The sparse use of sound reveals Bergman’s conception of a Godless void. As Bergman unsuccessfully pursued evidence of God’s existence, the soundscapes in his four films become increasingly minimal. The directors’ progressions toward these contrasting positions are evident through the uses of sound elements in their films. This thesis then contends that, when faced with this silence and its implications, Bergman desperately sought evidence of God’s existence while Tarkovsky unyieldingly maintained an attitude of faith. Becoming aware of this silence thus causes one to interrogate religious certainties which have hitherto been taken to be timeless and true. As a starting point, this thesis argues that the films present the silence of God as the primary indicator of God’s absence from the human world. These films were chosen as they represent the deepest periods of two directors’ engagements with the possible death of God and the subsequent loss of intrinsic existential meaning-topics with which this thesis is principally concerned. This thesis examines seven films from the cinemas of Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky-Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), and The Silence (1963), and Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), Nostalghia (1983), and The Sacrifice (1986).
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