We
lost one of the world’s great thespians on March 8, 2020, and it’s sad that so
many in the U.S. know him only from such Hollywood-fare franchises such as Star
Wars, Game of Thrones, and even James Bond.
In
fact, my Facebook and Twitter feeds on March 9 were full of tributes to the
late Max von Sydow, but I despaired to see so many Bond fans acknowledge him only
for what amounted to a five-minute-ish cameo as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the
1983 non-Eon Productions 007 picture, Never Say Never Again. REALLY? That’s
what you remember him for?
Max
von Sydow was so, so much more than Blofeld, or Lor San Tekka, or the
Three-Eyed Raven, or even Father Merrin (The Exorcist). (Interestingly,
there is some evidence to suggest that von Sydow was considered to play the
title role of Dr. No, which was eventually taken by Joseph Wiseman.)
For
me, I knew Max von Sydow through the films of the late Ingmar Bergman. (I
wonder how many of those well-meaning Bond fans posting photos of von Sydow as
Blofeld have even seen a Bergman film.) For it was in these pictures by
the Swedish master where von Sydow truly shined. He delivered the performances
of his life in the eleven titles he made with Bergman between 1957 and 1971. Of
course, von Sydow starred in many other international art-house movies outside
of Hollywood, and it is for all of these that he deserves the acclaim he has
been receiving since his death at the age of 90.
I
initially became aware of both Max von Sydow and Ingmar Bergman when I saw The
Seventh Seal (1957) for the first time as a freshman in the Drama
Department at the University of Texas at Austin (Texas). I had become friends
with Stuart Howard, who was serving with me on the tech crew of a play in
production, and we hit it off—mainly because of our love of movies. One day,
Stuart asked me, “The Seventh Seal is playing on campus tonight, have
you seen it?†I vaguely knew that it was a foreign language film, but not much
more (hey, I was young, and prior to moving to Austin, Texas, I had little to
no exposure to international cinema). When I replied that I hadn’t, he said,
“We’re going!†And I’m so glad that Stuart pushed me to go with him to see this
mesmerizing, deeply moving motion picture that quite frankly was one of those eureka
moments in my intellectual and artistic development. To this day, I count The
Seventh Seal as one of my favorite films of all time, and, by the way,
Stuart is still one of my closest friends.
Seal
is
really an ensemble picture, but von Sydow is undoubtedly the lead as Antonius
Block, a knight returning with his squire from the Crusades to a plague-ridden
Sweden. His existential crisis is the center of the film as he challenges Death
to an ongoing game of chess throughout the story to delay the inevitable. I was
immediately struck by von Sydow’s passion, uniquely thin physical shape, and remarkably
clear eyes (which were arresting even in black and white).
Seeing
art-house and foreign language films on campus were the only way to catch them
in those days. In the coming weeks, I attended more Bergman and von Sydow
collaborations… and then he appeared in the Hollywood blockbuster, The
Exorcist (1973). Most people around me in the audience had no idea who he
was, but I did.
After
that, I became aware of von Sydow’s previous Hollywood work, such as The
Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), but even up to the time of The Exorcist,
von Sydow’s work had mostly been international.
His
co-star in the Bergman films after 1968 was often Liv Ullmann. Together, they
portrayed husband and wife in a number of titles, the most memorable being Hour
of the Wolf and Shame from ‘68. They were also a couple in Jan
Troell’s Oscar-nominated The Emigrants (1971) and its sequel, The New
Land (1972). These two masterworks could very well be the defining
cinematic statements by both von Sydow and Ullmann.
And
one must not forget his Best Actor Oscar nomination for Pelle the Conqueror (1987),
which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film that year. (His
second and last Oscar nomination was for Supporting Actor in 2011 for Extremely
Loud & Incredibly Close. It’s a shame he never won a trophy.)
Thus,
for me, the loss of von Sydow was much more than the popcorn franchises he
began to appear in repeatedly in his later years. Okay, granted, he did bring
elements of grace, class, and intelligence to all of those roles, too—and here
are just a few of those titles: Three Days of the Condor (1975), Voyage
of the Damned (1976), Hurricane (1979), Flash Gordon (1980,
as Ming!), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Strange Brew (1983), Dreamscape
(1984), Dune (1984), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Awakenings
(1990), A Kiss Before Dying (1991), Needful Things (1993), Judge
Dredd (1995), What Dreams May Come (1998), Minority Report
(2002), and Shutter Island (2010).
Rest
in peace, Max. Say hello to Ingmar for me.
Max
von Sydow’s Collaborations with Ingmar Bergman: