/ Organized by Fan Daming /
Time: 10:50-11:25 am, May 12, 2012 (Saturday)
Venue: Henglu Art Museum Lecture Hall, No. 202, Nanshan Road, Hangzhou
( Henglu Art Film Bar Bergman's work "The Seventh Seal" after viewing)
Participants: (Preface) Fan Daming, Chen Xiao, Zhu Xilin, Chen Xingsheng, Zhou Xiaofeng, Jin Aiwu, Zou Maijia, Tian Shunzhi, Huang Huawei, Lily, Liu Haiqing ( Viewers: Guo Jian, Pan Siyue, Zhang Aibai, Ji Boqing, Qiu Huafen, etc.)
Moderator: Fan Daming
Records: Liu Haiqing
's Religious Subject Against the Background of Medieval Plagues: About Death and Death
Fan Daming: Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" is a Medieval Plague A film about religious themes in a popular context is a bit far from what we are today. What do you think after reading it, let's talk and interpret it together.
Chen Xiao: The film is one of the two works I watched when I first started to get in touch with the film. The other was Fellini's "Eight and a Half". After watching it, I deeply felt the richness of the film. But I was in high school at the time, so I didn't know what I was talking about. This time I watched it for the second time, and I seemed to understand something. It should be the accumulation of these years. Bergman really can't get rid of religious themes, such as the "Summer Episode" I watched last time, but it is far less than this film. The film is filled with religious symbols almost everywhere. I think the film explores the relationship between man and death in a Christian context. Interestingly, there is no god of death in the Bible. For those of us who do not have a religious and cultural environment, it is very alienating.
Fan Daming: I have treasured this film for a long time, but every time I watched it, I watched it at the beginning, and today is the first time I watched it. Some of the man in black in the film is translated as "Death", and today's version is translated as "Death". Perhaps "death" is more accurate. God is worshipped, longed for, or admired; but no one worships and admires death, only runs away from it—for example, the knight Brock with whom he played chess, who must win against him (the man in black) will avoid death. The man in black should be the incarnation of "death", a symbol representing "death". However, the expression "Death" is very popular and popular. The "God" of "Death" should not be a concept of a level with the "God" of religion. For human beings, birth, old age, sickness and death, death is undoubtedly a fate, and no one can resist it. But the death or death of this film may mainly refer to the special and abnormal death caused by the plague (Black Death) that was popular at the time. The film tells how people at that time specifically faced and escaped (or could not escape) that catastrophe under such circumstances.
The god of death is actually God; the witch is the scapegoat of this plague disaster.
Zhu Xilin: The god of death is actually God. This is how I felt after reading the Bible at the last dinner table.
Chen Xiao: In the film, I read twice in the Bible, "When Jesus opened the seventh seal, the heaven and the earth were silent for half an hour." Wang Shuya has a film review book titled "Heaven was silent for half an hour", which tells the story of film and religion Relationship. There are many metaphors and symbols in this film that I still can't fully understand.
Chen Xingsheng: There is a gap. I really don't understand the director's thinking. What does the film affirm and deny? nothingness? At the beginning and end of the film, Joseph's lover also said that he was "fantasy again". When I watch the film, I can't combine it with reality, I just regard it as appreciating art.
Fan Daming: There is a so-called witch, who should be the scapegoat of this plague catastrophe. But she is a bit like Joan of Arc, not a pure suffering woman, but a person with dominant ideas. Judging from the video, she was finally moved under a tree. I wonder if she was not burned to death in the end?
Zhou Xiaofeng: It must have been burned to death, tied to a ladder and pushed into the fire. The director didn't show it.
Jin Aiwu: I feel that she has the meaning of Jesus suffering for mankind. I am also very impressed by the blacksmith. He started to hate the actor who kidnapped his wife, and he was very sad when he thought the actor committed suicide, which shows the goodness of human nature. And the various expressions on each of them when they read the Bible at the end, it feels like God is watching.
The film is a trial of all immoral people in the world
Zhou Xiaofeng: There are many things in the film that show that death is related to evil, such as the two knights representing the Crusades, the woman whose wife betrayed her husband and had an affair with others, and the man who stole things from the dead ...seems to be the judgment of all immoral human affairs in the world.
