The Search for God in the works of A. Hitchcock and I. Bergman

Popova Liana Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0002-9766-7535 PhD in Cultural Studies Senior lecturer, State University of Management 109542, Russia, Moscow, Ryazan Avenue, 99, office U-404 pliana@mail.ru Other publications by this author

 So far, no attempt has been made among researchers to investigate the influence of A. Hitchcock's work on I. Bergman.

This relationship and continuity was pointed out only by the French director, one of the leaders of the "new wave", Francois Truffaut ^{[9, p. 131]}, in connection with which, this study is relevant and fundamentally new. The personality of A. Hitchcock continues to interest researchers at the present time. Monographs, books, articles devoted to his work are published, among the authors of which are P. Ackroyd ^[2], E. White ^[3], K. Mogg ^[4], M. Deflem ^[5], S. White ^[6], etc. The book by P. Ackroyd is the most complete biography of A. Hitchcock, translated into Russian. The work of I. Bergman also does not disappear from the field of view of researchers, including I. Rubanova ^[7], D. Orr ^[8], etc.

The purpose of this study is a comparative analysis of the work of A. Hitchcock and I. Bergman, identifying similarities and differences, including in matters of religious faith; the study of such a little-known aspect as the influence of A. Hitchcock on the work of I. Bergman. This continuity is confirmed by analyzing various sources ? literary and cinematic. The author also pays attention to the consideration of the religious views of A. Hitchcock, to which the researchers paid little attention.  The novelty of this research consists in identifying the links between directors, in applying an integrated approach to the analysis of their works.

Choosing a research methodology, we cannot limit ourselves to one method. Firstly, considering the artistic works of A. Hitchcock and I. Bergman, we cannot note their stylistic similarity, since they were influenced by the German expressionists, so a comparative method is used for analysis. Secondly, the paintings of the above-mentioned directors are united by religious themes, but at the same time, we cannot limit ourselves to religious studies analysis, because their films are a product of their time, we are obliged to consider them in a cultural context, in which phenomenological and psychological methods help. Thus, this study uses an integrated approach.

Among the extensive filmography of A. Hitchcock, one can single out films that most strongly relate to religious issues ? "I confess", "The Wrong person". Directly or indirectly, religious issues are also touched upon in other films of the director: "Vertigo", "Marnie", "Psycho", "Sabotage". The works of I. Bergman are most strongly imbued with religious themes: "The Seventh Seal", "The Devil's Eye", "Prison", "As in a Mirror", "Silence", "Communion", "Fanny and Alexander". Echoes of pagan motifs can be seen in A. Hitchcock's films "Marnie", "Rebecca", as well as in I. Bergman's films "Maiden's Spring", "The Hour of the Wolf", "Ritual". Analogies and comparisons can also be made with other films by A. Hitchcock and I. Bergman.

"Catholicity" by A. HitchcockFrancois Truffaut wrote:

"If in the era of Ingmar Bergman we recognize that cinema is in no way inferior to literature, then it seems to me that Hitchcock should be attributed ... to the same category of restless artists to which we attribute Kafka, Dostoevsky, Poe.

These artists who excite us, of course, cannot make life easier for us, because it is difficult for them to live, but their mission is to convey to us their own torments. And by this alone, probably even against their will, they help us to know ourselves better, which is the main purpose of any work of art" ^{[1, p. 12]}.

Indeed, the main questions that occupied the minds of Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman were questions about a person's place in the world, his relationship with himself, as well as with God. F. Truffaut wrote that I. Bergman was influenced by A. Hitchcock: "It's hard not to remember about "Suspicion" or "Rich and Strange", when you see in "Thirst" a very long conversation scene of the characters, developing thanks to almost imperceptible, but absolutely truthful gestures and, especially, a very complex and precisely calibrated game of views ^{[9, p. 131]}. At the beginning of his work, Bergman shot social dramas, comedies, but still, the core of his work consisted of paintings that affect the interests of human existence, moral and metaphysical order. We know Hitchcock as a master of suspense, adventure and detective stories, but he did not ignore these problems. From the entire extensive filmography of A. Hitchcock, it is possible to single out films concerning the problems of religious experience, which especially strongly influenced I. Bergman: "I confess" in 1953 and "The Wrong Man" in 1956.

According to the plot of the film "I confess", German emigrant Otto Keller, disguised in a priest's cassock, kills the famous lawyer Villette, from whom he wanted to borrow money. Keller asks the priest Father Logan to confess him. Suspicion falls on Logan's father, since the criminal was wearing a cassock, but he cannot reveal the secret of the confession. Hitchcock, being a Catholic, portrayed a Catholic priest for whom the mystery of confession is above all. As Hitchcock himself noted, "a priest who confesses a murderer, as it were, takes upon himself his sin" ^{[1, p. 118]}, that is, becomes involved in the crime. As in Hitchcock's early films, starting with The Lodger, filmed in 1927, there is a motive for accusing an innocent, "the wrong person". The work of M. Deflem is devoted to the problem of guilt and innocence in A. Hitchcock ^[5]. A. Hitchcock, being a Catholic himself, portrayed a Catholic priest in such a way that the situation seemed implausible to the audience. He explained his "blunder" as follows: "We Catholics know that under no circumstances can a priest reveal the secret of confession, and Protestants, atheists or pagans will say: "Laughter, and only, who will be silent, risking their lives for the sake of another!"" ^{[1, p. 118]}. As a child, A. Hitchcock was sent very early to study at St. Ignacy's College, a Jesuit school in London. When asked by F. Truffaut how he reacts when he is called a Catholic artist, he replied: "This is not an easy question, and I am not sure that I can give an exact answer to it. I was born into a Catholic family and received a strict religious education. My wife also converted to Catholicism before getting married. I don't think I can be labeled a "Catholic artist", but early childhood education determines a person's life and curbs instincts" ^{[1, p. 118]}. It is not for nothing that Hitchcock in his work showed interest in the irrational, in the subconscious, in instincts.

