The Seventh Seal - Confession - best scene

This is a movie clip from the 1957 movie "Det Sjunde Inseglet" (The Seventh Seal), directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Antonius Block is a knight returning from the Crusades. Here, he's entering a chapel to confess about his withering faith and his thoughts about god and death to Death himself, who disguised into a priest. This is a short, yet accurate trip to the innermost depths of a human's fears and wonders.

KNIGHT
I want to talk to you as openly as I can, but
my heart is empty.

DEATH doesn't answer.

KNIGHT
The emptiness is a mirror turned towards my
own face. I see myself in it, and I am filled
with fear and disgust.

DEATH doesn't answer.

KNIGHT
Through my indifference to my fellow men, I
have isolated myself from their company. Now I
live in a world of phantoms. I am imprisoned in
my dreams and fantasies.

DEATH
And yet you don't want to die.

KNIGHT
Yes, I do.

DEATH
What are you waiting for?

KNIGHT
I want knowledge.



DEATH
You want guarantees?

KNIGHT
Call it whatever you like. Is it so cruelly
inconceivable to grasp God with the senses? Why
should He hide himself in a mist of half-spoken
promises and unseen miracles?

DEATH doesn't answer.

KNIGHT
How can we have faith in those who believe when
we can't have faith in ourselves? What is going
to happen to those of us who want to believe
but aren't able to? And what is to become of
those who neither want to nor are capable of
believing?

The KNIGHT stops and waits for a reply, but no one speaks or answers him.
There is complete silence.

KNIGHT
Why can't I kill God within me? Why does He
live on in this painful and humiliating way
even though I curse Him and want to tear Him
out of my heart? Why, in spite of everything,
is He a baffling reality that I can't shake
off? Do you hear me?

DEATH
Yes, I hear you.

KNIGHT
I want knowledge, not faith, not suppositions,
but knowledge. I want God to stretch out His
hand towards me, reveal Himself and speak to
me.

DEATH
But He remains silent.

KNIGHT
I call out to Him in the dark but no one seems
to be there.

DEATH
Perhaps no one is there.

KNIGHT
Then life is an outrageous horror. No one can
live in the face of death, knowing that all is
nothingness.

DEATH
Most people never reflect about either death or
the futility of life.

KNIGHT
But one day they will have to stand at that
last moment of life and look towards the
darkness.

DEATH
When that day comes ...

KNIGHT
In our fear, we make an image, and that image
we call God.

DEATH
You are worrying ...

KNIGHT
Death visited me this morning. We are playing
chess together. This reprieve gives me the
chance to arrange an urgent matter.

DEATH
What matter is that?

KNIGHT
My life has been a futile pursuit, a wandering,
a great deal of talk without meaning. I feel no
bitterness or self-reproach because the lives
of most people are very much like this. But I
will use my reprieve for one meaningful deed.

DEATH
Is that why you are playing chess with Death?

    KNIGHT 

  He is a clever opponent, but up to now I 

  haven't lost a single man.

     DEATH 

 How will you outwit Death in your game? 

     KNIGHT 

 I use a combination of the bishop and the 

 knight which he hasn't yet discovered. In the 

 next move I'll shatter one of his flanks.

     DEATH 

 I'll remember that.

DEATH shows his face at the grill of the confession booth for a moment but 

disappears instantly.

KNIGHT 

You've tricked and cheated me! But we'll meet 

again, and I'll find a way.

DEATH 

(invisible)

We'll meet at the inn, and there we'll continue 

playing.

Knight Antonius Block playing chess with Death