The Seventh Seal

U–jazdowski / Cinema / Repertoire / {OD–JAZD} / The Seventh Seal

06/03/2023

film screening and discussion

Od–jazd Film Club meeting

The Seventh Seal
- [Det sjunde inseglet], directed by Ingmar Bergman, Sweden 1957, 96'
{OD–JAZD} Film Club invites you to a meeting with – according to most film critics, and filmmakers themselves – the most eminent director in the history of cinema Ingmar Bergman (he was hailed as such at the 50th Cannes Festival by Coppola, Scorsese, Altman and Allen, among others). And this in his most famous – and perhaps best – mystical and theatrical film The Seventh Seal.
- The Middle Ages. A knight returning from a crusade travels the world with his squire. On their way, they encounter Death. To postpone the final judgement, the knight begins a chess game in which his own life is at stake.
An existential morality play about the search for the meaning of life, filled with symbols and topoi that became landmarks in the history of cinema. Bergman’s depiction of the medieval world becomes a starting point for reflection about fundamental questions, whose universality and importance resist the passage of time.
- Sixty-six years after its premiere, impregnated with contemporary narratives, styles and fashions, are we still able to understand what The Seventh Seal is about?
What medieval topoi can we find in the film?
- Is The Seventh Seal Bergman’s magnum opus?
We will try to answer these and many other questions together with our club’s expert, film critic and historian Lesław Czapliński. We invite you to the screening and discussion, during which you will be able to ask questions and share your ideas on how to interpret the film. What do you think The Seventh Seal is about? We want to hear your opinion!
Lesław Czapliński
- Historian of ideas; music, theatre and film critic, essayist and publicist. Translator of French and Italian literature. Author of numerous texts on the correspondence of arts, myths of traditional culture, relationships between the ritual and the performative spheres, as well as religious systems and modern ideologies and their persuasive impact within language and media. Author of books: Pasoliniego kino śmierci [Pasolini’s Cinema of Death] (1992), Sarkis Paradżanian [Sarkis Parajaniants] (1998), W kręgu operowych mitów [In the Circle of Opera Myths] (2003). Member of the Polish Filmmakers Association, FIPRESCI juror. He lives in Cracow. He appreciates film d’auteur, which expresses the personality of the filmmaker, and at the same time pays great attention to the form and stylistic originality, thus not only being a record of the ephemeral present, but also allowing one to resist the destructive passage of time.