In the films of A. Hitchcock, Catholic churches are often present in the frame, and not Baptist or Lutheran ones. In the film "I Confess", at the time of Father Logan's accusation, churches are mounted in parallel, which are removed at an angle, they are deformed, which indicates a decline in the authority of the church. In conversation with F. Truffaut A. Hitchcock said: "For Vertigo I needed a church with a bell tower. In California, they are found only in Catholic missions. In this case, I did not choose — this detail came from the novel by Boileau-Narsezhak. It is impossible to imagine anyone jumping from the tower of a modern Protestant church. Yes, you can't call me an atheist, although I'm not a very zealous parishioner" ^{[1, p. 118]}.

 J. Deleuze noted that there is a concept of "Catholicity of cinema" ^{[10, p. 433]} due to the fact that "many directors were Catholics, even in America — and non-Catholics maintained difficult relations with Catholicism" ^{[10, p. 433]}. The key to understanding Hitchcock in his Catholicism was sought by E. Romer and K. Chabrol ^[11]. S. Zizek noted that "although this approach seems discredited today (it was overshadowed by the great semiotic and psychoanalytic analyses of the 1970s), it is still worth returning to it" ^{[12, p. 84]}. In addition, it is worth considering that the Catholic tradition referred to by Romer and Chabrol, according to S. Zizek, is "not Catholicism, but Jansenism" ^{[12, p. 84]}. "The Jansenist problematics of sin, the relationship between virtue and grace, actually outlines for the first time the relationship between the subject and the Law that defines the "Hitchcock universe"" ^{[12, p. 84]}. S. Zizek referred to J. Deleuze, who found a link between Hitchcock and the tradition of English thought in the theory of external relations, which "English empiricism opposed the continental tradition, which understood the development of an object as the disclosure of its inherent potential" ^{[12, pp. 84-85]}. In his opinion, "the "Hitchcockian universe", where some completely external intervention of Fate, in no way based on the immanent properties of the subject, suddenly changing its symbolic status," fits into the tradition of English empiricism, but this tradition lacks "subjective dimension, tension, absurd discord between the experience of the subject's own "I" and an external network that determines its Truth" ^{[12, p. 85]}. S. Zizek believes that, nevertheless, in Jansenism there is a split between "immanent virtue and transcendent grace or curse" ^{[12, p. 86]}. God does not make a decision about saving a person based on his actions, it is predetermined in advance who will be saved and who will not. Consequently, Hitchcock's work cannot be reduced to the Jansenist tradition alone. S. Zizek uses the concept of Dieu obscur (dark god), Fate, which, in his opinion, is embodied in Hitchcock's huge statues — the Statue of Liberty in "Sabotage", the Egyptian goddess in the British Museum in "Blackmail". Hitchcock also assumes the role of a "magnanimous evil God" ^{[12, p. 92]}, playing with the audience, but in the film "The Wrong Man" he rejected this role, addressing the audience directly, instead of conveying the message in an artistic form, as a result of which the message itself lost credibility. In fact, Hitchcock goes further: he makes the hero cry out to the almighty Christian God.

The main character of the film "The Wrong Man", musician Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero, is an Italian, that is, a person belonging to the Catholic tradition. Balestrero, never late, never delayed, without calling, without informing about the delay. He is in financial difficulties, plays at the races. One day he decides to pawn his wife's insurance policy in order to get some money, but in the insurance company he is mistaken for a man who robbed the cashier of this company. The police detain him without giving anything to tell his family. In the process of identification, he is "recognized" by the rest of the employees of the insurance company, the seller of the liquor store. Balestrero is forced to write a note with a threat that the robber wrote, he makes the same mistake as the criminal. Balestrero recalls that during the commission of one of the robberies, he and his wife were resting in a boarding house. The attempt to find the witness was unsuccessful: all the witnesses are dead. He became a victim of circumstances, "Fate": "As if Fate itself is against us...". Now he is trying to enlist the support of God, taking a crucifix to court. Balestrero is fingering a rosary with a crucifix in court, and suddenly — an unexpected turn in the case. The juror, convinced of his guilt, turns to the judge: "Your Honor, is it absolutely necessary for us to listen to all this?" Because of this violation, the process is postponed. At home, the mother asks Balestrero: "Did you pray?...  Ask me to give you strength." Balestrero replies, "Only a lucky chance will help me." Hope for chance is replaced by prayer, after Balestrero's gaze fell on the icon with the image of Christ. He begins to pray, the image of Balestrero through the influx turns into the image of a criminal who is about to be caught. Blind "Fate" retreats before the might of the Christian God. Justice will be restored, but Balestrero's wife spent two years in a psychiatric clinic, undermining her health during the trial. The scene with the crucifixion in court, as well as the scene with the prayer of Balestrero, are the most powerful moments of the film. F. Truffaut noticed that only a Catholic could have staged such scenes ^{[1, p. 187]}. 

