Absalom
SWCA Member, Absent Comrade
If you are not a movie buff, the name may not ring a bell, but you’ll probably recognize the face.
The Swedish-born actor Max von Sydow died yesterday at the age of 90.
He was a type of actor who became famous with “serious” roles, in his case with the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, but then expanded into international work and was never too snobbish to take the cheesiest roles in B-movies and potboilers, and play them with gusto. Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton are two others like that who come to mind.
Von Sydow is probably the only actor to have played both Jesus (in “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, 1965), and Satan (in Stephen King’s “Needful Things", 1993).
One of my favorite scenes happens at the end of “Needful Things”, when Satan has been thwarted and emerges from the burning wreckage of an explosion, telling the sheriff (played by Ed Harris), “There are days I really hate this job.”
The Swedish-born actor Max von Sydow died yesterday at the age of 90.
He was a type of actor who became famous with “serious” roles, in his case with the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, but then expanded into international work and was never too snobbish to take the cheesiest roles in B-movies and potboilers, and play them with gusto. Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton are two others like that who come to mind.
Von Sydow is probably the only actor to have played both Jesus (in “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, 1965), and Satan (in Stephen King’s “Needful Things", 1993).
One of my favorite scenes happens at the end of “Needful Things”, when Satan has been thwarted and emerges from the burning wreckage of an explosion, telling the sheriff (played by Ed Harris), “There are days I really hate this job.”
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