EN
The theme of the Middle Ages has very often appeared in the over a hundred year old history of cinematography. No doubts one of the most famous films about the Middle Ages is The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman. In this film many elements that compose the stereotypical image of the Middle Ages are recalled. Still some film critics, referring to the Bergman’s explanations, suggest that this film reveals the problems of the contemporary, post-war world. This picture is also very private work, in which the Swedish artist wants to express his metaphysical fears and is trying to resolve his existential problems. The following article is an attempt of interpretation of Bergman’s film in the context of the studies on medievalism, which research the phenomenon of “the Middle Ages after the Middle Ages” and recognize the reinvention of the medieval culture in the post-medieval world. From this point of view the vision of the Middle Ages in The Seventh Seal is the fantasy in which a representation of the past time is mixed with the problems of the present time. In his film Bergman has used the elements of a medieval moral play and an allegory, but his main intention is to reconstruct the medieval Christian spirituality, which is a reference point to the indefinite, distracted or atrophic spirituality of the modern and postmodern world. The Seventh Seal is an example work in which the Middle Ages (as an artistic vision) is the stretching shape of modernity and postmodernity.