Subject: Re: Chess and the Seventh Seal (Was Re: horse play)
From: alternat@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Ann Hodgins)
Date: 1991-02-18, 09:23
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <1991Feb14.213317.29826@midway.uchicago.edu> lecl@quads.uchicago.edu (elizabeth e. leclair) writes:
> >In article <083XSAG@cs.swarthmore.edu> pouncy@campus.swarthmore.edu writes:
>> >>Did anyone see Bergman's Seventh Seal?  Is this the one where
>> >>the protagonist plays chess with death?  Since death has never
>> >>lost (we all die), Bergman's set up is a bit like Coop vs. WE
>> >>(`I've never beaten WE').   
>> >>
>> >>What would that movie's ending predict for Coop's game in 
>> >>TP?
> >
> >   Wow, it's been a long time since I saw this movie-- afterwards
> > I believe I was in a suicidal depression for three days, so please
> > no flames if my memories are blurred.
> >   The protagonist knight plays Death (i.e. the Black Death) in 
> > a chess match that lasts throughout the film.  The exact sequence
> > of moves is not very clear, as I recall.  In the end all of the 
> > characters are collected in a castle and the final scene is of death
> > leading the entire group in a swaying, dancing line, backlit over
> > a hill.  My movie friends give this two interpretations-- death 
> > conquers all and all are defeated, or in dying death is transcended
> > and all escape (or some similar metaphysical mumbling).
> >

I myself was too confused by the movie to be depressed. I saw it years
ago in my first years of university when I was not 
accustomed to thinking in terms of religious imagery (not like nowadays,
when that is practically all I care about in a movie) and so I had quite
a problem understanding it. But I think that the hero did succeed in
sheltering a family of good and innocent people (a holy family of man,
woman and child) by stalling off death until the family escaped.
 
Perhaps Coop will stall off death in order to save innocents.
Hopefully he won't sacrifice himself in order to save Lucy, Dick and baby.
 
a.h.