A. Hitchcock initially took Catholicism for granted.

"The Silence of God" by I. BergmanMuch in common lay at the heart of the formation of the personality of A. Hitchcock, brought up by the Jesuits, and the pastor's son I. Bergman, who wrote:

"Our upbringing was based on such concepts as sin, confession, punishment, forgiveness and mercy, specific factors of the relationship of children and parents between themselves and God....  We had never heard anything about freedom and had no idea what it was. In a hierarchical system, all doors are closed" ^{[13, p. 16]}.  Bergman's complicated relationship with his pastor father, family relations in general, led the young Bergman to reject the idea of God: ""I can't contain my disgust, I hate God and Jesus, especially Jesus - I hate his oil, nasty communion and his blood. There is no God, no one is able to prove that he exists. And if he is, then he is a very nasty god, petty, vindictive, biased. Look at it! Read the Old Testament, there it appears in all its splendor! And such a one is called the god of love, the god who loves people" ^{[13, p. 97]}.  According to Z. Freud ^[14], the image of the father is associated with the image of God. Faith in God rests on the relationship to the father. The complex of father and authoritarianism first appears in Bergman in the film "The Ship goes to India", filmed in 1947, based on the play by the Finnish playwright Martin S?derjelm ^{[15, p. 145]}. According to the plot of the film, young Johannes Bloom lives with his father and mother on a ship, where his father serves as a captain and is engaged in lifting sunken ships. Alexander, the father of Johannes, hates his son from birth because he was born sick, constantly beats and humiliates him, and takes his son's strong stoop for a hump. Johannes has an inferiority complex and is afraid of his father. Father has fun in the city, drinking and chasing women. One day he brings on board a variety show singer Sally, who, charmed by his generosity, gradually becomes disillusioned with him, seeing how he mocks his wife and son. Sally and Johannes fell in love with each other, arousing the hatred of the captain. The father tries to kill his son: during the immersion of Johannes, the father cuts the air hose. Johannes' mother calls for help from the sailors, he is saved. The father runs into the city to his secret apartment, where the police are rushing. At this time, his secret illness manifests itself: he goes blind and jumps out of the window. Johannes goes sailing, after a few years he returns as a captain, a slender handsome man, his stoop disappears. He finds Sally and takes her away with him. In Johannes' relationship with his father, we see a manifestation of Freud's "Oedipus complex": fear of the father and, at the same time, worship of his authority, the struggle for a common mistress.

It is impossible not to agree with E.S. Gromov that I. Bergman is trying to comprehend the human personality in the "concepts of Freudian-Jungian psychology" ^{[16, p. 490]}, speaking about "collective complexes" — fear, guilt, humiliation ^{[16, p. 490]}. Z. Freud considered humanity at the dawn of its history, where a tough and jealous father dominates women and expels his growing sons. The exiled sons kill their father and eat him, as a result of which they experience a guilt complex, but through the act of eating each of them appropriated a part of his power. The totemic meal is a repetition and remembrance of this criminal act, from which "social organizations, moral restrictions and religion" originate ^{[14, p. 331]}. The totem animal now serves as a substitute for the father, it is forbidden to kill him. Along with this prohibition, another prohibition is born — the prohibition of incest: the sons abandoned the liberated women ^{[14, p. 333]}. With the elevation of the murdered father to the degree of god, the transition to a patriarchal society was marked, and the sacrifice is an echo of the totemic meal, now sacrifices are offered to the deity. In Christianity, according to Z. Freud, the original sin of man is a sin against God the father. Christ frees people from their sins by sacrificing himself. This sacrifice is reconciliation with God the Father. Now the son himself becomes God along with the father. The ancient totemic meal "comes to life again as a communion in which brothers eat the flesh and blood of the son, not the father, are sanctified by this communion and identify themselves with him" ^{[14, pp. 343-344]}. One can relate to the teachings of Z. Freud in different ways, but in the works of I. Bergman, the relationship of man with God is closely intertwined with the relationship of man with his father. So it is in the film "As in a mirror" ("Through a dim glass"), filmed in 1961. The main character Karin hears voices, waits for the coming of God. The father, seeking intimacy from Karin, became the culprit of her schizophrenia. Karin's brother, whom everyone calls Minus, is experiencing difficulties of transition age, is in despair because of the difficult relationship with his father and the incest that happened between him and his sister. Karin is waiting for the door to open in her house and "He", that is, the Lord, will appear. The disease worsens after she mistakes the sound of a helicopter for the sound of God approaching: "The door opened, but God turned out to be a spider. He came up, and I saw His face: it was a terrible stone face. He tried to penetrate me, but I resisted with all my might. His eyes!  They were calm and cold....  He couldn't penetrate me.... I saw God..." In an interview, Bergman was asked about the reason for the transformation of the concept of God from an unusually strong, omnipotent image with unshakable ethical principles to a "Spider-God". He replied that it was a complete rejection of the idea of the possibility of salvation beyond earthly life.: "I have come to this conviction in recent years and believe that the holy is contained in the person himself. This is the only holiness that exists in reality. She is quite earthly. The only form of the holy principle is love....  At the same time, a new direction emerged in my idea of God, and over the years it has become established. I believe that the Christian god is something destructive, dangerous to man, causing dark destructive forces to come to life" ^{[15, p. 222]}.

