The Movie
Like many of the great filmmaker Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) defies strict summary, instead transcending into the beauty of cinematic storytelling itself, from the sweeping cinematography to the subtlety of the performances to the intelligence of the dialogue. Who can forget the now-legendary iconography of Death (Bengt Ekerot) playing chess with a knight (a young, incredibly cool Max von Sydow) on the beach, with the mortal's very soul hanging in the balance? The knight and his manservant, weary from a decade fighting in The Crusades, discuss sorcery and philosophy, while searching for the greater meaning of life, as their growing little band of misfits travels the Black Plague-era Swedish countryside. It's a caravan well worth joining.
Faithful to its 1950's presentation, The Seventh Seal is shown at a restored 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The transfer is clean but the film can't help but reveal its age under the scrutiny of HD, with some noise and graininess on textures like von Sydow's chain mail armor. Elsewhere, rear-projection process shots certainly look a bit dated. Patches of out of focus grass in the background or shadowy alcoves can be especially artifact-ridden. The cinematography itself is really quite lovely however, and this is conveyed well on Blu-ray Disc, so my eye tended to see the image itself--with its naturalistic, inky blacks--and not the flaws.
The Sound
The original Swedish audio track is delivered as Linear PCM mono, a simple center-channel affair as compared to some "dual-mono" (same signal out of the left and right speaker) mixes as I've heard on some discs. Even at this limited level of quality, which is appropriate and authentic to its roots, we can appreciate that much of the dialogue was clearly re-recorded and added later, and simple effects such as the sudden cessation of the breaking waves at the appearance of Death are remarkably powerful. There is also a Dolby Digital mono English dub which I cannot recommend for any reason.
The Extras
Criterion has done some interesting things with the film itself, including both traditional chapters and an actual timeline with both stills from the film and reference to what is being discussed in the commentary at that point. Expert Peter Cowie's commentary from 1987 has been ported forward here, along with a new (2008) ten-and-a-half-minute on-camera afterword, in HD. Ingmar Bergman adds his own introduction from 2003, prepared to show when the movie would air on TV, here in a soft high-def., three minutes. Bergman Island collects three disparate 2004 documentaries edited together into one film back in 2006, here for the first time on home video (83-and-a-half minutes, HD).
The "Max Von Sydow Audio Interview" samples from Peter Cowie's file tapes, in a clean Dolby Digital mono, 20 minutes total, chaptered. Super-fan "Woody Allen on Bergman" covers The Seventh Seal among others, seven minutes in HD created for Turner Classic movies in 1998. Peter Cowie returns for the excellent "Bergman 101" overview, 35 minutes in HD. Lastly, the two-and-a-half minute Swedish trailer in HD helps us appreciate how good the restored movie looks.
Final Thoughts
Perhaps more than any other title in the Criterion Collection's awesome catalog, The Seventh Seal, which they have been commemorating since the laserdisc days, is the ideal jumping-on point for classic art-house fare reinterpreted for the high-def crowd.
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