ebdons wrote:...a real European actor who could do many roles with aplomb!
Quite right too, he’ll always be an icon.
A few of my favorite roles' of Lonsdale’s include...
“The Name of the Rose” (1986) where he plays the abbot of an
14th century Italian abbey...although in Umberto Eco’s excellent
and very famous novel, his character was far more duplicitous than
Jean-Jacques Annaud’s palimpsest film depicted. Brilliant movie and
seeing it in it’s original theatrical release was enormously gratifying
to this old bookseller/bibliophile.
* Also...
“Ronin” (1998) where as wise miniature hobbyist and friend to Jean Reno,
he explains to Robert De Niro his beautifully detailed diorama of the 47 ronin samurai.
If you enjoyed the high-speed car chases in William Friedkin’s “The French Connection”
(1971) and Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver” (2017)...then check out John Frankenheimer’s
“Ronin”. The car chases in that film through the tiny streets of Vieux Nice are insanely
fast, extremely dangerous and brilliantly filmed. A
must see, even if Ronin's double
agent spy premise is more than a little preposterous. Great fun and
as always, Michael Lonsdale's acting is
exemplary,
as is the wisdom he effortlessly conveys.
* Edit/addendum: those folks that enjoyed Umberto Eco's novel "Name of the Rose"
should take the time to read Elias Canetti's masterpiece, "
Auto-Da-Fé", for which Canetti
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature...no mean feat, and highly recommended reading

.