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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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamsun_(film) |