of god.
Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts
Plotinus
Western society was obsessed from its birth with achieving knowledge and gaining certainty, to triumph over death and the state of contingency. That triumph can essentially be only human, only humans can invent gods and try to become them, it is our ability to idealize and aspire. But that is also what makes human essentially tragic, because they are fully aware of the fact of dying. That fact defines our psychologically. Whenever we are faced with death we are faced with our limits as human beings, when we realize that our ability to idealize in order to triumph is an illusion, a lie.
Whenever we are faced with death we are faced with our limits as human beings, when we realize that our ability to idealize in order to triumph is an illusion, a lie
The Western society until Kierkegaard / Nietzsche was a Faustian society. It believed that through our intellectual we can gain full control over the world and ourselves. Like Faust, Antonius Block wants to find meaning, to perform “one meaningful deed”. This Humanistic vision of humanity of the west was abandoned with the emergence of nihilism and death of god, the death of value and meaning. The certainties that religion and rationalism promised us, absolute values, were nowhere to be found.
Bergman continues a long tradition, originating from the Ancient Greeks, that sees man as a very specific type of being. That view sets the limitation of man, and defines his conflicts. This point of view developed mostly in the writing of the Western Society, in philosophy, literature and art. Existentialism is just the re-birth of tragedy, defining man as a force trapped in its own faith, struggling only to justify the struggle from its own point of view.
What we have left from our tradition of our culture is what we call ‘progression’, a fragmented experience of reality, nothing can be, and tries to, be concepted as ‘whole’, no transcendence, no relation to eternity.
The expression of progression in the context of modernity becomes the boring and flat banality of day to day life, which is an expression of nihilism, of nothingness, in terms of value, an empty shell, a negation and avoidance of life. Except from practices of life – repairing, maintaining and cleaning, there is no major achievement. In the post-modern age, what can be a major achievement is a question by itself, often left unanswered. Life is no longer an adventure.
The film shows that in the absence of god, Christianity becomes a decadent theory, a parody of itself, demonizing flourishing in life, and glorifying living an apathetic life. Against the threat of certain death there is a lack of ability to build an illusion through lies which will sustain or hide that realization. Life is then narrowed down to be the opposite of an adventure, and there is no possibility of moral and ethics.
We are living now in an age which is considered post-humanist. Most models of humanism are now considered naive illusions, coming from Neo Marxists like Theodor Adorno and others. Bergman was maybe the last in a line of writers that still expressed the belief in a triumphing subject, a hero in the terms we are discussion here. In essence the humanist theme this is just a perspective about the human condition which can be translated to actions. Actions in the name of beliefs would be in the context of morality, and/or ethics, a code of conduct, a way of life.
Bergman deals with the duality of our intellect and emotion, Apollonian and Dionysian. The Apollonian can control, impose order and give meaning, but is also a life negating force, while the Dionysian is life force itself, driving creativeness, disorder, intoxication, emotion, and ecstasy. These two elements are present and entwined together, the combination of these two creates the non-materialistic entity called soul or spirit. We discussed the properties of the intellect, thought, language and instinct in other articles.
The theme of the film is dialectic and very complicated : What’s between religious faith as a source of meaning and our intellect ?
Religious faith can be a source of value and meaning, although our intellect will tell us our faith is a lie. Our intellect grasps the empty cold eternal nature of the world, where the only thing which we can be certain about is nothingness, our annihilation and our death. Order is just an illusion, even from our intellect’s point of view. How can we be rational then ?
Our existential problem cannot find a solution or even a balance if the aim is to find an answer which is absolute, meaning, something that makes sense, which is rational. Until the existential problem appeared, the vision was to have a rational triumph, absolute certainty, triumph over death and nature. Now in the post Kierkegaard / Nietzschean age we can no longer build our morality and ethics on transcendental values, which is a huge problem, how to find your way in the world ? How to know what’s good and evil ?
