Films/DVD Asylum

"That can not be." - Hey, I can understand disliking the film.

68.90.9.69

This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: " Hated Seventh Seals---" posted by patrickU on August 14, 2007 at 13:37:59

I think that it's a good flick bordering on greatness, but very dated, self-absorbed and tedious when looking beyond the symbolism of the chess match and clever cinematography which, BTW, occasionally suffers from poorly matched indoor/outdoor footage.

I bought the Criterion Seventh Seal to add to my DVD collection recalling the film as being very impressive when I saw it back in college with a group of students under the influence of Grey Poupon. Time was not generous to my recollections of this film. The high quality Criterion transfer drew attention to Seventh Seal's stagier scenes, which were eminently forgettable and much campier than I remember them.

My wife, who I convinced (regrettably) to watch Seventh Seal, found that she disliked it on several levels, describing the film as boringly pretentious in spite of it's reputation. In retrospect, while I don't completely concur with her impressions, I find much little room for disagreement with her observations.

So, while I don't "hate" this film by any means, taken on the whole I don't consider Bergman to be quite as brilliant or challenging a heroic figure in the Director's Pantheon as auteurs the like of Dreyer, Lang, Murnau, Pabst, Von Stroheim, Von Sternberg, Welles, Wilder, and (aw yes, hee, hee) Peter Jackson.

AuPh

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