Max von Sydow Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Max von Sydow (April 10, 1929 – March 8, 2020) played Joubert, the French Alsatian assassin, in Three Days of the Condor (1975). It was his second American studio role of significance, following The Exorcist (1973), and the role that established his second-act career as international cinema's preferred specialist in courteous menace.
Joubert is one of the great screen assassins
Joubert is professionally efficient, personally indifferent, and morally articulate. He kills the staff of Section 17 in the opening sequence, then kills Wicks in a hospital, then arrives outside Atwood's house to kill Atwood himself. Across the entire running time he is courteous to everyone he meets. The film's strangest and most haunting exchange — the parking-lot scene in which Joubert offers Turner a ride and a future — depends entirely on von Sydow's restraint.
"I'm not interested in 'why.' More in 'when.' Sometimes 'where.' Always 'how much.'" — Max von Sydow as Joubert, Three Days of the Condor (1975)
"There is no cause. There's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision." — Max von Sydow as Joubert, Three Days of the Condor (1975)
"The von Sydow character is an honest bad guy, which I prefer any day to a lying good guy." — Sydney Pollack, Cinephilia & Beyond
Von Sydow brought European-art-cinema gravity to American thrillers
Von Sydow's early career was defined by his collaboration with Ingmar Bergman: The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), The Magician (1958), The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), Hour of the Wolf (1968), Shame (1968), The Passion of Anna (1969). When American studios cast him from the early 1970s onward, they were buying the Bergman gravitas — the long face, the careful diction, the impression that this man had thought longer about death than the script had.
Joubert was the role that demonstrated how that gravitas could anchor a thriller villain rather than a saint or a sufferer. Von Sydow used the technique he had brought to The Seventh Seal's knight: stillness as moral weight.
Selected filmography
| Year | Film | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | The Seventh Seal | Ingmar Bergman | Antonius Block |
| 1957 | Wild Strawberries | Ingmar Bergman | |
| 1965 | The Greatest Story Ever Told | George Stevens | Jesus |
| 1973 | The Exorcist | William Friedkin | Father Merrin |
| 1975 | Three Days of the Condor | Sydney Pollack | Joubert |
| 1976 | Voyage of the Damned | Stuart Rosenberg | |
| 1980 | Flash Gordon | Mike Hodges | Ming the Merciless |
| 1982 | Conan the Barbarian | John Milius | King Osric |
| 1986 | Hannah and Her Sisters | Woody Allen | |
| 1988 | Pelle the Conqueror | Bille August | First Oscar nomination |
| 2002 | Minority Report | Steven Spielberg | |
| 2011 | Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close | Stephen Daldry | Second Oscar nomination |
| 2016 | Game of Thrones | HBO | Three-Eyed Raven |
| 2017 | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | J.J. Abrams | Lor San Tekka |