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True Merritt
Dr. Corson
COMM 1851: Introduction to Film
11/11/2013

Religion is more than Blind Allegiance to a God: Belief in The Seventh Seal

Religion is, at its core, no more than a human attempt to explain the world around us,
while art is an attempt to interpret that world. Both art and religion influence people to do larger
things, and can provide a profound and life-changing experience. Just like there are many
different ways to explain the world, through different religious or non-religious viewpoints, there
are different ways in which art can frame the world, and it is that idea of difference that is
essential. Ingmar Bergman, through his film masterpiece, The Seventh Seal, discusses exactly
that idea; the idea that art and religion are inherently linked, while Melvyn Bragg, the author of
the BFI Film Classics book on The Seventh Seal, argues quite the opposite, however it seems
more correct that art is in fact linked at its deepest level with religion, but not with conventional
religion, such as in todays modern Judeo-Christian tradition, but rather the ancient ideas that
belief in nature and the world around us brings us truth, and can serve as a religion in its own
right.
Bergman believed that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from
worship, (Bragg 9) and that is highlighted by his entire body of work, but emphasized most
strongly in The Seventh Seal. Bergman placed massive stock in the legend of the Cathedral of
Chartres, which was the tale of a cathedral that burnt to the ground and then was rebuilt with the
help of thousands of anonymous builders, so no one knows who built it, (Bragg 10) and in the

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idea that for art to be truly great there ought to be anonymity, because it is not important who the
creator of the work was, just the quality of the art. Bergman believed that the cathedral was a
symbol of the sum of all great art, (Bragg 10) and just being a piece of that legacy was enough
for him; he wanted to play [his] part in the collective building of the cathedral, (Bragg 10) and
for him that was plenty, and it is that belief that great art need only be recognized as such and
have no definite author that shows the power of religion in art, because it is able to overcome a
persons natural tendencies to want to claim ownership of something. When traditional religion
was removed from art authorship began, because people began to feel that they needed to work
for something and create something for themselves, as opposed to working and creating for the
glory of god, (Bragg 9) and that stripped the purity from art. It is the concept of purity in art
that held together religion and art for so long, however not necessarily the purity in the
traditional religious sense of the word, but purity of emotion and feeling. Purity is an abstract
concept, however it is important to recognize the power that it holds, because true purity of
thought and art is rare, but it results in a beautiful masterpiece. The purity in art is what kept
authorship out of art, because artists worked only to create art, not to be known, and it is in
authorship that true art was lost, not in its distance from religion. Art and religion are linked in
their most basic ideas, but that is not because art is based on religion, but because in the deepest
sense everything is religion, and art is a part of life, but also because purity is a religious ideal,
and true art requires purity of thought and emotion.
Bergman, the son of a Lutheran pastor (Bragg 40), grew up surrounded by conventional
religion, while that upbringing did not force him into a life of religious fundamentalism, it did
partially blind him, and corral him into believing only in the conventional nature of religion. The
fact that the protagonist, Antonius Block, questions the existence and power of god supports the

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idea that Bergman saw religion only in a modern Judeo-Christian way; not recognizing the
essence of religion in life itself. Block does not want to blindly accept religion or put blind faith
in something. He wants knowledge. Not faith, not assumptions, but knowledge, (Bergman,
Seventh Seal) and he symbolizes the influence of scientific advance on the human spirit, which
many people view as killing both religion and art, but it is in itself a type of religion, in the vain
that it seeks to explain the world. As understanding of science waxes, belief and faith in
traditional religion wane, but that is because science is a new type of post-modern religion that
allows people to have something that resembles faith, yet it is belief in something that need not
be blind. Science is seen as killing art, because many people believe that people have lost the
ability to see things in a creative non-logical way, however science does not effect that, because
science is a basic and integral part of humanity. Block also questions conventional religion when
he says that faith is torment. It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but
never appears, no matter how loudly you call. (Bergman, Seventh Seal) Block felt abandoned
by traditional religion, which mirrors the experiences of many, and when that occurs they tend to
turn to atheism, but there is a third option that not many see. That is the option of seeing beauty
and religion in life itself, but Bergman, like many others, refuses to see that reality, because of
his traditional religious upbringing. Seeing religion in life itself is vital, because it allows people
to have hope without needing faith, which is inherently blind, and does not serve a true purpose,
because it is belief without logic or reason.
Faith is deceptive in its importance, because the to the faithful it seems to be of utmost
importance, but in reality it is not particularly important, because faith implies a blind belief in
something, and that defeats the purpose of humans ability to think rationally. It is finding a
religious experience in simply living ones life that is important, because it is a part of human

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nature to want to believe in something larger than oneself, and if an experience is found through
more than blind faith it has merit, and if it is natural religiosity, then it is pure, because nature
cannot lie and deceive a person into thinking there is more than meets the eye. The importance
of The Seventh Seal stems from its portrayal of alternatives to religion, which is portrayed in a
scene where Block sits with the actors in the sun and sips some fresh milk and eats wild
strawberries, and he is able to recognize and vocalize the beauty in the moment, (Bergman,
Seventh Seal) and that is modern religion. People have answered many of the questions that
religion once answered, so now they have to find religion and belief anywhere they can. Modern
religion is supposed to find God in life, (Holland 269) because people need to believe in
something, and what people call that belief is religion, despite whether or not it truly is a
religion.
The title of the film itself is essential in the idea of having faith and being religious. The
title stems from Revelations 8:1, which essentially states that on the last day of judgment, the
seventh seal will be broken, and man will know the secrets of god, (Stubbs 66) however the
truth from that statement lies in the idea that nothing changes after the characters are supposed to
have uncovered these secrets, because there are no such secrets. All of the secrets held by god
can be found in true religion, nature and the natural beauty of the world. Which is highlighted by
both The Seventh Seal film and the BFI Classics book about it, because they suggest the idea that
conventional religion and art are intertwined, which is a true statement, however it is much truer
that art is inseparable from nature and belief, which is religion in a different sense of the word.

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Works Cited
Bragg, Melvyn. The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet). London: British Film Institute, 1993.
Print.
Holland, Norman N. ""The Seventh Seal": The Film as Iconography." The Hudson Review, Inc
12 (1959): 266-70. JSTOR. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3848112>.
The Seventh Seal. Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Perf. Max Von Sydow, Gunnar Bjrnstrand, and Bengt
Ekerot. Svensk Filmindustri, 1957. DVD.
Stubbs, John C. "The Seventh Seal." Journal of Aesthetic Education 9 (1975): 62-76. JSTOR.
Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3331735>.