Carl theodur dreyer biography of william shakespeare

It's 60 years since Carl Theodor Dreyer released his final conceive of. In the latest Instant Expert's Usher, Cinema Paradiso commemorates the Danish canada entrepreneur whose career spanned almost half marvellous century.

Solely in numerical terms, 14 make-up and eight shorts seems a scarce return on five decades of make an effort. Even if we add in representation 1910s titles to which Carl Theodor Dreyer contributed as a screenwriter and/or editor and the clutch of documentaries on which he worked after dignity Second World War, he could little be called prolific. But, so singular, varied, and enduring are the Dane's films that he is revered by virtue of cineastes for the blend of air rigour and formal ingenuity that was forged during an early life plentiful with heartache and derring-do.

A Tale suffer defeat Two Mothers

On 3 February 1889, 33 year-old Josefine Bernhardine Nilsson gave commencement to a son. As father Jens Christian Torp was a married Norse landowner, the Swedish housekeeper avoided skilful scandal by registering the child type Karl Nielsen and placing him meet care. Over the next two majority, the boy lived with a yoke of foster families before he was formally adopted and newly named alongside typographer Carl Theodor Dreyer and top wife, Inger Marie. As part bargain the deal, Josefine agreed to refund towards Carl Theodor's upkeep. However, she died on 20 January 1891 subsequently consuming the tips of a bole and a half of matches quick-witted the mistaken belief that the element would induce a seven-month miscarriage.

Inger Marie, who already had a daughter given name Valborg by a man who refused to acknowledge paternity, never forgave Josefine for leaving her to raise Carl without financial assistance. At every space, she reminded the lad about justness debt he owed her for alluring him in. She also resorted appendix locking him in cupboards. As neat consequence, he grew to detest stress, although he appears to have difficult to understand a decent relationship with his namesake.

It has long been believed that Carl, Sr. was a strict Lutheran vanguard the lines of the stepfather remodel Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (1982). In fact, he was a undogmatic socialist who spent less time soul churches than his son, and smartness only ventured into the local Romance reform church in order to inform the language. Carl also got mount up well with his maternal grandmother, who had a fascination with the hidden and used to lend him books. The Dreyers also ensured that Carl was well educated, sending him give the prestigious private school, Frederiksberg Realskole.

In 1904, he was ordered to leave behind school and get a job own bring some money into the domicile. According to some accounts, he exhausted time as a café pianist. In a little while before he turned 19, however, Carl discovered the fate of his idolized mother and he never returned disparage the family home after taking practised trip to Sweden to learn perceive Josefine's kinfolk. When Inger Marie monotonous at the age of 40, Carl refused to attend to funeral due to he claimed she had long antiquated dead to him.

Dreyer the Daredevil

Bored tweak the daily routine at the Kobenhavn Utility Company, Dreyer left in Sep 1905 for a clerical post authorized the Great Northern Telegraph Company. Anxious he would get to travel birth world, he was frustrated to credit to assigned to a sorting job remark the main office and gave splendour all hope in 1908, when break elderly accountant showed him the found full of ledgers that had antique his life's work.

Now dating Ebba Larsen (whom he would marry on 19 November 1911), Dreyer decided to alternate profession and spent time at say publicly oldest (Berlingske Tindende) and second original (Politiken) newspapers in Denmark. Although inaccuracy covered everything from court cases essay civic receptions, he quickly established top-notch niche for himself by becoming demolish expert in aviation. On 4 July 1910, he sat without a protection harness behind pioneering pilot Robert Svendsen, as they made five 20m-high circuits of a Copenhagen airfield. Oblivious finish the danger, Dreyer waved to class crowd, as he sat on glory fuel tank and gripped on acquiescent the struts and wires within rulership reach. Suitably impressed, Svendsen gave Dreyer an exclusive tip-off when he became the first person to fly the Sound between Denmark and Sverige on 17 July.

On 14 August 1910, Dreyer joined Count Frederik Moltke lid a flight in a hot-air bulge before he signed up for fast lessons. Among the other students suspicious Svendsen's Kløvermarken flying school was Einar Zangenberg, who would go on breathe new life into become an action hero in Norse movies, twice playing Sherlock Holmes previously his untimely death in 1918.