The heroine of the film "As in a mirror" Karin is taken to a hospital, Minus stays with her father. Finally, father and son manage to have a serious conversation. The father does not reject the incestuous son. Minus confesses to his father in his fear that he cannot live in this world. The father, a desperate writer, sees a way out only in life with God: "I can give you a piece of my hope, you must understand that love exists in this world." Love is the highest and the lowest, the most destructive and the most perfect. Is love a proof of the existence of God? The father has no answer to this question. Minus joyfully says: "My father talked to me!". That is, he reconciles with God through establishing good relations with the father. The Father is a kind of projection of God.

During the filming of "As in a Mirror", I. Bergman wanted to show that "God is love", but already at the beginning of filming he began to doubt this ^{[15, p. 222]}. The question of faith worried Bergman all his life. After he had shot about forty-five films, he wrote: "Of course, I do not believe in God, but the situation is not so simple, each of us carries God in himself, there is a pattern in everything that we sometimes see clearly, especially in the hour of death" ^{[13, p. 205]}. The question of faith is most acute in his film "Communion", filmed in 1962.  The film begins with a scene of a sermon by Priest Thomas Erickson, after which the sacrament of communion is performed. In addition to the pastor, there are only a few people in the church: the teacher Martha Lundberg, the spouses of the Persons, the organist. In general, people are indifferent to the sermon, the sexton yawns, the child of one of the parishioners falls asleep, the organist Frederick Bloom looks at the clock while playing the organ — he is in a hurry to work part-time elsewhere. Karin Person asks the pastor to talk to her husband, Johans, who, along with material problems, is tormented by world problems, including "whether the Chinese will invent an atomic bomb." The couple has three children, waiting for the birth of the fourth. The pastor, in a conversation with Yogans, says that you need to believe in God and move on. "But why should we live? Sundance asks. The pastor has no answer. Only to Martha, who is in love with him, he can tell about his doubts, in words: "God is silent." The pastor admits that all his sermons are false. Murta makes him read his long letter, written on 27 pages. The pastor's wife died four years ago, for two years he lived with Martha, whom he does not love, but she is the only person close to him. She wants him to learn to love. In the letter, Murta recalls their conversation with the pastor, where he claimed that he believed in the power of prayer, but could not pray for the wounds on Murta's hands. Martha herself is devoid of faith, but she cannot understand the pastor's indifference to Jesus Christ. In her opinion, God and prayers have nothing to do with each other. Martha is strong in spirit and body, but she has no purpose in life, she does not know where to put her strength. She prayed for clarity of mind and received the answer: she loves the pastor, he is her strength. To live for him is her only wish. Martha's letter causes the pastor to cry. At this moment Jonas comes, the pastor admits that after the death of his wife, life lost all meaning for him, but he wanted to benefit people. He had a dream: to leave a mark in this world. In his youth, he knew nothing about evil. He served in Lisbon during the Spanish Civil War, and refused to believe in reality. The pastor believes that he is a bad priest who believed in the teachings of Christ, who loved all mankind: "Every time I compared the Lord with reality, for me He turned into something terrible and vile: a spider God, a huge monster." The pastor repeats the words of Karin from the movie "Like in a Mirror". Bergman's search for God continues in Communion. Pastor Thomas talked to God about his wife while she was alive. She supported him in everything, with her death the pastor lost faith. It is impossible not to agree with N.A. Khrenov that the pastor's faith was based on love, "on an earthly feeling" ^{[17, p. 142]}. In the sermons of the pastor sounded: "God is love, and love is God. Love proves the existence of the Lord. Love is the driving force of humanity." Now there is no Creator for the pastor, there is no life support, there is no peace. He shares these thoughts with a desperate Jonas. After Jonas leaves, the pastor asks the question of Christ: "Lord, why did You leave me?" A revolution is taking place in the pastor's mind. In the film, this is solved with the help of the image and skill of the excellent cameraman Sven Nyquist: a stream of light descends from the window onto the pastor, similar to the light in the painting by M. Caravaggio "The Calling of the Apostle Matthew".  The pastor says: "I'm free! I'm finally free." At this time, Jonas commits suicide, as if he turns out to be a victim at the slaughter. The pastor is upset, but Martha supports him. He begins the evening service in an empty church. All these events fit into the scheme "priest — sacrifice — restoration of balance" ^[18].

