Ebert's GREAT MOVIES, Part 5: "The Seventh Seal"

I thought The Virgin Spring was one of Bergman's most accessible films (especially if you are familiar with medieval ballads upon which the film was based), the motives of (covert) paganism, vengeance, justice and penitence are common in those stories. It also explains the dark tones and (relativiely) slow pace of the film.

My favourite Bergman is Fanny and Alexander, which in my mind sums up Bergman's entire oeuvre.

I loved Fanny and Alexander. I would say that is my favourite. I enjoyed The Seventh Seal, but I can't watch it anymore after seeing the parody of it in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. I also really liked Persona.

Hi, y'all. I didn't realize there were posts on this old war horse. "The Seventh Seal" and all of Bergman was satirized beautifully by Woody Allen in "Love and Death." "The Seventh Seal" is not the Bergman I continually return to despite its stature and the fact that I was profoundly moved when I first saw it in a theater. "Wild Strawberries" I can watch over and over and I guess it's the hauntingly beautiful black-and-white cinematography, seldom reaching on that level except for films like the same Woody Allen's "Manhattan." I haven't seen "Persona" nor "Fanny and Alexander" in so many years, I guess the belong in my NetFlix queue.

Walter, perhaps my ignorance of Northern European medieval ballads prevented me from better grasping of "The Virgin Spring" (even though it's obviously based on a legend).

The Seventh Seal is something of a symbol of "serious" cinema. It was also used in the trailer for Monty Python and the Holy Grail (as hilarious as the film) and in the Schwarzenegger flick, Last Action Hero.

There's also a short film which I can't remember the title of that was a very funny parody of Bergman.

Perhaps it's "Six-Sided Triangle", a parody of six different ways of filmmaking an affair. The Swedes were often silent, in a medieval setting, eating strawberries; the French were smoking all the time; the other parodies were forgetable.