The one movie Terry Gilliam admits “knocked me dead”
It’s fair to say that throughout his career, Terry Gilliam has seen it all. Coming through the ranks into stardom as a member of the legendary British comedy troupe Monty Python, Gilliam established himself as an icon of entertainment and went on to explore more serious themes as a film director.
Science fiction has profited greatly from the presence of Gilliam and some of his most acclaimed works as a filmmaker, including the brilliant Brazil and 12 Monkeys, which both showcase the Minneapolis-born director as someone with a profound interest in dystopian worlds dominated by authoritarian bureaucracy.
As any writer or director of the cinematic medium ought, Gilliam has his favourite pieces of cinema that have provided countless years of entertainment and inspiration. In a feature with Rotten Tomatoes, the Monty Python icon named the likes of Pinocchio, Citizen Kane and Seven Samurai as his top choices.
However, there was another pick that seemed to leap out amongst Gilliam’s favourites, an Ingmar Bergman classic from 1957. “We go to go to Seventh Seal,” Gilliam noted, adding of the Swedish historical fantasy film, “Seventh Seal just knocked me dead. On many levels, it’s such a simple film.”
The Seventh Seal is set in Denmark during the era of the Black Death and focuses on a medieval knight played by Max von Sydow who plays a game of chess with the embodiment of Death, who has come to claim his life and lead him to the underworld.
There’s another side narrative in the film that Gilliam found particular interest in, though, noting, “You’ve got Mary and Joseph, the young people with their little travelling theatre, and then you’ve got the knight.” The knight indeed comes across a troupe of actors, two of whom he relates to the story of Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph, with their little infant son.
What impressed Gilliam was how Bergman “dealt with the Middle Ages” and how he managed to weave a very human narrative by using the imagery of the personification of Death and the game of chess. “Those were images that just stuck in my head,” Gilliam said of his early experience with the film.
The Seventh Seal was “just a really important film” for Gilliam, who was keen to stress the brilliant performance of von Sydow. In fact, the Swedish-French actor was the first time Gilliam had ever seen a non-American actor performing in a movie, with the director explaining his brilliance with, “He looked different. He behaved differently.”
Gilliam, who had grown up with Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Doris Day and Rock Hudson and their “shiny teeth and beautifully combed hair and all of that nonsense”, found something authentic in The Seventh Seal, something “profound” with its fearless commitment to dark storytelling. “It just did it,” he simply said.
The director added, concluding, “It’s just profound filmmaking.” Bergman’s The Seventh Seal is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, so it’s easy to see why it left such an impression on Gilliam the first time he saw it. Perhaps Gilliam would be later inspired by the classic historical fantasy film when he came to make his more introspective movies, whereby he would consult the themes of death, power and agency, much as Bergman had in his masterpiece.
Check out the trailer for The Seventh Seal below.