The final of Bergman's "Communion" did not develop for a long time ^{[13, p. 315]}. In preparation for filming, he visited the churches of Uppland, spent several hours there, watching the play of light. One day he took his father with him, who at that time was seventy-five years old. Being a sick man, his father, thanks to self-discipline and willpower, performed duties in the palace parish. They visited one small church, there were only a few people there. The priest was ill, he came out, apologized and said that he felt bad, that he had talked to the rector, and he allowed him to shorten the festive mass, so there would be no service in the altar, but only a psalm and a sermon. Bergman's father was outraged. He talked to the pastor, after which he announced to the parishioners that there would be a full festive mass. The service in the altar was conducted by the director's father ^{[13, pp. 315-317]}. "As for me," wrote I. Bergman, "I have found the final scene for the "Communion" and the rule that I have always followed and am going to follow: you are obliged, no matter what, to perform your divine service.This is important for the flock and even more important for yourself. How important this is for God will be found out later. But if there is no other god but your hope, then this is important for God as well" ^{[13, p. 317]}.

Filming "Communion" changed a lot in Bergman's mind. He confessed: "I felt a strange parallelism in myself. When the religious superstructure that oppressed me collapsed, my tightness also disappeared. First of all, the fear that I am not at the level of today, not a contemporary, has disappeared. I got rid of this feeling when I made the "Communion", and after it did not come back to me" ^{[15, p. 243]}.

The theme of the "silence of God", stated in the films "As in a Mirror", "Communion" continues in the next film of the trilogy, which is called "Silence". There are almost no words in the film, in the pictorial solution Bergman took a step forward. The film is based on the confrontation of two sisters who hate each other and do not talk. An intellectual with cancer, Esther, symbolizes the spiritual principle, Anna — the bodily, sensual. Both sisters are fighting for the attention of the boy, Anna's son. The dying Esther manages to give her nephew a note, he is her spiritual heir. "God is silent," He left people, just as Anna leaves Esther, leaving her to die in a hotel, but Bergman admitted: "The moment when Esther secretly sends a note to the boy is important to me. It is very important that the boy reads it with difficulty, syllables, but reads it" ^{[15, p. 230]}. Bergman believed that for all her wretchedness, Esther is "the quintessence of something indestructibly human" ^{[15, p. 230]}.

"All my adult life I have struggled with my attitude to God — painful and joyless. Faith and unbelief, guilt, punishment, mercy and condemnation were an inevitable reality. My prayers stank of fear, supplication, cursing, gratitude, hope, disgust and despair: God spoke, God was silent. Do not turn Your face away from me" ^{[13, p. 238]}, I. Bergman confessed. One of the fears that haunted him as a child was the fear of death: "Death is an incomprehensible horror, not because it causes pain, but because it is filled with nightmares from which it is impossible to wake up" ^{[13, p. 97]}. Often children's fears give rise to creativity. Bergman liked to repeat Maria Vinet's expression that "a person sleeps in the shoe of his childhood" ^{[15, p. 205]}. Bergman's childhood experiences about the fear of death were embodied in the film "The Seventh Seal". As a child, while in church, I. Bergman immersed himself in contemplation of altar paintings, utensils, crucifixes, stained glass windows and frescoes. Along with the images of Christ and Mary Magdalene, he saw the following picture: "A knight plays chess with Death. Death saws the Tree of Life, the poor man sits on the top, wringing his hands, seized with horror. Death, waving a scythe like a banner, leads a dancing procession to the Kingdom of Darkness, the flock dances, stretched out in a long chain, the fool slides along the rope. Devils boil cauldrons, sinners throw themselves upside down into the fire. Adam and Eve saw their nakedness. Because of the forbidden tree, God's eye was established" ^{[13, pp. 317-318]}. It is in "The Seventh Seal", a film made in 1957, that the theme of "the silence of God" is outlined. Knight Anthony Blok in his youth was obsessed with the idea of God, as a result of which he went on a crusade with his squire Jons. On his return from the campaign, the knight meets Death on the seashore. Bergman first outlined the image of Death in the film "Summer Game" ("Summer Interlude"), filmed in 1951. Here Death appears in the image of Mrs. Calvagen, the aunt of the main character Hendrik: an old woman in black playing chess with a pastor.  In the "Seventh Seal" Death appears in the form of a man with a pale face, dressed in black clothes. The Knight offers Death a game of chess. The condition of the game: the knight will live until he loses. The fact is that he doubted the existence of God: "Why am I not able to kill God in myself? Why does he painfully, humiliatingly continue to live in me, even though I swear to him, I want to tear him out of my heart? Why, contrary to all likelihood, does he mockingly exist, and I can't get rid of him?". God is silent, the knight comes to the conclusion that God is only fear: "We create an image of our own fear, and we name this idol God." He longs for knowledge about God: "Not to believe, to assume, but to know." To do this, he needs a postponement of death. It is impossible not to agree with N.A. Khrenov that although Anthony Blok wears medieval clothes, nevertheless he is quite a modern man" ^{[17, p. 198]}. It is not enough for him to have faith in God, he needs to have knowledge: "Knowledge about the existence of God. A man of the era of science cannot do without this confidence" ^{[17, p. 198]}.