One possible answer : Humanism, art, reflection, those are the only things we can, and should, relate to, further we found out why. This is the reflection and expression of both elements, affirmation and negation of life, Apollo and Dionysus, through human creation and experience. Instead of trying to base the absolute reign of one of the elements, we should accept life as a sort of dance between the two, or even better, try not to think in terms that would base any element of top of another, this is actually the true essence of the post post-modernist age, beyond good and evil.
The move from the transcendental to the universal
Religion based its values on a transcendental being called god. The illusion of a governance of a supreme being works, as long as you believe it. That is actually the essence of Kierkegaard’s philosophy – Credo quia absurdum, believe, because it’s absurd. You get a full package, pro’s and cons after taking that leap of faith. Kierkegaard published his work in a time and context when the importance of psychology and the human dynamics came into the collective awareness. Belief is no longer a connection to a spiritual world but rather a collection of superstitions. The rules that guided us as societies, have no longer validation from another higher realm. We no longer have that hope.
From a modern perspective starting from thinkers like Kierkegaard and William James, religious spirituality are based on a psychological mechanism. The post Freudian school of thought developed on those psychological ideas in the context of existentialism, among them Otto Rank, Ernest Becker. They discussed how impossible it is to live as a human knowing death is there in the end, and which illusion we create for ourselves to keep ourselves going.
Symbology in the film
The innocents
Antonius Block goes through a series of vignettes of human torments. Next to him a family of three, jesters : Jof, Mia and their child Mikael (Josef, Maria, and Jesus), with their abbreviated life, similar to their abbreviated names. The images are inspired by Leonardo, Titzian and others, sacramental images, mother and her baby, the pure, the innocent, while their business partner, Jonas Skat, if to use Kierkegaard’s example is Don Giovanni.
In connection to Christian symbology, the innocents are the ones who are guilt free, in the sense of not committing any wrongdoings. Innocence in the context of the film also highlights Bergman’s cynical view because innocence is also free from knowledge – because knowledge corrupts, it makes aware of our actions in a social context.
Therefor the link to morality and psychology is unavoidable – how do we judge our actions in terms of good and bad ? Death becomes an absolute value which is bad, which is evil.
The Dance macabre
Bergman highlights the universality of death, they way Death makes all human equal and unite.
We carve an idol of our fear, and call it god
In the film there is a scene where Antonius Block says while confessing : “We carve an idol of our fear, and call it god.” this a quote from Freud. The childish way we imagine a transcendental being responsible for our well-being on this planet, the meaning of things, are just a form of human fear with a zest of basic psychology – biological and even evolutionary patterns that we interpret in a symbolic way.
When a child losses its innocence it becomes aware of death and develops his ego. The ego is a product of repression, repression is the denial and yet dealing with facts of reality. Bergman sees living life as a form of acting, in order to base a stable denial of death, it can take beautiful and ugly forms, and it can bring humans together in many forms. The denial of death is essential to live a healthy life, humanism is practiced when the denial of death takes an artistic form (in which man is put in the center) which allow those to turn into actions.
The Flagellants
During the Black Death, the flagellants were a militant pilgrimage, which was later condemned by the Catholic Church, they used to whip themselves to exercise the mortification of their own flesh as a form of penance.
Their preacher carries out an aggressive (yet accurate) speech against the town’s people, he is aware of the presence of the angel of death. He believes in God and in the clear distinction of good and evil. Therefore, he believes good can be conquered and the symmetrical delusional evil is always a result of bad behavior, this is the reason of his condemnation of the town’s people : if there is evil, Black Death, for sure we can fix it, for sure we caused it. If it’s not contingent, it’s the peoples fault. The preacher wants obedience.
These are the irrational people, their collective neurosis, the mob, the coward collective who cannot bear their natural fate – which is death. Could it be that the essence of god is only based on our fear ?
The artists
In the films we see some depictions of artists : The jesters, the painter. There is one theme uniting them, which is a cynical one, in the name of art they are all bound to serve the simple and entertain them complying to their demands. The scene turn grotesque when Jof is dancing on the tavern tables.
