We were reached by the message that one of Sweden's most remarkable and finest actors of all time - Erland Josephson (Erland Josephson on IMDb) - died this night, the 26th of February.
I will not - and can not - write about everything he has done. I might come back with some minor writing around his career later.
We all know that he worked a lot with Ingmar Bergman (Ingmar Bergman on IMDb) but also Theo Angelopoulos (Theo Angelopoulos on IMDb), Andrei Tarkovsky (Andrey Tarkovsky on IMDb), István Szabó (István Szabó on IMDb), Peter Greenaway (Peter Greenaway on IMDb) and Liv Ullman (Liv Ullman on IMDb) among others.
Aurore and I had the pleasure seeing Erland Josephson in the role of the story teller in the theatre play The Sultan's Dilemma by Tawfiq al-Hakim, in 2005 at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm (Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern). His last role at the theatre.
Two small anecdotes around Josephson:
1. Erland Josephson, once told a journalist that during the shooting of 'Offret'/'The Sacrifice' ('Le Sacrifice'), Tarkovskij had found "the exact point" in a stone wall where he wanted Josephson to stay during a shooting of a scene. Josephson had asked Tarkovskij why he wanted to position him at that exact spot. Tarkovskij had looked totally inappreciative, asking: "Don't you see why? It's so obvious!". In spite of this "obvious" reason, Josephson did not understood why.
2. Josephson and Ingmar Bergman had promised each other that if one of them became to senile, the other one, still having his faculties, should kill him.
They both died naturally (as far as we know) so they were not able to keep their promises.
I will not - and can not - write about everything he has done. I might come back with some minor writing around his career later.
We all know that he worked a lot with Ingmar Bergman (Ingmar Bergman on IMDb) but also Theo Angelopoulos (Theo Angelopoulos on IMDb), Andrei Tarkovsky (Andrey Tarkovsky on IMDb), István Szabó (István Szabó on IMDb), Peter Greenaway (Peter Greenaway on IMDb) and Liv Ullman (Liv Ullman on IMDb) among others.
Aurore and I had the pleasure seeing Erland Josephson in the role of the story teller in the theatre play The Sultan's Dilemma by Tawfiq al-Hakim, in 2005 at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm (Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern). His last role at the theatre.
Two small anecdotes around Josephson:
1. Erland Josephson, once told a journalist that during the shooting of 'Offret'/'The Sacrifice' ('Le Sacrifice'), Tarkovskij had found "the exact point" in a stone wall where he wanted Josephson to stay during a shooting of a scene. Josephson had asked Tarkovskij why he wanted to position him at that exact spot. Tarkovskij had looked totally inappreciative, asking: "Don't you see why? It's so obvious!". In spite of this "obvious" reason, Josephson did not understood why.
2. Josephson and Ingmar Bergman had promised each other that if one of them became to senile, the other one, still having his faculties, should kill him.
They both died naturally (as far as we know) so they were not able to keep their promises.
