Thank You, Antonius Block

In time and place that seems very far distant I studied film history and criticism. I loved seeing films and writing about films and applied to graduate school in Cinema Studies. My goal was to teach film on the college level. But time and tide went in a very different direction and though I still love seeing movies it didn't become my career. 

One of the benefits of those days was seeing many classic films that helped inform the person that I became. My favorite film of that era, perhaps every era, was "The Seventh Seal," directed by Ingmar Bergman. In the film the war-weary Swedish knight, Antonius Block, played by Max Von Sydow, returns to Sweden from the Crusades. The country is in the midst of the Black Death and Block soon encounters Death, whom he challenges to a chess match. 

My memory of Max Von Sydow, who died yesterday at 90, are always of Antonius Block. I was surprised to see the headline which cited his work in "The Exorcist" and as Three Eyed Raven in "Game of Thrones," but I realize I was remembering him in the role that had lasted with me for over fifty years. 

"The Seventh Seal" is not an easy film to view. There is sorrow, there is violence and there is death. But the message that I took away and that has lasted with me for decades is that even in the very darkest of times there are moments of light. In one beautiful and poignant scene Antonius Block looks out at a young family who are part of a troop of players and says:

"I shall remember this moment: the silence, the twilight, the bowl of strawberries, the bowl of milk. Your faces in the evening light. Mikael asleep, Jof with his lyre. I shall try to remember our talk. I shall carry this memory carefully in my hands as if it were a bowl brimful of fresh milk. It will be a sign to me, and a great sufficiency."

Thank you, Max Von Sydow. You gave me a memory that lasted fifty years and watchwords for our own days of difficulty and sorrows.  

As ever, thanks for visiting and take good care.