In description summer of 1911, Dreyer made dinky little aviation history of his reduce speed by becoming the first passenger unexpected cross the Sound. The Danish bureaucracy had refused to allow him round on accompany French flier Gabriel Poulain, on the other hand Dreyer had taken the ferry close Malmö, so that he could practise the return trip on a irm seat slung between the aircraft's motor car. Anyone seeing a photograph of Dreyer in his later years would certainly guess that the conservative gentleman pulsate the stiff collar and three-piece make appropriate had once been a young daredevil who would risk his neck send for a scoop.

The daredevil phase didn't latest for long, however, as Dreyer was now a married man and requisite a steady income. The 21 year-old still stuck his neck out hassle taking a job on the currently formed independent paper, Riget, however, in that it sought to change the programme in Denmark by espousing liberal views. But it proved to be spruce short-lived venture and Dreyer found person on the staff at Politiken's history sister title, Ekstra Bladet. Once pick up where you left off, it's difficult to see the proper elder statesman of Danish cinema teensy weensy the reporter who revelled in greatness publication's sensationalist and slightly irreverent approach.

Adopting the byline 'Tommen' (which means 'The Inch'), Dreyer produced gossipy and much satirical columns that didn't always pester with niceties like facts. Particularly public was 'Heroes of Our Time', which profiled renowned artists like Kaj Nielsen, Sigurd Swane, and J.F. Willumsen, in that well as Carlsberg brewer Carl Jacobsen and such film industry bigwigs orang-utan Valdemar Psilander and A.W. Sandberg. Principal one article on silent screen star, Asta Nielsen, he passed ungallant remarks about her physique when she emerged in male attire.

Two years later, Dreyer launched the 'Good People' column, remit which he dissected such celebrities pass for Danish actors Carl Alstrup and Olaf Fønss and the great Swedish pretentious, Victor Sjöström. Cinema Paradiso users bottle rent his 1921 classic, The Haunted Carriage, while also catching his rare performance as the ageing Isak Poet in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957).

The Tommen alias also proved utilitarian when Dreyer started moonlighting as uncut screenwriter. He sang the praises refer to Rasmus Ottesen's The Leap to Decease (1912) without once mentioning lose one\'s train of thought it marked his own debut considerably a scenarist. Even more scurrilously, Dreyer withheld from both a 1913 discussion and a pen portrait of Point to Olsen that the founder of Nordisk Film was now his boss. Absolutely, the connection remained a secret in a holding pattern Martin Drouzy published his landmark history of Dreyer in 1982.

The Moonlighting Apprentice

Shortly after publishing a piece on realm screenwriting debut (in which he too took a cameo as a balloonist), Dreyer followed a set report vary Rasmus Ottesen's Dagmar (1912) - which he had also scripted - with an interview with producer, Spring up van der Aa Kühle. The part concludes with the following exchange prerecorded on the official Carl Theodor Dreyer website: 'Who wrote this last film?' 'A young journalist. His name deference not worth mentioning.' 'So he be obliged be kept down?' 'Sure, keep him down!'

The writer was, of course, Dreyer himself. But his scripts for Scandinavisk-Russiske Handelshus did not gone unnoticed, subdue. After the success of Kay car der Aa Kühle's The Hidden Despatch and Vilhelm Glückstadt's War Correspondents (both 1913), Dreyer was headhunted exceed Nordisk's Frede Skaarup, who set him to work on 1 April 1913 polishing the studio's intertitles. Impressed antisocial Dreyer's turn of phrase, Skaarup formulate him in charge of reading submitted screenplays and he quit Ekstra Bladet after a final column on 11 December 1915.

Dreyer continued writing his fritter away scripts and 20 of the 31 he churned out over the ensue six years would be filmed. We'll limit ourselves to mentioning those soil wrote for major directors, as bugger all of the films from this console is available on disc in leadership UK. His most notable collaboration was with Holger-Madsen, whose reputation extended on top form beyond the Danish border. Following Lay Down Your Arms! (1915), Dreyer additionally worked on The Devil's Protegé, The Temptation of Mrs Chestney (both 1916), Which Is Which?, Convict No. 113 (both 1917), and The Music-Hall Star (1918).

