İnanmak mı, Bilmek mi? Yedinci Mühür Filminde Birey-Tanrı İlişki Biçimleri
To Believe or To Know? The Forms of Relationship Between Individual and God in The Seventh Seal Movie

Summary/Abstract: The passion to search for truth is a basic human instinct. The existentialist point of view, leaves room for ideas and certain questions about the individual’s understanding of its own existence. This, in turn, may trigger a pursuit for the individual who wants to understand the existence. The areas preferred for this pursuit are usually religion, philosophy, art and science. The possibilities of religious belief or disbelief accompanying this pursuit are, in theory, infinite. Twentieth century’s existentialist art and philosophy reveals the anxiety of inanity and the courage to express suspicions about the sacred, a religious phenomenon. Ingmar Bergman is a director who transforms his own personal destiny into humanity’s own shared destiny by using archetypical image. He expresses his thoughts through his camera which he uses like a powerful pen. Bergman exposes the thematic motives which form the underlying idea of his films, mostly by asking existential question. One of those motives is the relationships between individual and God which is reflected often in Bergman’s film. Det Sjunde Inseglet/The Seventh Seal (Yedinci Mühür, Ingmar Bergman, 1957), one of the masterpieces of cinema, focuses on the concept of God which is usually left in a secondary position when belief devoid of consciousness is the point in question. In The Seventh Seal, the main plot is built upon the confrontation of a Knight who has just returned from the Crusades with his faith all torn apart, both with the terrifying figure of Death all covered in blacks and also with religion. Within this context the main two themes of The Seventh Seal are confrontation with death and relationship between individual and God. This study aims to reveal Bergman’s ideas on relationships between individual and God which he deals with in The Seventh Seal movie. As a result of the study, it is seen that the Church which represents religious authority is ironically far from individual’s existentialist problems and contributing to individual’s need to know God.

• Details
• Contents