An insomniac burdened in particular during the “hour of the wolf” before dawn, Johan speaks to his wife, Liv Ullmann’s Alma, about the “flesh eaters” he can’t stop sketching. “Hour of the Wolf” unfolds, jaggedly and unrelentingly, like an increasingly realistic nightmare of which von Sydow’s character, painter Johan Borg, is the sole architect and the primary victim. Von Sydow’s ability to vacillate between unquenchable anger and paternalistic benevolence was honed further in a partnership with Bergman that would last through 10 more films, including two entries in Bergman’s “Silence of God” trilogy (1961’s “ Through a Glass Darkly” and 1963’s “ Winter Light”) and the director’s only straightforward horror, 1968’s “ Hour of the Wolf,” which David Lynch has cited over the years as an influence on his own filmography. That array of earthly delights fills a spiritual void, a satisfaction von Sydow demonstrates with a genuine, peaceful smile-before Block is led by Death in the Danse Macabre, and to his final end. The only joy Block ultimately feels is not in a kinship with or understanding of God, but from sipping a bowl of fresh milk and eating a handful of just-picked strawberries. Later, when speaking with the young Mia ( Bibi Andersson) about whether her son will grow up to be a knight, von Sydow replies with dry bemusement, “That’s not such fun, either,” and the boredom Block feels in response to himself is quite clear. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams”) and resentful accusation (“I want God to put out his hand, show His face, speak to me!”). Before a statue of Jesus, von Sydow’s moves between fragile honesty (“My indifference to men has shut me out. Desperate for answers from God but increasingly aware that he might never get them, Antonius is prone to lengthy bursts of confession, and von Sydow’s impassioned delivery but easy smile communicate a man deeply at odds with himself.
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Ekerot’s image, pale and swathed in black, has been adapted and parodied in the decades since the film’s release, but it is von Sydow’s face, chiseled and shadowed, that holds the film.
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A recipient of the prestigious Royal Foundation of Sweden’s Cultural Award, von Sydow continued to receive acclaim for his theater work-in particular “The Tempest’s” Prospero, a role he would return to three decades later at London’s The Old Vic-before transitioning long-term to film in 1957 with Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal.”Īs the existentially pained knight Antonius Block, von Sydow is youthful but long-faced, unfulfilled but ruggedly handsome, barely hiding a smirk when he challenges Bengt Ekerot’s cloaked Death to a game of chess-the loss of which, Block knows, would mean that he owes Death his life. Once von Sydow had served for two years in the Swedish military and swapped his given first name Carl for Max, he trained for three years with Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre. At 15 or 16, he told The Wall Street Journal in 2012, he knew what his career path would be. Born in Lund, Sweden, on April 10, 1929, von Sydow was drawn to acting after taking in a performance of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at a municipal theater during a school field trip.