Favorite role: Hannah and her sisters. he had a great role - some humor, some sadness (when his heart is broken). This guy could totally act.
Max Von Sydow has died
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Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#42I recently watched Flash Gordon for the first time since the 1980s, and Max Von Sydow's performance was a definite highlight. Casting a `proper' actor as the villain in a silly movie is always a great idea. (See, for example, Basil Rathbone in The Court Jester .)
Don't forget Strange Brew! https://youtu.be/oMI23JJUpGE He was also a good serious villain in Minority Report.
He was awesome in that role, eh!
(refering to Strange Brew)
Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#43Pity they didn't mention Dune. Not the best film, nor a big role for him, but for young me it was still a wonderful experience to watch this. He replaced the imagined book version of Kynes forever in my head. Peace.
First saw him in Three Days of the Condor, which I loved as a kid. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_days_of_the_condor
Sydow absolutely crushed that role. In the opening scene, part of the way the massacre, he's calmly trying to get his lighter lit. Creepy and awesome.
Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#44RIP Max Von Sydow, a great artist.
He's forever in the canon as the protagonist in The Seventh Seal, of course.
Every film buff will have something in particular that stands out in their memory about Max Von Sydow. For me, that would be the as the mad scientist, Dr Farber, in "Until the End of the World"-- a sprawling train-wreck of a film that I will always remember fondly, I don't care what the pro-critics think!
Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#45To Americans with Scandinavian/Swedish ancestors (there sure are a lot of you), I really recommend watching these two movies starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emigrants_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Land They are based on a series of novels (1949 and onwards) by Vilhelm Moberg chronicling the fate of a family who decides to migrate from famine/poverty-stricken Swe…
One of my favourite performances of his was in another Jan Troell film, Hamsun (1996) [1], which was masterfully co-written by the great novelist Per Olov Enquist.
In it, von Sydow plays the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, who, after WW2, was accused of having collaborated with the Nazis. His portrayal of Hamsun is one of the most nuanced, moving performances I've seen on the screen. It's a superb film. He didn't play many main characters in his life, certainly not in his American movies, but he should have.
(An interesting fact that will elude most non-Nordic viewers is that the cast is made up of a blend Norwegian, Swedish and Danish actors, and they all speak their own native language; von Sydow performs the role in Swedish, for example, even though Hamsun was Norwegian. The film is so well made that it doesn't make any difference at all.)
This and Jan Troell's other films used to be on Criterion's streaming service, but they're not there anymore. Hamsun is only available through Kanopy, I believe, which requires a library card from one of their supported libraries. The Emigrants can be rented on Amazon Prime Video and Vudu, and the The New Land is on iTunes/Apple TV. But it's often difficult to find these masterpieces.
Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#46They finally finished that game ... RIP
Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#47His best work was Judge Dredd
Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#48I quite liked him in The Black Hole, which is a weird Scifi flick Disney put out in the 80's. Quite dark for a Disney flick.
Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#49They finally finished that game ... RIP
And Flash won, of course.
Oh, not that film?
Re: Max Von Sydow has died
#50My favourite roll of his was in Strange Brew. Such a powerful actor in such a silly roll.
This was our 'repeat rental' growing up. My whole family loved watching this together.