The knight and Jons stop at the church. Jons talks with the artist Bogomaz, who is painting the "Dance of Death" on the wall: a plot in which people die from the plague, and Death drags everyone along in a dance. Bogomaz writes such scenes, because he believes that people need to be reminded that they are mortal. Atheist Jons believes that, on the contrary, people will rush into the arms of priests out of fear. "It's none of my business," Bogomaz replies. Anthony Blok tries to confess, but the confessor turns out to be Death himself, who finds out from him the chess combination that the knight has prepared for her.

Anthony Blok and Jons meet traveling artists who are going to the patronal feast in Elsinore: this is a married couple Yuf and Mia with a baby and their colleague Skat. Yuf and Mia symbolize the holy family. Bergman admitted that they were Joseph and Mary ^{[15, p. 196]}. It is not for nothing that the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child appears to the Sfu. Stingray, the performer of the role of Death, puts a skull mask on his head during the performance. After the performance, the Stingray seduces the wife of a peasant Plow. He arranges a duel with a Stingray. The stingray pretends suicide and decides to sit on a tree. Games with Death are dangerous: Death saws the tree on which the Stingray sits. This is how the frescoes seen by Bergman as a child come to life in his painting. Only the "holy family" — Yufu and Mia with the baby will be able to avoid Death. The knight offers them to wait out the plague in his castle, where he invites Plough and his wife Lisa. Death appears to continue the game with the knight. The knight knocks over the board, as if by accident. At this time, Yufu and Mia with the baby manage to escape. The knight loses the game, with his travelers he arrives at his castle, where his wife Karin meets him. In the morning, during the reading of the Revelation of John, everyone is waiting for a miracle, but instead of a miracle, Death appears, which draws everyone along with him in a dance, like the scene depicted by Bogomaz. Yuf sees this scene on the lawn. "You're always with your visions," Mia will say.

The foreign press wrote that "The Seventh Seal" is an apocalyptic film predicting a nuclear catastrophe ^{[15, p. 198]}. According to Bergman: "That's why this film was made, it talks about the fear of death. Thanks to him, I got rid of my own fear of death" ^{[15, p. 198]}. In I. Bergman, the image of Death evolves from female to male. In A. Hitchcock, Death is an exclusively female image: Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca", Millie ("Under the sign of Capricorn"), the mother of Norman Bates in "Psycho", a 1960 film. Norman's imaginary mother, or rather Norman, disguised as his mother, kills the main character Marion. What's left of Norman's mother is a mummy made by him. Norman is a taxidermist, as indicated by the stuffed birds in his hotel. These effigies are also echoes of death, signs. The literary basis of "Psycho" was a novel by Robert Bloch. The author of the novel recalled: "Then, in the late fifties, Freud's theory was extremely popular, and despite the fact that I liked Jung more, I still decided to develop the story in the direction of Freud. This psychologist paid great attention to the oedipus complex, so I decided that, let's say, the killer should suffer from this particular disease ..." ^{[19, p. 26]}.

 Although "Psycho" is an adaptation of a well-defined work, a novel by Robert Bloch, the iconography of Norman's mother is influenced by the "Mask of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe, who had a great influence on A. Hitchcock ^{[2, p. 19]}. I. Bergman was influenced by Christian culture, church paintings, scenes of the Apocalypse and, of course, A. Strindberg ^{[15, p. 139]} with his "Dance of Death".

In the Seventh Seal, Anthony Blok searches for God, but God is silent. To know about his existence, you need to know about his antipode — the Devil. Along the way, the knight and Jons meet a girl named Tian, who is considered a witch and sentenced to be burned. Antonia wonders if she has seen the Devil. Anthony longs to meet the Devil in order to ask about God. Tian replies that in order to see the Devil, you need to look into her eyes, but the knight sees only fear and emptiness there.

The Devil's theme is present in one of Bergman's early films "Prison" in 1949. An old professor of mathematics, who came out of a mental hospital, visits his former student director Martin on the set and offers him the idea of the film, which is that "God is dead" and the Devil rules hell named Earth. Further events unfold in the present tense and are connected with Martin's friend, screenwriter Thomas, who is experiencing a family crisis. He leaves home and meets a prostitute Birgitta-Karolina, whom he tries to save from her pimp Peter. Peter and his sister kill Birgita's newborn baby, and she is told that he has died. A meeting with Thomas causes a change in Birgit-Karolina, after learning that her child was killed, and commits suicide. According to the definition of I. Bergman himself, Birgitta-Karolina is a "lamb to the slaughter" ^{[15, p. 155]}. Thomas returns to his wife Sophie. Under the influence of these events, Martin refuses the idea of a film proposed by the professor, because the picture will end with a big question, and there will be no one to ask. Except to believe in God.…

Why did Bergman make this film? He explained: "Let's now sort out this story with the devil once and for all. If we start from afar, then we can say that my idea of God has completely changed over the years, erased and disappeared. But hell for me is still a concept with a strong psychological impact.... Hell is created by people themselves, and it exists on earth.... Nevertheless, I believed... that there is some kind of toxic evil that does not depend in the slightest on the environment or hereditary factors. You can call it original sin or some other active evil, which is inherent only in man and which distinguishes him from animals.... As a bodily embodiment of this toxic, constantly existing, incomprehensible and inexplicable evil, I created a certain personality with the attributes of a trait from medieval morals" ^{[15, pp. 151-152]}. Such a trait appears in the 1960 film "The Devil's Eye", filmed in a theatrical manner. The epigraph to the film is the Irish saying "The innocence of a young maiden is barley on the eye of the Devil." According to the plot of the film, the Devil got barley because a young girl is getting married and can remain innocent. In hell, they decide to send a specialist in seduction Don Juan to earth, but the aging seducer himself falls in love with the girl and manages to kiss her. The girl manages to hide this fact from her lover by lying to him. The devil considers this his victory, the barley disappears, but the loving Don Juan remains disobedient, neither to him nor to heaven. The conclusion of the film is as follows: "A small victory in hell can be much more fateful than a great success in heaven."