“A skull is more interesting than a naked woman”.
Art in the service of religion : In the film, the painter is drawing a painting of the dance macabre in order to make people think, he says, and by that (thinking) he will “make them run to the arms of the priests“. Art in the use of religion through fear.
“I paint things as they are, people can do as they like“… “the poor wretches think the plague is a punishment from god“… “they whip themselves to praise the lord“.
The jesters bring aesthetics and art, a joyful deception, a break from grim reality, and played those on stage to amuse the masses. The power of their joy is their deception : their own optimism in the form of innocence, their blindness towards the horrors of the world, their refusal of acknowledging it.
Jonas, the other jester is building his life around sensuality together with Lisa, wife of the blacksmith, which is sensuality itself. Lisa and Jonas, have a physical intimate connection, which is seen as innocent, as long as its does not have any meaning.
Jof has a glimpse of what’s ‘really’ happening as he sees Block playing chess with death, and he witnesses the dance macabre in the end. The artist has a glimpse of that reality.
The knight
Knighthood as a symbol of nobility, and a symbol of a (behavior) code, ethical, moral. Coming from the crusades, the knight wants to find meaning, to perform a meaningful act (Faust). He represents vitality and the force of action, human wit, he is hope, he is an adventurer.
The knights squire, Jöns, admits after all the crusades in the holy land that it was stupid and only a true idealist could have though it up. This is again referring to religion committing horrors in the name of ideals. A misinterpretation or a misdirection of our force as humans in reality. At that point the question of meaning is still left unsolved.
The knight, after his confession to the angel of death, looks at his hand and say : “This is my hand. I can move it. Blood pulses through its veins. The sun still stands high in the sky, and I… Antonius Block… am playing Chess with Death !”
Unlike Faust, Antonius Block manages in the end to perform a last meaningful deed. While death is being occupied playing chess with Block, Jof, Mia and Mikael flee. Block acknowledges this deed as meaningful and accepts his end. Humanism is being expressed as an existential message : life is a journey, a game, which has value coming from experience itself, from action, even against our wretched fate, and maybe only because of it.
Theme and philosophy
The main theme of the film is the absence of god – deus absconditus. The different characters deal with this very question, every character represents a point of view.
The Goethean humanist (Antonius Block, knight), is torn between his earthly being and the quest for the transcendent and the sublime. He wants the impossible : that the spiritual, transcendent, divine, would materialize into the world in form. He is searching for a meaning, and hasn’t given up yet his hope to find a coherent system of values. This dialectic process is rooted in Plato and Goethe in the sense that meaning is not defined by an entity or an answer but only a process, something dynamic, organic, growth. Block’s quire, from his perspective, is cynical. The man who gave up finding meaning draws his powers from his humanistic pride. For the rest of the characters (except from the Jesters) there is no semantics around the concept of god, there is no value. While others are only living in the moment, Antonius Block is trying to understand why god stays silent.
Transcendence gets its absolute meaning only from its opposite absurd absence. Realism is expressed in everything ordinary, routine, banality and the sublime can only be expressed through what is absent. Antonius Block does not even consider living among ordinary men. For him routine is pseudo meaning, we are fooling ourselves, making our mundane desires our purposes, but Block in interested in the ultimate purpose. One deed which essence would justify a life full of chaos (Faust). He is hope, he is the journey of life, courage, and unwillingness to give up.
The humanist positivist (Jöns, squire), is a man proud of his human-self. What scares him is the humiliation of the concept of man, if by death or by religion, by a behavior which is not moral or ethical, by nihilism. His pride is his protest. It is not his ability to survive, but his ability to preserve his own conception of himself as being free, as being able to act upon his own values, that gives him power. For him, it is not only men that die, but also the concept of man that dies as well. He is positivist in the cynical and sarcastic sense, see reality, but not beyond material.
At a certain point Jöns makes a drawing of himself, this is a sign of reflexion, cognition, contemplation, the ability of one to value and judge himself, he is aware, he is the intellect. Still the intellect is empty, it can judge, find alternatives, but not decide. It can sustain its own existence in an empty world.
