Max von Sydow

In Memoriam

For an actor who came to the attention of international audiences through a film in which his character leveraged their own life and survival by playing a chess tournament against the grim reaper, the loss of Max von Sydow feels especially momentous. Though he lived to the grand old age of ninety and had continued to act in films and television almost until the very end of his life, von Sydow's ubiquitous presence, and his commitment to working across all genres and media, had made him something of a genuine avatar for the cinema itself.

Appearing in The Seventh Seal (1957), von Sydow would play Antonius Block, a disillusioned knight returning from the Crusades to a Sweden ravaged by plague. Encountering the literal cloaked figure of Death, the knight challenges the specter to a chess tournament. If he wins, he'll gain his life and freedom. If he loses, then he'll accompany Death to the afterworld.

The Seventh Seal [Ingmar Bergman, 1957]:

A perennial masterwork of existential cinema, The Seventh Seal would mark the first of several screen collaborations between von Sydow and the filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, though the two had previously worked together in the theatre. For Bergman, von Sydow would frequently play tortured, insular characters: brooding and out for revenge, like Töre, the wronged-father to a murdered daughter in the medieval-set The Virgin Spring (1960), haunted and on the brink of madness, like the artist Johan Borg in the potentially supernatural Hour of the Wolf (1968), or in retreat from the madness of the modern world, like the sensitive recluse Andreas Winkelman in the desolate A Passion (1969).

Bergman brought out the best in his actors and von Sydow was no exception. His performances for the filmmaker range from the theatrical and mesmeric, like in The Magician (1958), to the subtle and understated, like in Winter Light (1963), but are always in step with the tone and tenor of the film as a whole. While the image of von Sydow's character sat down against a backdrop of crashing waves, playing chess with the figure of Death –  brought to life in the film by the actor Bengt Ekerot – would go on to become one of the most iconic images in the history of twentieth-century cinema, it's his more subtle and humanistic performances in films like A Passion and the earlier Shame (1968) that really illustrate the amazing skill that von Sydow possessed under Bergman's direction.

Throughout the 1960s, von Sydow would continue to work with Bergman as well as other Swedish and international filmmakers, but it was his role as the elderly priest, Father Lankester Merrin, in William Friedkin's controversial blockbuster The Exorcist (1973) that would introduce the actor to an entirely new audience. Von Sydow was only in his 40s when he appeared in The Exorcist, but thanks to the amazing special make-up effects created by Dick Smith and the actor's own convincing performance, he appears at least thirty years older. Von Sydow's performance as the frail priest channeling spiritual light against the powers of darkness, is one of the major highlights of Friedkin's film.

The Exorcist [William Friedkin, 1973]:

Historically, demonic possession movies are often the absolute worst, descending into embarrassing hysterics and unintentional comedy as the inherent ridiculousness of the very concept jars against the attempts to take it seriously. Just look at comparatively recent films, such as The Last Exorcism (2010), The Rite (2011), The Devil Inside (2012), Deliver Us From Evil (2014), The Vatican Tapes (2015) and The Nun (2018), to witness the overwhelmingly low standard of the sub-genre. However, The Exorcist escapes this fate and works as a dramatic feature, in part, because the performances are so compelling.

Working alongside the actor and playwright Jason Miller and the child actor Linda Blair, von Sydow lends the film a genuine sense of authority. Rather than coming across as silly or embarrassing, the climactic exorcism sequence, with its grotesque imagery and lurid special effects, is forever grounded by the performances of these three actors, who find something in the claustrophobic domestic setting, redolent as it is in a kind of heightened emotional reality, that recalls the best of Bergman's films and their recurrent existential dilemmas relating to faith and suffering.

The success of The Exorcist would cement von Sydow's international reputation as one of the great screen actors, however, it also succeeded in turning him into a genuine cult movie icon. If von Sydow's work with Bergman was entirely synonymous with the "art house", with elitism and exclusivity, then The Exorcist would open the door to more populist genres, like science-fiction, horror and the fantastique.

Key roles for von Sydow in these movies would include the villainous Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon (1980), King Osric in the medieval fantasy Conan the Barbarian (1982), Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the unofficial James Bond sequel Never Say Never Again (1983), Doctor Kynes in the endlessly fascinating adaptation of Dune (1984), as well as unexpected but always welcome appearances in the Rick Moranis/Dave Thomas cult comedy Strange Brew (1983), the Stephen King adaptation Needful Things (1993), the big budget comic book movie Judge Dredd (1995) and the Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker action comedy sequel, Rush Hour 3 (2007).

Flash Gordon [Mike Hodges, 1980]:

For the rest of his career, von Sydow would alternate between prestige films and blockbusters by acclaimed filmmakers, such as Jan Troell, Bertrand Tavernier, John Huston, Woody Allen, Billie August, Penny Marshall, Wim Wenders, Krzysztof Zanussi, Liv Ullman, Vincent Ward, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Julian Schnabel, J.J. Abrams and Thomas Vinterberg, and bizarre oddities directed by genuine mavericks like Dario Argento, John Boorman, Robert Clouse, Arturo Ripstein, John Milius, Mike Hodges, David Lynch and Lars von Trier.

Unlike a lot of actors, there was never a sense that von Sydow looked down on a particular genre of filmmaking or that he was "slumming it" in his less prestige roles. Like Christopher Lee or Willem Dafoe, Isabelle Huppert or Tilda Swinton, he always seemed fully engaged in whatever he was making, bringing the same level of commitment to films by Bergman or Allen that he did to films by Ivan Reitman or Danny Cannon; always elevating and enriching the role and sometimes even the film itself. Having played his final move against that grim and unbeatable opponent, Death, von Sydow's presence in contemporary and future cinema will be greatly missed.