ARTICLE

Maximilian Schell - A Dark Actor
Sean Francis

Sorting through all the videos, looking for something significantly dark to review for AT, I came across a delightfully dark movie called The Eighteenth Angel, which is reviewed elsewhere in this issue.  Little did I realize I would stumble across a plethora of darkness, hidden in the guise of Maximilian Schell, the evil Father Simeon.  A glimpse at his filmography is a look at the darkest elements of mankind: persecution, murder, and genocide.  World War II , the Holocaust, and the after effects are detailed in movies like Julie, Last Judgment, Cross of Iron, Assissi Underground, Stalin, and The Rose Garden.


Maximilian's career seemed focused on Nazi's in one fashion or another. But his career also took him to play the villain in Disney's Black Hole, the abbott in John Carpenter's Vampires, and the Satan worshipping Father Simeon in The Eighteenth Angel.  His film career has also had him play roles in other significant religious films like The Reluctant Saint, Pope Joan, the recent TV miniseries Joan of Arc, and the older miniseries Abraham.  He also delved into secular darkness in Castle, a film based on a Kafka story, Little Odessa, and Pedestrian.

Maximilian Schell is an actor of dubious talent but an amazing film history.  With all the movies he has been in, he has given few interviews, which leaves me very little to say except to offer to you a list of various movies he has been in so you may judge for yourself if Maximilian Schell is to be considered an agent of darkness.