The nihilist Positivist (Ravel), sees reality only as what is available for our senses. Since there is no transcendental being or law, everything is permitted. This positivism collapses and becomes nihilism, through hedonism, pathological narcissism, no responsibility and maximization of needs and desires.
The painter (Albertus Pictor) as artist, the realist, draws reality. There are many ways to capture reality, but when doing that, reality is getting formalized, reality gets an essence. The artist as Bergman portrays him, is only responsible for painting an aspect of reality, but he is not committed to its possible interpretation and actions following from it, in this case religion. This is essentially a-moral, since the artist is only responsible for his actions.
The jester (Jof) as artist is the innocent. His artistic ability is to imagine things. The jesters as a group are symbolizing life itself : sensuality, desires, triviality, pleasure, birth. Nativity can also be an intellectual blindness, not being fully exposed to certain elements in life, making fun of it through the transformation of an artistic performance, humor, joy, illusion.
HÄSTEN SITTER I TRÄDET
Hästen sitter i trädet och gal. Å hu! Å hu! Vägen är bred men porten small Den Svarte dansar på stranden. Hönan jamar i mörkaste sjö. Mjau! Mjau! Dagen är röd men fisken död. Den Svarte hukar på stranden. Ormen flaxar i himlens höjd. Å hu! Å hu! Jungfrun är blek men musen nöjd. Den Svarte ränner på stranden. Bocken väser med tänderna två. Ish! Ish! Blåsten är tung och vågen slår. Den Svarte mökar på stranden. Hästen sitter i trädet och gal. Å hu! Å hu! Vägen är bred men porten smal. Den Svarte dansar på stranden. Hönan jamar i mörkaste sjö. Mjau! Mjau! Dagen är röd men fisken död. Den Svarte hukar på stranden. Ormen flaxar i himlens höjd. Å hu! Å hu! Jungfrun är blek men musen nöjd. Den Svarte ränner på stranden. Suggan värper och katten sår. Å hu! Å hu! Natten är sot och mörkret står. Den Svarte stannar, stannar, stannar, stannar på stranden.
Death is where meaning ends. Its presence imposes the triumph of contingency and lack of meaning over value. Against the total emptiness of death, life is just grotesque, absurd.
Religion is an institution, which Bergman sees as something different from the individual search for the transcendental. Christianity is corrupted and vile, it grooms fear in the heart of men to keep itself alive, even through art, even through cathedrals which makes man small, through the visualization and presence of fear. When institutionalized religion puts the fear in the heart of its believers, they are giving up life affirmation, and succumbing to fear. Fear is always a result of our vulnerability, our mortality it has a close relationship to death.
Again, Bergman shows his specific existential humanism. Intellect by itself is powerful, but also problematic. The intellect by itself cannot make us feel content, we can never find that one Faustian moment. Life is seen as a journey, in which all human traits play equal parts, experience is key, and a higher level of it can only come from reflection, although it has no value other than itself.
Transcendence and spirituality has no materialistic or cognitive form, it is life in itself, it can only be experienced rather than learned, it can only be a passage, not a destination.
Meaning and humanism
Bergman presents us a model of humanism. By this model of humanism, man is an entity, wild and conflicted that has many illnesses, but he is able to reach certain heights, man is free to explore his own boundaries of creativity, desires, sensuality, trust, faith.
The self has the potential of individuality (Dionysian force) and constant expansion of what is the self. An endless journey to a place with no boundaries.
Through human experience, artistic reflection, psychological analysis man can find courage and faith, to act in a world where he or she will find others like himself or herself, where they would take the same road together.
“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them the stamp of the times in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust. Experience teaches us that the world is not a nursery. The ethical commands, to which religion seeks to lend its weight, require some other foundations instead, for human society cannot do without them, and it is dangerous to link up obedience to them with religious belief. If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man’s evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.”
Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism