by Daniel Crooke
There’s something inherently epic about Max von Sydow’s body of work, a near seven-decade span marked by performances of quiet magnanimity in tales of biblical proportions, literally and thematically. More often than not, his mere presence – lanky yet lancing, wispy and towering, handsome and weary, often perturbed by the particulars of his environment – conjures a lightning bolt of philosophical inquiry into each scene.
After exorcising (not to mention playing chess with, and later playing) the devil, portraying a host of priests, popes, cardinals, and apostles, directors and professors, living-breathing ciphers, and the occasional everyman, von Sydow will be awarded the Career Achievement prize this year from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association...
He will receive the honor at the LAFCA awards dinner on January 13.
It’s a tremendous choice, and one that not only honors his work with the dearly departed fellow Swede Ingmar Bergman but still holds steady on the pop culture zeitgeist with his recently memorable appearances in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Game of Thrones. Twice nominated for the Academy Award – his first nomination, Pelle the Conqueror, made him the eighteenth person to land an acting nomination for a foreign language performance; his second, decades later, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, made him one of the oldest – von Sydow is one of those performers who still manages to feel underrated even after bringing so many iconic creations to life. As he nears ninety years of age, he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down the quality of his work.
What are some of your favorite Max von Sydow performances?
While I love him most in his consciousness-drenched collaborations with Bergman, I’ll give a shout out to one that has always made me weepy: his grief-stricken father in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly who, in just two scenes, sketches a life lived derailed by a life nearly lost.