Absolutely love your dad. God bless him. On another point: Nils Poppe, who plays the jester Jof, had pretty much only done very light-weight comedy roles for a couple of decades before this. It was a really brave casting by Bergman, which took the critics by surprise, but it turned out very successful.

Maybe he was looking for a sense of life? Empathy, self-sacrifice, enjoying the little things in life a day by day, taking nothing for granted... Finding happiness in the tiny moments with those who are close to you. Love... All in all... This is just my interpretation. I think the family's way of living even amongst the deadliest of plagues is the perfect illustration of that. This is a timeless, iconic movie. Thank you for reacting to it.

The motif with the knight playing chess with death comes directly from a mural painting in a medieval church in sweden. Bergman saw it and took it as inspiration for this film. The artist's name is actually known: Alberus Pictor (latin for "Albert painter") he was commissioned to paint murals in churches all over scandinavia and northern Germany, and dozens of these church paintings still exist. (Wich in pretty amazing, considering the lutheran church demanded all such art be destroyed.) I think Bergman paid his respect to Albertus Pictor by including the charachter of the painter in this film. The painter says he wants to remind people that they are going to die. This is a common concept within the catholic church, called a "memento mori" To the question of wether nordic people took part in the crusades, the answer is yes, but the numbers pale in comparison to those from western and central europe. The nordic countries had become all catholic christian at about year 1000, and the film is set during the black death, wich was in the mid 1300's. At that point, Sweden was fully incorporated in the catholic world and had fully developed teade networks with europe. I assume you mean the famous crusades to the holy land (wich is what is alluded to in the film). However, Swedish knights and clergy also went on crusades, sanctioned by the holy see, into Finland and the baltics, who were largely still pagan at this point in time.

17:05 it was also the trees time to die.

Not accusing but how is possibile that he didn't saw the most famous and iconic movies in history?