Martin Scorsese has Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. John Cassavetes had Gena Rowlands. And Ingmar Bergman had Gunnar Björnstrand. Though the famed Swedish director – who directed more than 60 films during his career- is most often tied to luminaries such as Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow and Erland Josephson, it is Björnstrand – who appeared in many of the director’s movies – that is his most unsung muse.
Just look at the cover of The Seventh Seal, recently reissued by the Criterion Collection. We see von Sydow’s face cloaked in shadow. And while it is true that von Sydow possesses the lead role in the film, it is Björnstrand who has the more interesting part. von Sydow would continue to star not only in Bergman films, but also crossover to the United States in The Exorcist and numerous smaller roles in Hollywood fare from Minority Report to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Meanwhile, Björnstrand never really broke through as a leading man outside of Bergman films. But why?
Born Knut Gunnar Johanson in 1909, Björnstrand studied acting at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. He first encountered Bergman in 1941 in a theatrical production of an August Strindberg play. Though he earned small, and often uncredited roles, in movies beginning in 1931, his first major role came in 1943 for Night in the Harbor. Björnstrand then began working in Bergman’s movies three years later in It Rains on Our Love, playing a small role in the social drama that explores how the selfishness of human nature acts as a destructive force.
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Björnstrand appeared often in Bergman’s early comedies, snagging a leading role in A Lesson in Love (1954) where he played a philandering gynecologist whose marriage is crumbling and makes a last-ditch attempt to reconcile with his wife, played by Eva Dahlbeck. Bergman, Björnstrand and Dahlbeck would team up again one year later for Smiles of a Summer Night, a sex comedy adored by critics, ranking sixth on the Cahiers du Cinéma’s list of top films in 1956 and later imitated by both Stephen Sondheim and Woody Allen.
Bergman’s American breakthrough came with The Seventh Seal, his 1957 allegory. A stylistic leap for the director in its stark solemnity, The Seventh Seal marks the beginning of the themes the director would explore for the remainder of his career, over the course of scores of films until his 2007 death. American critics, led by Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice, helped elevate Bergman’s stature as a visual poet, and used The Seventh Seal and its follow-up, Wild Strawberries, as ambassadors of more abstract and intellectual filmmaking for American audiences. Like many of his greatest works, Bergman uses The Seventh Seal as an existentialist vehicle, exploring a landscape where God may have turned his back on humanity, leading to disillusionment, conflict and destruction.
Set during the Crusades (but also doubling as allegory for nuclear annihilation), The Seventh Seal begins on a weather-beaten beach. A knight named Augustus Block (von Sydow) and his squire, Jöns (Björnstrand), rest on the rocks. They have just returned from fighting overseas, enervated from years of battle. A peaceful existence doesn’t await them at home as the black death has swept over Sweden, killing thousands and driving others insane from fear. Upon awakening, Block encounters a man in black robe identifying himself as Death (Bengt Ekerot), who is there to collect him. But Block, who feels that God has grown silent, challenges Death to a chess match to stall the inevitable. He then sets out across a hellish medieval landscape to search for proof of God or the devil, Death constantly following him and filling Block with dread that life is essentially meaningless.
So where does Björnstrand factor in? The Seventh Seal is best remembered for the von Sydow-Ekerot chess match but it’s Björnstrand’s Jöns who is one of “Bergman’s (and Björnstrand’s) greatest characters,” according to critic Gary Giddins. While Block spends the entire film wringing his hands about the meaning of existence, it is Jöns who not only has the wittiest lines but also takes action in scene after scene.
Watching von Sydow and Björnstrand is a study in contrasts. von Sydow is gaunt, blonde and craggy. The camera loves the tall and thin actor. Meanwhile, the darker, stockier Björnstrand looks like a character actor. But while Block frets and worries about the existence of God, Björnstrand’s squire is a gleeful unbeliever. He is more openly scornful of the Crusades and the men who sent them to fight abroad. At one point, he encounters the monk (now a thief) who sent him and Block to fight the Crusades as he is about to rape a young woman. He threatens the thief and tells him if he encounters the man again, he will cut his face. “Our crusade was so stupid that only a true idealist could have thought it up,” Jöns quips, showing his disdain for religious hypocrisy.
But Death waits not only for Block, but for Jöns, as well. At the end of the film, the two men and various companions they pick up along the way must pay the piper. Death takes them away in the movie’s storied Dance of Death scene. But unlike Block, who prays for salvation, Jöns approaches his fate head-on. He is an agnostic and isn’t looking for redemption. He knows death is inevitable.
Bergman and Björnstrand continued to work together until near the actor’s death in 1986. Björnstrand’s final appearance would be in Fanny and Alexander (1982) where, stricken by memory loss, he struggled to complete his role. It is Björnstrand’s ability to fully embody his character that made him such a potent tool for Bergman. This disappearing act also allowed von Sydow and other players in Bergman’s ensemble to overshadow Björnstrand. But Bergman knew what he had in Björnstrand, giving the actor plum role after plum role in his films. This new restoration of The Seventh Seal proves his worth even more.
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