From the depths of centuriesI. Bergman cannot be called an atheist, his constant doubts, the search for God say otherwise.

He was an obsessive man in his own way, as creative artists can be. His revolt against the Christian God was rather a revolt against his ceremonial conventions and humiliation, which he experienced as a result of religious upbringing in his father's house. He said: "My active protest against Christianity is based mainly on the fact that Christianity contains a strong and ineradicable motive of humiliation. One of its main provisions is: "I am a miserable, sinful person, born in sin and continuing to sin all my life" ^{[15, pp. 176-177]}. His search is directed to the depths of centuries, at a time when there was no Christian religion yet. Ancient pagan cults come into conflict with Christianity in the 1960 film "Maiden's Spring". The hero's eldest daughter from his first marriage, Ingeri, hates her sister Karin, her parents' favorite. She calls out to Odin, performing a magical rite, puts a frog in her basket with bread. Her sister dies at the hands of rapists, Ingeri repents of everything and tells her parents about the incident. The father takes revenge for his daughter and swears to build a church at the place of her death. It was this film that Bergman would later call "spiritual hackwork": "The first mistake was to introduce the idea that building a church means healing for these people. Of course, we are talking about “therapy” here, but in an artistic sense it is absolutely not interesting. And then the introduction of a completely unexplained concept of God. The mixing of a real, active depiction of violence, which has a certain artistic potency, with fraud in the rest — it seems to me extremely sad" ^{[15, p. 153]}. Pagan motifs associated with the cult of Dionysus predominate in the 1969 film Ritual. Two traveling artists and one artist were summoned for questioning about one of the provocative scenes from their performance. During the conversation with the judge and the priest, the details of their lives, illnesses, and fears are clarified. The artists are invited to reproduce a scene that resembles an ancient ritual, as a result of which the judge dies. I. Bergman himself explained: "I took it from the cult of Dionysus, there is an element of it in the Catholic communion. At a certain moment, the priest raises the chalice. There is no communion in the Protestant rite, Lutheranism forbids communion. Elevation, that is, the raising of hands, is a ritual of the Catholic Church inherited from the cult of Dionysus, in which the priest raised a cup filled with blood over his head, while he himself was reflected in the mask of god behind his back, and then “drank god” ^{[15, p. 256]}. At the same time, Bergman never leaned towards Catholicism, he believed that "Catholicism has something attractive, and Protestantism is a pathetic concoction" ^{[15, p. 212]}. The theater is an area of sacred rites, it originates from Dionysus. The meaning of the film "Ritual" is not what the actors do at the end: "The performer kills the viewer — that's when we can say that we have reached the top of the engaged theater.... Ritual is a game of the artist with the public, the artist with society, it is a mixture of mutual humiliation and mutual need to communicate with each other. This is something ritual" ^{[15, p. 255]}.

Dionysian motifs are also inherent in the 1968 film The Hour of the Wolf. The very concept of the "Hour of the Wolf" was defined by I. Bergman as follows: "I usually sleep four to five hours, it still went nowhere .... The hardest part is the “hour of the wolf", between three and five. At this time, demons come together: annoyance, longing, fear, disgust, rage. Trying to crush them is useless — it gets even worse. When the eyes get tired of reading, it's the turn of music. Closing my eyes, I listen intently, giving the demons full freedom of action: go ahead, I know you, your habits, rage until you get tired, I won't resist.Demons rage with might and main, then suddenly give up the ghost, become ridiculous and disappear, and I fall asleep for a couple of hours" ^{[13, p. 264]}. The film tells the story of the artist Johan Borg, possessed by demons. His demons come to life in the images of the inhabitants of the castle belonging to Baron von Merkens. During one of the parties, Johan is lured into the forest and killed, his body disappears without a trace. The murder of Johan Borg resembles the mauling of Dionysus. The expressionistic manner of the film makes I. Bergman related to A. Hitchcock, who in the 1920s worked in Germany and studied with German expressionists, as pointed out by P. Ackroyd ^[2]. A separate article by the author "Night Action in the films of A. Hitchcock" is devoted to identifying the links between the German Expressionists and A. Hitchcock ^{[20, p. 95]}.

