The chess game opens with the knight holding out his hands, a white piece hidden in one hand, a black one in the other. The queen was even further limited in movement: one square diagonally, with an optional two-square leap in any direction for a first move (an innovation that had just been introduced in the 13th century). Ultimately Similarly defending it as an allegory, Aleksander Kwiatkowski in the book The international response to the film which among other awards won the jury's special prize at Cannes in 1957 reconfirmed the author's high rank and proved that Much of the film's imagery is derived from medieval art. Block is reunited with his wife and the party shares a final supper, interrupted by Death's arrival. Waking early, Jof has Block and Jöns visit a church where a fresco of the In a deserted village, Jöns saves a mute servant girl from being At the town's inn, Raval manipulates Plog and other customers into intimidating Jof. Death chooses the black pawn ("You are black", says Block. With Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe.
The knight and squire are joined by Jof's family and a repentant Plog. The rest of the party then introduce themselves, and the mute servant girl greets him with "It is finished." Block enjoys a picnic of milk and strawberries that Mia has gathered and declares, "I'll carry this memory between my hands as if it were a bowl filled to the brim with fresh milk... And it will be an adequate sign — it will be enough for me." Set in Sweden during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death (Bengt Ekerot), who has come to take his life. Bergman would probably counter that it was never his intention to make an historical or period film. In the final scene of the 1968 film The film is referenced in several songs. Let’s start from the beginning, and then from the most famous scene of the entire film: the chess game with death.
The The title refers to a passage about the end of the world from the Bergman grew up in a home infused with an intense Christianity, his father being a charismatic "[I]t is constructed like an argument. "It … For example, Bergman has stated that the image of a man playing chess with a skeletal Death was inspired by a medieval church painting from the 1480s in However, the medieval Sweden portrayed in this movie includes creative anachronisms. Directed by Ingmar Bergman. There was no two-step opening pawn move, no en-passant capturing, and no castling. When they encounter Skat and Lisa in the forest, she returns to Plog, while Skat fakes a remorseful suicide.
As Death states "No one escapes me", Block knocks the chess pieces over but Death restores them to their place. Plain fact is that the whole game setup was just thrown together at random by the set crew. The title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation, used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end… Meeting the condemned woman being drawn to execution, Block asks her to summon They encounter Raval, stricken by the plague. Death then asks Block if he achieved the "meaningful deed" he wished to accomplish and the knight replies that he has. In that era, bishops were limited to a two-square jump (with the ability to leap over an intervening piece same as the knight) and could not have reached certain squares along the a and h files (such as at a2, where Block's one bishop is positioned on the diagramme), and none along an opponent's home rank.
The website's critical consensus reads: "Narratively bold and visually striking, The representation of Death as a white-faced man who wears a dark cape and plays chess with mortals has been a popular object of parody in other films and television.