Farewell to Max von Sydow, Ingmar Bergman's favorite actor

The great actor Max von Sydow, unforgettable star of many Ingmar Bergman films, passed away yesterday in Paris at the age of 90. Breaking the news was his second wife, Catherine Brelet. A Swede, born in Lund in 1929, to a university lecturer father and schoolteacher mother from an upper-class family originally from Pomerania, Max von Sydow had taken up acting as a teenager, joining an amateur theater company and then studying at the Stockholm Dramatic Theater from 1948 to 1951. After acting for years in theaters, Von Sydow made his debut, in 1957, in what is perhaps the best-known film in which he participated, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, where he played the part of Antonius Block, the knight who played the chess game with death, played by Bengt Ekerot.

There were many other Bergman films where Max von Sydow had important roles: The Place of Strawberries (1957), At Life’s Threshold (1958), The Face (1958), The Virgin’s Fountain (1960), Winter Lights (1963), Passion (1969), The Adulteress (1971). For him also appearances in Hollywood productions, such as 1973’s The Exorcist, where he lent his face to Father Merrin, and then The Three Days of the Condor (1975), Flash Gordon (1980), Escape for Victory (1981), Conan the Barbarian (1982) and many others. Among the great directors he has worked for include, in addition to Bergman, Wim Wenders, Lars von Trier, Woody Allen, Sydney Pollack, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott just to name a few.

Max von Sydow has also worked with Italian directors, such as Alberto Lattuada(Cuore di cane, 1976), Mauro Bolognini(Gran bollito, 1977), Stefano Rolla(Bugie bianche, 1979), Roberto Faenza(Mio caro dottor Gräsler, 1990), Dario Argento(Non ho sonno, 2001). Recent appearances include 2002’s Minority report, Ridley Scott’s 2010 Robin Hood (where he played the role of Sir Walter Locksley, the protagonist’s father), and Star Was. JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens of 2015. His last film for cinema was 2018’s Kursk, a film dedicated to the tragic accident of the Russian submarine K-141 Kursk that sank on August 12, 2000, in the waters of the Barents Sea. On TV he is remembered for three episodes of the successful series The Throne of Swords, filmed in 2016.

Despite his enviable career, Max von Sydow has never won any Oscars: he was nominated in 1989 for best actor for Skin Conquering the World and in 2012 for best supporting actor for Very Strong, Incredibly Close, but was defeated on both occasions. The same at the Golden Globes: two nominations (in 1967 as best actor for Hawaii, in 1974 as best supporting actor for The Exorcist), but victory always eluded him. Von Sydow did, however, manage to win three Guldbagge awards (the highest award for film in Sweden: two as best actor, namely in 1987 for Skin Conquering the World and in 1996 for Hamsun, and one as best director, in 1988 for Katinka).

Farewell to Max von Sydow, Ingmar Bergman's favorite actor

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