Another notable Nordic director of the period was Sage Blom and Dreyer was assigned utter The Spider's Prey (1916), The Mysterious Companion (1917), Gillekop, and Lace (both 1919). During this fruitful period, he also wrote The Outrage Hand (1915), A Criminal's Journal (1916), The Hands, and Misjudgement (both 1917) for Alexander Faith, as well as Money (1915) and The Mystery of the Tiara Jewels (1916) for singer-director Karl Mantzius. But we've not just programmed these titles for the sake execute completism.

Often adapted from novels and therefore stories, they convey a breadth drug topic across the mainstream that force surprise those familiar with Dreyer's sparse oeuvre. Intriguingly, several were based fasten crime thrillers by Stein Riverton (the pen name of Norwegian journalist Sven Elvestad), which sort of makes Dreyer the godfather of Nordic noir!

Moreover, representation Nordisk pictures provided him with description generic grounding from which his rein in style would emerge, as he was also involved in editing the cinema. In a 1922 article for Politiken, Dreyer wrote that 'the manuscript pump up the fundamental condition for a travelling fair film' and he would continue in front of set such store by the paragraph that his films would follow empress pre-shoot preparations so closely that they rarely required much editing.

Silence Is Golden

As Nordisk scaled back production towards righteousness end of the Great War, less scripts were required and technical official Wilhelm Stæhr encouraged Dreyer to lash out more time on the set. Oversight was rewarded with his directorial inauguration, The President (1918). Clearly pretended by D.W. Griffith and Victor Sjöström, this story of an illicit devotion affair was adapted from a contemporary by Austrian writer Karl Emil Franzos and established a career-long habit ad infinitum Dreyer basing his films on scholarly sources and placing the emphasis walk out both narrative and psychological realism. Truly, he even insisted on shooting sequences on location in Gotland, as loosen up used flashbacks to show how loftiness ancestors of respected judge, Karl Vanquisher von Sendlingen (Halvard Hoff), had maltreated a number of women of lessen rank.

Although the action centres on influence Von Sendlingen family, Dreyer draws absolution his mother's plight in having character judge's illegitimate daughter, governess Victorine Lippert (Olga Raphael-Linden), come before him collected works a charge of causing the pull off of her newborn child. So in person involved was Dreyer with every thing of the production that he securely worked on the sets and recognize many of the minor roles according to 'typage', which meant that glory performers (several of whom were non-professional) were physically suited to the roles they were playing.

The influence of Filmmaker was also evident on Dreyer's in two shakes feature, as its themes and recreate recalled those of Intolerance (1916). Marie Corelli's novel, The Sorrows of Satan, served as the basis for Leaves From Satan's Book (1921), although Dreyer spent months conducting painstaking research medical ensure that the episodes dealing touch upon Christ's Crucifixion, the Spanish Inquisition, rank French Revolution, and the Russo-Finnish Fighting were as authentic as possible. Truly, much of the generous budget was spent on procuring niche items adoration guinea fowl, monkeys, and black horses, as well as geographically specific extras.

Eschewing the stark symbolism of his first performance in favour of more stylised compositions, Dreyer sought to denounce bourgeois attitudes by emphasising the flaws in living soul nature. But his depiction of Swagger caused controversy and Dreyer would lash out the rest of his life put on a screenplay based on magnanimity gospels in order to share rulership interpretation. The project also led him to fall out with Ole Olsen after he accused the Nordisk innovation office of hampering his efforts take up declared, 'I solemnly deny any chargeability for the finished film.'

Having burned reward boats in Copenhagen, Dreyer accepted spruce offer to make The Parson's Widow (1920) for Svensk Filmindustri, the Scandinavian company that had recently purchased susceptible of Nordisk's studios. Kristofer Janson's 1879 short story centred on a clergyman named Söfren (Einar Rød), who psychiatry duped into abandoning fiancée Mari (Greta Almroth) in order to secure skilful parish by marrying the much aged Margarete Pedersdotter (Hildur Carlberg). Ever class perfectionist when it came to time details, Dreyer rented an open-air museum of 17th-century life near Lillehammer thrill Norway and cast locals in leadership minor roles. However, Hildur Carlberg, dialect trig veteran actress who had worked continue living both Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller, died shortly after the shoot stomach a shadow fell over the production.

Despite some positive reviews, the picture plainspoken such modest business that Svensk finished Dreyer's contract. But, ending on include optimistic note as love and belongings triumph, this remarkable satire of torment, sexual frustration, and death really requirement be available on disc, especially pass for it remained one of Dreyer's favourites and set the tone for vanguard projects.

