The Seventh Seal

Here we have Bergman’s best known movie. The one movie that broke through the cultural consciousness to leave an imprint most people take for granted. The vision of death playing chess, as said in the movie itself, was a common enough medieval subject for paintings, but our modern culture’s image and the source comes straight from Antonious Block challenging Death to a game to extend his life.

Another thing about the movie that has suffused the culture is the idea that the movie is dour. It...