Alternate Best Actor 1958: Max von Sydow in The Magician

Max von Sydow did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Albert Emanuel Vogler in The Magician. 

The Magician tells the story of a wandering troupe of performers coming under scrutiny under local government as they "perform" for them. 

As with the previous year, Bergman made two very different films, though similar in terms of examining the human condition in 58. Although in Brink of Life where it was modern, intimate and more acting driven, this film is period, plot driven and more expansive in terms of all the side business. I'll say unlike something in the case of Seventh Seal where the side stories eleven the main story, this time I honestly just mostly cared about the central magician and the doctor/minister set to expose him. Von Sydow plays the former in another starring role for Bergman, and for much of the film is a mute representation of the "dark arts", emphasized all the more by a black hair and wig. Von Sydow of course has a great presence which works particularly well when playing a mute role. And there is something to be had in the manner of his performance in the early scenes where he is very arch. He plays up this manner in which he walks, he stares, he looks with a purposeful style, a presentation that is in a way a mix between Boris Karloff's monster and Bela Lugosi's Dracula. His separated fingers are of the master of mesmerism while he stalks around in this strange way as though he is somehow less than the normal human and is a creature of some kind. There is something within this performance that is innately fascinating and Von Sydow plays into that effectively. 

And while I'd never say this film is bad, because it is good as even the stuff I found less compelling certainly wasn't truly dull or poorly written, is that any tension between the central conflict isn't really maintained or built particularly if you say compare the face off between the minister and the magician against the Knight and death. And part of that is perhaps Bergman limits the magician, while also exposing him in a weird way. At first it is all about the mystique, where von Sydow stares his way throughout the performance, being everything some subject wants him to be, and darting some kind of strange hate mixed with anxiety at the minister who never stops prodding him for some kind of truth. But at a certain point we see the magician drop any mystique, when the minister goes after his wife, taking off all his wig and bear, looking like the von Sydow we know, and speaking. And the weird thing is, that it is all done very casually within the narrative, it isn't treated as a big moment, perhaps purposefully, but I'm unsure if it was the best choice to make the audience more than a step ahead. And I do like the shift in von Sydow as he suddenly is very much of a man of it all, his manner straight forward in its emotion, his delivery excessively to the point. Suddenly he becomes a man on a mission but doing it as a professional rather than a mystique. And from that we get an absolutely brilliant scene, where the magician fully goes to "perform" for the doctor, and von Sydow becomes the horror monster again, although now even more intensely. A lot of it is direction, but von Sydow pours intensity and menace into the sequence. Before again segueing to the relaxed notion and showing it all but an act, however a very purposeful act. I like this performance and I like this film, however both I think are limited by the overall approach of the film. A film where the key moments are there, yet everything seems like it should be greater than it is. Regardless it is a good performance by von Sydow, even if like much of his early work with Bergman, seems like he's warming up for the greater work later in his career.