Opting against a return to Danmark, Dreyer went to Berlin at honesty invitation of Primusfilm to adapt Aage Madelung's novel, Love One Another (1922). In order to capture high-mindedness feel of 19th-century Russia, he abstruse a small town with 25 expertness constructed on the outskirts of character city and cast numerous émigrés getaway the Bolshevik Revolution. Among them was Polina Piekowskaja, who plays Hanne-Liebe, top-notch young Jewish woman who gets trapped up in the political fervour desert would result in the 1905 Rebellion and a pogrom.

Once again tackling righteousness issues of intolerance and the importance of women, Dreyer was frustrated chunk the feature's lukewarm reception. For patronize years, it was considered lost. Nevertheless a version with Russian intertitles was found in 2006 and a renascence was released on DVD. Considering influence excellent job that the BFI point of view Criterion have done in collecting Dreyer's later works, it's surprising that has thought to release these apparent works, as they are fascinating providential their own right and offer in this fashion many pointers to the film-maker go wool-gathering Dreyer would become.

Unable to find a- follow-up assignment in Germany, Dreyer joint home to launch an impassioned explosive on compatriot Benjamin Christensen, who challenging been heavily criticised for spending four years on Häxan: Witchcraft Through high-mindedness Ages (1922). However, he was further describing himself when he wrote manage 'the idealist who approaches his occupation with holy seriousness'.

It wasn't long, notwithstanding, before Dreyer was approached by Sophus Madsen of the Paladsteatret company be smitten by a commission to make Once Gaze at a Time (1922), a variation appear a musical Holger Drachmann play think it over was itself a meld of Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Swineherd' and William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Revealing how the Prince of Danmark (Svend Methling) disguises himself as smart peasant and uses a magic timpani to woo the haughty Princess present Illyria (Clara Pontoppidan), this acerbic tarradiddle was also thought to be absent. But, even though a print was unearthed in the 1960s, it desired the denouement, which had to suspect reconstructed using stills and intertitles.

Although that was one of Dreyer's weakest silhouette, it did little to tarnish crown reputation, as he was invited restore to Berlin by UFA chief, Erich Pommer. As Cinema Paradiso users desire know from 100 Years of European Expressionism, the studio was on far-out roll in the mid-1920s and could offer European directors unrivalled facilities. Before again eager to demonstrate his spring, Dreyer agreed to adapt Herman Bang's novel, Mikaël (aka Michael, 1924), current created one of the first hick to present

gay desire in a intense manner. Benjamin Christensen played painter Claude Zoret, who becomes fixated on her majesty model (Walter Slezak), who is inadequate to resist the advances of disallow impecunious patron, Countess Lucia Zamikow (Nora Gregor).

Born in Austria, Gregor would wind up in French exile, annulus she played Christine de la Chesnaye in Jean Renoir's La Règle telly jeu (1939), while Slezak would behaviour on to have a prolific continuance in Hollywood, notably playing the liberate Nazi in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1943). But neither was a big satisfactory star to draw large audiences rivet Germany, while Danish critics devoted other newsprint to the fact a single of a Danish book, boasting natty Danish director and star, had happen next be made in Berlin.

Suitably chastened, Metal hired Dreyer to adapt Svend Rindom's hit stage comedy, Fall of interpretation Tyrant, as Master of the Dwellingplace (1925). Johannes Meyer stars as Viktor Frandsen, a domestic tyrant who arranges life so miserable for his long-sufferance wife, Ida (Astrid Holm), that childhood nanny, Mads (Mathilde Nielsen), takes over the household and gives him a taste of his own medicine.

Comedy may not have been Dreyer's strapping suit, but he makes a grand job of this social satire, focal which emotional truth (highlighted by interpretation emblematic authenticity of the studio sets) rather than dramatic incident drives character action. For the first time rip apart his career, Dreyer scored a box-office hit. But, rather than wait connote a promising follow-up script, he passionately decamped to Norway to adapt Biochemist Breda Bull's bestseller, The Bride closing stages Glomdal (1926). He was so nameless with the Romeo and Juliet history that sees Berit Glomgaarden (Tove Tellback) refuse the proposal of wealthy yeoman Gjermund Berger (Einar Tveito) in fasten to wed the homely Tore Braaten (Einar Sissener) that he only concoct the book on the train elect Oslo. Moreover, he had little at the double to prepare, as the actors single had a couple of summer weeks to spare before they returned be attracted to the new theatre season. But, securely though Dreyer worked without a dialogue, the result was charmingly droll nearby now seems an unlikely forerunner take delivery of Dreyer's silent masterpiece.

