Talk:Max von Sydow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Portal:Biography
 Biography Portal
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ]
(If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
This article is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.
WikiProject Sweden The article on Max von Sydow is supported by WikiProject Sweden, which is an attempt to improve the quality and coverage of Sweden-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page; if you have any questions about the project or the article ratings below, please consult the FAQ.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Cleanup

This article seems very messy and needs editing. Case in point: "Von Sydow's career is too long to go into detail here." This is an encyclopedia, it should be there, and this is very amateur language.

Mr Price, are you aware that all text you submit here is placed under the GNU FDL? It is quite alwright if you want to retract your text, but if it reamins here, it will loose any author credits, and will be mercilessly edited by anyone who see fit to do so. In any case, a very good article indeed, and I hope that you stick around and submit more excellent stuff :-) --Ato

So is this submitted by the author? I got to the bottom and saw the site it came from and though "how bold to cite where you plagiarise from." If it's the author's own work he submitted, then we can use it. If not, we can't. At any rate, I'm pasting the material below so it's not lost. Please speak up if this is not a copyright violation; I'd like to keep the article.  :-) --KQ 14:51 Sep 11, 2002 (UTC)

Carl Adolf von Sydow was born on April 10, 1929 to a middle class family in Lund, southern Sweden. His father, Carl Wilhelm, was a professor of comparative folklore at the nearby University of Lund: his mother, Maria, was a school teacher. He had at least one brother who died during the filming of Max?s most controversial film The Exorcist. Little material is available on von Sydow?s childhood except that he seems to have been a shy, quiet child. He attended the Cathedral School of Lund but despite being taught English from the age of nine, Max initially professed little interest in working outside Sweden.

In their late teens, Max and some friends founded an amateur theatre company and this is where he started his acting career. He completed National Service before going on to study at The Royal Dramatic Theatre ('Dramaten') in Stockholm where he trained between 1948 and 1951 with the likes of Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook and Ingrid Thulin. During his time at Dramaten, he made his screen debut in Alf Sjöberg?s 1949 film Bara en Mor and his second film, the Swedish classic Lady Julie (after August Strindberg, also directed by Sjoberg.

It was when Max moved to Malmö in 1955 that he met his great mentor Ingmar Bergman with whom he worked first on stage (at Malmö Municipal Theatre) and later on films such as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and The Virgin Spring to name a few. It was here Von Sydow perfected his craft and began to display the great talent that has spanned the 53 years of his screen career. Von Sydow now dominated the screen as he had done on stage and in doing so became an idol of the international Arthouse. Recognition came as early as 1954 when he was awarded the prestigious Royal Foundation Culture Award.

Von Sydow married in 1951 to actress Kerstin Olin with whom he had two sons, Claes and Henrik. They were to star with their father in the 1966 film Hawaii playing his son at different ages. Max was divorced in 1996 but got remarried to French filmmaker Catherine Brelet in April 1997 in Provence, France.

Max worked profusely on stage and screen in Scandinavia and resisted increasing calls from America to come to Hollywood. After being seen in Bergman?s Oscar-winning films and having been first choice for the title role of Dr. No, Max finally set foot in America after agreeing to star in the film which was to lead to much greater recognition ? the role of Christ in George Steven?s modestly titled, all-star 1965 epic The Greatest Story Ever Told. His talents were soon in demand in other American productions and so Max and his family moved to Los Angeles.

From 1965 von Sydow became a regular on the American screen while also maintaining a presence in his native Sweden. Though perhaps type-cast as a villain, he was rewarded stateside with two Golden Globe nominations for Hawaii (1966) and The Exorcist (1973).

In the mid 70s, von Sydow moved to Rome and appeared in a number of Italian films, becoming friendly with another screen legend, Marcello Mastrioanni.

Max?s career is too long to go into detail here and while he has given dozens of award-worthy performances he has had some ?keynote? films for which he has received recognition. He won the Pasinetti Award at the Venice Film Festival for The Flight of the Eagle (1982) but this was to be his only major movie award until what one might describe as the ?renaissance? of his career.

In 1987 Max celebrated his success in Pelle the Conqueror (after Andersen Nexø). He received his first Oscar nomination as well as winning the Bodil Prize, The Felix European Film Award, The Robert Award and the Guldbagge Award from his native Sweden (amazingly, the first time he was even nominated for the award). He also recieved special mention when 'Pelle' garnered the Palme d?Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Since then Max has won The Australian Film Institute Best Actor Award for his title role in Father (1990), the Guldbagge Best Best Director Award for his only directorial foray Katinka (1989), based on a favourite novel by Herman Bang, and the Best Actor Award at The Tokyo International Film Festival in 1992 for The Silent Touch.

It wasn't long before von Sydow had another Scandanavian success. He received international acclaim for his performance as the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Knut Hamsun in Jan Troell's biopic Hamsun. He received his third Swedish Guldbagge and his second Danish Bodil for his depiction of a character often described as his King Lear. In 1998 Max starred in Liv Ullmann?s Private Confessions.

Since then he has taken ?a bit of a sabbatical? ? his most recent triumph being his performance as an elderly lawyer in Scott Hick?s Snow Falling on Cedars, released in the US at the end of 1999. Pre-Oscar talk had him tipped to scoop the Best Supporting Actor Award, which sadly never came to fruition. In 2002 Max had one of his largest commercial sucesses, co-starring with Tom Cruise in Steven Speilberg's widely acclaimed sci-fi thriller Minority Report.

Max currently lives with his wife in Paris, where he enjoys reading, listening to music and gardening. He has personally stated he does not intend to retire, subject to the film roles he receives.

Campbell Price 2002

Visit my Max von Sydow Shrine - www.maxvonsydow.da.ru

It appears to be submitted by the author. See User talk:Campbell

Is there any reason, then, why this excellent article is not put back where it belongs, in the main section. - Egil 22:54, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Above text?

Why are we not using the above???

Peregrine981 13:53, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Because no one decided to do so. I did. I also added Swedish film titles, and did extensive wikifying. Sir Paul 12:18, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for breaking the terrible spell of inertia! Peregrine981 01:32, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] a list of the films

This article seems sill to big mess, but it is improving. I am going to add a "film-list" at the end of this article.

[edit] Ming?

OK; I'll admit that Flash Gordon is a (VERY) guilty pleasure of mine, but wouldn't it be more appropriate to use one of his images from The Seventh Seal or The Exorcist or one of his more recent films? That picture really doesn't show what he looks like. Serendipodous 12:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Much better image now! DevanJedi 00:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Fakelore

"He is known to have had at least one brother who allegedly died during the filming of The Exorcist."

The [The Exorcist|Film's Page] disputes that anybody died on the set, much less a brother. This probably needs to be edited right out. --Edwin Herdman 06:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Alright, updated from this here: http://www.geocities.com/campbellprice/MaxBiography.html Sorry that the edit isn't in the best form. I'm waiting to see what the reaction is before moving further. --Edwin Herdman 03:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/a/x/Talk%7EMax_von_Sydow_4f80.html"