Fan Daming: The so-called "seven deadly sins".
The juggler Joseph is like a psychic
Chen Xiao: The juggler Joseph seems to be a psychic, such as seeing the Virgin Mary, seeing the knights play chess with death, and seeing the group of people holding hands and dancing with death. Did Bergman introduce himself into the role as if he could see through everything?
The film embodies the director's deep doomsday feelings, but there is still hope for mankind.
Zou Maijia: I feel that the film reflects the director's deep doomsday feelings: the judgment of Christ, the scourge of everyone because of their original sin, the girl who is like a sacrificed sheep, that The last supper of the crowd, etc.; but God also created light, on the first day, and where there is light there is everything. In the film, when dealing with light pictures and shots, it is usually when the Joseph family is shown, such as the light hitting the children, as well as their carriage, the part where they eat strawberries and drink milk. Bergman's father was a pastor, but he was not religious himself and was conflicted: Does God exist? Who does God save? Because the result seems to be that the good people and the bad people die. Religious culture must have the theme of "the end has come", but human beings have hope. The Joseph family who survived in the film is the symbol. They are like Adam and Eve. Their healthy children represent fertility and are the only hope for human beings.
Fan Daming: Well said, very profound. Fertility is actually a symbol of life. Speaking of the end of the world, this year 2012 is rumored to be the year of the end of the world. We just saw this movie today.
The inevitable contradictions of mankind: light, angels, living-darkness, sin, death
Zhu Xilin: The inevitable contradictions of human beings are: light, angels, life, and the opposite of darkness, sin, and death.
Chen Xingsheng: My wife believes in Jesus, and I go to church, but I don’t; my son is a party member—our family is a contradiction. There is always something eternal about artistic creation: love, death.
The protagonist, Knight Brock, needs knowledge, not belief, and has enlightenment.
Tian Shunzhi: I have heard a lot of talk from you. I just like to watch it. I will talk about it here. There is a sense of existentialism in the knight. People think about life after seeing death. The knight and death playing chess is actually "stealing his life", but the last time he played chess, he deliberately delayed it to buy time for the family of three to escape. I was very impressed with the dialogue when the knight thought that the god of death was the priest: he said he wanted knowledge, not faith and so on. It feels like a lot of other people are foolishly pleasing God, like whipping each other, like he said that what he saw in the eyes of the girl who was going to be burned was ignorance. The film is enlightening.
Huang Huawei: I can't talk about anything, just listen to everyone.
The theme of the film: death, God and man; and live, be kind.
Lily: This is my second time here. I didn't arrive until 9:50, so I didn't see it all. The scene when I came in happened to be a long queue carrying a heavy cross. With the music, I wrote down eight words: evil, helplessness, depression, fear. When I saw the painting "Dancing with Death", I didn't know if it was a hallucination or what. The theme of this film I feel is: death, God and man; and to live, to be kind. People will die sooner or later, but there are various ways to die: death by plague, death by being crushed by a tree, etc. But when it's time to die, everyone is quiet and thinks about their sins. The Joseph family gave me a warm feeling. Death must be faced, but there is hope if one is kindly alive.
"Doomsday Judgment": People must face whether they believe in God or not, but they may not be able to be peaceful
Liu Haiqing: I don't agree with some of them. I was baptized as a Christian myself last month, so I've been watching some pastors' sermons recently. The "judgment at the end of the day" mentioned in the film must also be believed by those of us who believe in God. And whether people believe in God or not, they have to face it, but they may not always be peaceful. Joseph in the film is a person who can see visions. For example, when he sees a knight playing chess with death, he quickly leaves with his family and survives death. My understanding is that he believes in God, just like we read the Bible and believe in prophecy, and then decide how your path should go.
Fan Daming: Thank you for staying for the discussion. It's all very well spoken. There are new film friends who are very insightful. In this way, we can interpret some things in Bergman's relatively difficult film, which is a gain. . See you next week!
Organized in the morning of May 15, 2012
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