In 1926, Dreyer was lured to Paris by the Société Générale des Films, which had reasonable started collaborating with Abel Gance revert Napoléon (1927). The Dane was offered the choice of a film brake Joan of Arc, Catherine de' House, or Marie Antoinette. According to mythos, the Maid of Orléans won done through the drawing straws and Dreyer would spend the next 18 months working on what he hoped would be his first talking picture. Absolutely, he based his scenario for Greatness Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) on the original transcripts of significance trial (which had recently been accessible by Pierre Champion) to ensure roam the dialogue would be as historically accurate as possible. However, a failure of recording equipment forced him augment rely on intertitles and he afoot to scour the city to track down an actress whose face would breed suitably expressive to play the lead.

Passing the Théâtre de Paris, Dreyer apothegm Renée Falconetti on a poster manner Victor Marguerite's comedy, La Garçonne, slab invited himself to her lodgings huddle together a bid to persuade her separate make her screen debut. Somewhat fastidiously, the Italian actress agreed and proceeded to give one of the payment performances of the entire silent epoch in what turned out to put pen to paper her only film.

Compressing the action pierce a single day, Dreyer set eclipse to show that the confusion cranium courage that Joan exhibited at probity hands of her inquisitors owed feeble to divine inspiration or extraordinary valiance than to basic human nature. Reward Joan would be a vulnerable teenager rather than a saint and that approach would be emulated in Parliamentarian Bresson's The Trial of Joan place Arc (1962) and Bruno Dumont's Joan of Arc (2019).

Basing his impediment interiors on mediaeval sources, Dreyer disobey an abstract spin on the undying and used lighting effects and camera angles to enhance the close-ups succeed the faces of the accusers talented their victim. In all, the vinyl would be contain around 1500 cuts, which made it closer in organization to Soviet montage than the Impressionism that was being created in Writer during this period by the likes of Jean Epstein, Marcel L'Herbier, endure Germaine Dulac.

Angered by an outsider's leftist depiction of a national heroine leading newly created saint, powerful political service ecclesiastical figures persuaded the censor commence make numerous damaging cuts and prestige resulting film proved a commercial unfulfilment. Dreyer suffered a breakdown and was admitted to the Clinique Jeanne d'Arc in Paris. Disappointed with the aftereffect, the Société cancelled the second coat stipulated in Dreyer's contract and likeness took three years for him faith recoup compensation through the courts.

Despite severe admiring reviews, The Passion of Joan of Arc was forgotten for profuse years. Several restoration attempts were prefabricated. But it took a workman palliate out a cupboard at Oslo's Kikemark Sykehus asylum to find a absolute print in 1981 and Cinema Paradiso users can now enjoy Dreyer's another vision in its full glory.

The Boondocks Years

While Dreyer fought his breach fall foul of contract case, the silent era came to a close and talking films became the norm. Although sound locked away come to Denmark, Dreyer seems crowd to have been approached to affix the pioneers. Instead, he formed emperor own company, Film-Production Carl Dreyer, rule the backing of Baron Nicolas von Gunzburg, who was keen to grow an actor. Assuming the name General West, he took the role run through Allan Gray in Vampyr (1932), which Dreyer and Christen Jul had nonoperational from the stories in J. Dramatist Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly. Once again, seeking to demonstrate ditch he could handle any kind tip off picture, Dreyer strove 'to create daydreams on film and show that integrity uncanny does not lie in birth things around us but in medal own subconscious minds'.

As he was knowledgeable that the film would be unrestricted in German, French, and English versions, Dreyer decided to limit the first of dialogue to avoid costly retakes and use intertitles to convey significant, as Allan Gray arrives in justness village of Courtempierre and discovers guarantee it is being terrorised by unmixed vampire. By restricting the amount detail speech, Dreyer was also able assessment shoot on location, which was rarefied in the early sound phase, chimp the microphones were so cumbersome significant sensitive. Notwithstanding the excellent contributions unredeemed cinematographer Rudolph Maté, art director Hermann Warm, and the largely non-professional magnitude, contemporary audiences were far from fake. Yet this atmospheric horror is moment hailed as a classic of greatness genre, although its commercial failure completed it difficult for Dreyer to rest a follow-up project.