I. Bergman admitted that the German expressionists could have influenced him ^{[15, p. 209]}. If Bergman has pagan motives, then Hitchcock sometimes goes even further, up to animism, fetishism and magic. Hence the severed head of a native in the 1949 film Under the Sign of Capricorn. The actions in the film affect the British colony of Australia of the XIX century. The governor's nephew Charles Adair meets a former convict, and now a successful businessman Sam Flusky, whose wife, Henrietta, turns out to be a friend of Charles' sister. At a reception at Flaskie's, Charles says a prayer before a meal, causing the surprise of other guests. Henrietta is addicted to alcohol, she starts hallucinating. It turns out that Millie, the housekeeper in love with Sam Flusky, gets her drunk, then puts a native's head in her bed. Henrietta is brought back to life and the disturbed balance is restored by Charles Edeyr — a representative of the English civilization and Christian culture related to A. Hitchcock.

In the film "Rebecca", filmed back in 1940, based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier, the heroine has been dead for a long time, but she seems to be present in real reality: her things talk about her. Rebecca's cult is supported by her devoted housekeeper, who sets fire to the castle and dies herself. The servant of the cult of the dead dies, the young couple is happy again. Hitchcock penetrated into the depths of the human psyche, plunging the viewer into a trance, in times before human civilization, but the Christian almighty God always wins for him. The heroine of "Psycho" Marion Craig, in love with Sam Loomis, steals a large amount of money from the company in which she works. Staying at the Norman Bates hotel, she repents and decides to return the money, but she is killed while taking a shower. The shower in this case is a metaphor for purification ^{[12, p. 117]}, and Marion is a sacrifice at the slaughter. The police are on the trail of Norman Bates, who has committed more than one murder. This is how the disturbed balance is restored. In the film "Marnie", filmed later, in 1964, the heroine resembles Marion, but her fate is not so harsh. Marnie, raised by a single mother in strictness, changes her appearance every time she gets a job and after a while steals the owner. One of them, Michael Wrightland, exposes Marnie and blackmails her into marrying him. Marnie is afraid of men, red and thunder. Michael investigates, and it turns out that Marnie's mother was a prostitute, and during one of the meetings, the mother's client was killed. The client molested little Marnie, the mother tried to protect her,  Marnie, trying to help her mother, accidentally killed him. The investigation considered the man's death to be an accident, and the event itself was erased from Marnie's memory. The mother vows to God to lead a righteous life and raise Marnie "decent".  Marnie is a fraud, a thief, but "decent", the punishment for Marnie is not as severe as for Marion. As a savior, Michael is sent to her, who is a metaphor for the archangel Michael, who promises Marnie protection in case she admits guilt. The divine, in A. Hitchcock, is somehow present in the frame, in this case, in the form of thunder and lightning.

As for I. Bergman, his doubts and search for God continued until the end of his life. In one of the later films "Fanny and Alexander", filmed in 1982, the theme of "the silence of God" was violated. God speaks to young Alexander Ekdal and informs him that God is the world, and the world is God. However, it turns out that it was not God who spoke, but Aron, the nephew of Isaac Jacobi, a family friend. Alexander is confronted by his stepfather Edward Vergerus, a priest who personifies lies and hypocrisy. He manages to mislead Fanny and Alexander's mother Emily and become her husband. Emily is an actress, and, in her own words, "wears a mask." Her idea of God is vague, her God wears a thousand masks. Emily hopes to find the true God through her father Vergerus, but is cruelly deceived, and her children suffer from a cruel despot. Alexander's revolt against Father Vergerus is I. Bergman's own revolt against ritual and religious conventions, against humiliation, on which, in his opinion, the system of Christian education is built. His attitude to religion is best characterized by his own words: "Religious beliefs and the phenomenon of faith are something that you can never be sure of.... They can overtake us when we least expect it. It's like the Hong Kong flu, a lightning strike or something like that. And then you are completely powerless, you are in their power" ^{[15, p. 224]}.

Conclusion

Thus, we see that both A. Hitchcock and I. Bergman were concerned about moral and religious issues. Bergman's religious views underwent a long transformation throughout his life. A. Hitchcock initially took Catholicism for granted. Catholic upbringing, curbing instincts, gave him an interest in the irrational. I. Bergman's complicated relationship with his pastor father led the director to reject the idea of God. In the Christian God, Bergman saw something destructive, causing dark forces to come to life. In his opinion, the holy is present in man himself, the only form of the holy is Love. Subsequently, I. Berman refuses this idea. This is how the topic of "God's silence" arose. A person is thrown into an existential space, whose name is life. Man is mortal, the fear of God is connected with the fear of death. In Bergman, the image of Death evolves from female to male, in Hitchcock it appears exclusively in female images. The theme of the "silence of God" begins with the "Seventh Seal". To know about the existence of God, it is necessary to know about his antipode ? the Devil. Hell, according to Bergman, was created by people themselves and exists on earth. It is impossible to explain evil without the concept of God. Bergman's search is directed deep into the centuries, into paganism, which makes him related to Hitchcock. They turn to the uncontrollable, irrational, magical and Dionysian. I. Bergman's revolt against God is a revolt against the ritual convention that prevailed in the father's house. In Hitchcock's films, the divine is invisibly present in the frame: either as a punishing force (Fate), or as a force that gives hope. Hitchcock's religious views were more conservative and stable, which affects the rhythm of his paintings, the fast rhythm of which captures the audience and leads them to where the director needs. The rhythm of Bergman's paintings calls the viewer to deeper reflection, concentration and independent search for truth.