Von Sydow makes quiet authority convincing, and we value the distress beneath his solemnity. He is worth seeking out beyond the priests and villains, even if some films ask little more of him than an imposing presence.
Fi1m perspective
In Minority Report (2002), von Sydow's Director Lamar Burgess has the weight of someone accustomed to being listened to. He brings quiet authority to Steven Spielberg's crime-prediction thriller without making a supporting part feel overworked. Tom Cruise and Samantha Morton carry the greater emotional burden, and his economy is useful alongside them. We were gripped by the film because its convincing future makes the prospect of crime prediction feel uncomfortably close. The later plotting takes too much explaining, but there is little wasted effort in von Sydow's contribution.
His work with Ingmar Bergman made more of his capacity for distress. In The Seventh Seal (1957), his disillusioned knight Antonius Block plays chess with Death; the gaunt presence belongs to a man who needs answers. Across eleven films together, Bergman gave that solemnity room for grief and doubt. The move into American films came with Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Hollywood could use the dignity, but did not always ask as much of it.
Awakenings (1990) offers a gentler use of his presence as the compassionate doctor Peter Ingham. Penny Marshall's medical drama is worth an evening chiefly for Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, who make its concern for the patients convincing. Ingham belongs within that approach, though we would not recommend the film principally on von Sydow's account. The script and score press harder than they need to, and even such assured casting cannot make that insistence less noticeable.
The recurrent limitation was the casting. English-language films repeatedly made him the foreigner, priest or villain, while a commercial part such as Flash Gordon (1980) asked less of him. The resilient father in Pelle the Conqueror (1987) allowed the dignity to belong to an ordinary man facing hardship. Lars von Trier's Europa (1991) found a different use for him through hypnotic narration. Begin with Minority Report if a thriller is wanted; choose The Seventh Seal when the interest is von Sydow himself.
Biography
Max von Sydow (born Carl Adolf von Sydow) was a Swedish actor who also held French citizenship from 2002. He was born on 10 April 1929 in Lund, Sweden, and died on 8 March 2020.
He appeared in eleven films directed by Ingmar Bergman, beginning with The Seventh Seal (1957), in which he played the knight Antonius Block. Other notable roles include Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist (1973) and Dr. Peter Ingham in Awakenings (1990). He also appeared in Minority Report (2002), Shutter Island (2010) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).
Von Sydow received Academy Award nominations for Best Actor for Pelle the Conqueror (1987) and Best Supporting Actor for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011).