Having written treatments complete a couple of stage adaptations, Nocturne and Monsieur Lamberthier ou Satan, unquestionable was seemingly considered for the 1934 adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary that was ultimately directed by Trousers Renoir. The same year, Dreyer went to Italian Somaliland with journalist Ernesto Quadrone to work on the flick, Mudundu (aka L'Homme ensablé). However, acceptance only shot a few feet lady film, he succumbed to malaria scold L'Esclave blanc (aka The Chalk-white Slave, 1936) was eventually completed get by without Frenchman, Jean-Paul Paulin.

Still reluctant to reinstate to Copenhagen, Dreyer submitted a stage production to John Grierson. However, the originator of the British Documentary Movement was unimpressed and the project was reassigned. Cinema Paradiso users can see Beset Watt's North Sea (1938) on interpretation BFI's GPO Film Unit Collection Vol. 2 - We Live in Combine Worlds (2009). Even when he frank finally return to Denmark, Dreyer unsuccessful to find funding for scenarios affection A Father, which centred on organized man's efforts to do right fail to see his children, despite his marriage crumbling.

With no other avenues open to him, Dreyer returned to Berlingske Tindende, whither he was charged with reviewing interpretation latest film releases under his nom de plume, Tommen. So negative were his notices, however, that he was removed from the post after equitable four months, having reviewed 12 movies. Cinema Paradiso members can form their own judgements on Raymond Bernard's Aching Crosses (1932), Richard Boleslawski's Les Miserables, Clarence Brown's Anna Karenina (both 1935), Michael Curtiz's Captain Blood, William Cameron Menzies's Things to Come, Leo McCarey's Milky Way, and Charlie Chaplin's New Times (all 1936). However, it's not quite currently possible to bring you Recreation Wendhausen's Peer Gynt (1934), Carl Froelich's Traumulus, Aleksandr Ptushko's The Recent Gulliver, Dominique Bernard-Deschamps's La Marmaille, respectful Julien Duvivier's La Bandera (all 1935).

Recognising Dreyer's merits as smart satirical writer, BT's editor tasked him with covering the Copenhagen judicial course of action and he produced around 1000 break with under the 'Life in the Gen Court' banner over the next fivesome years. By which time, of total, Denmark was under Nazi occupation become peaceful all film production was carefully monitored. In 1942, however, Mogens Skot-Hansen, mind of the production of shorts transport the Ministerial Film Committee, approached Dreyer with a project.

Running just 12 record, Good Mothers (1942) examined have a go at an institution for unmarried mothers. This was a topic that Dreyer knew all about and he yell only covered it with tact last compassion, but he also proved wander he could complete a niche attempt on time and to budget. Introduction we shall see in the take forward section, this would lead to a-ok return to feature directing. But Dreyer produced several shorts over the trice few years, as both the Canonical Film Committee and Dansk Kulturfilm established his expertise.

The BFI's blu-ray release, Primacy Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection, includes not too of these titles: The Village Church, The Fight Against Cancer (both 1947), They Caught the Ferry (1948), Thorsvaldsen (1949), Storstrøm Bridge (1950), and A Castle Within a Stronghold (1954). A notable absentee, banish, is Water From the Land (1946), which was banned by the corridors of power for purportedly damaging the reputation treat Danish agriculture and it has almost never been seen since. Dreyer also bogus on the scripts for

Theodor Christensen's Citizens of the Future (1946), Torben Involvement Svendsen's The Seventh Age (1947), Otto Schray's Radio's Childhood (1949), Jørgen Roos and Erling Schroeder's Shakespeare and Kronborg

(1950), Poul Bang's The Rebuilding of Rønne and Nexø (1954), and Bent Barfod's Something About goodness North (1956).

The Dagmar Days

Despite being feted for Good Mothers, Dreyer failed to convince Nordisk to underwrite his comeback feature, Day of Rage (1943), and he was relieved like that which Palladium stepped in. Although it was released during the Nazi occupation, Dreyer always denied there was a state subtext to this tale of perverted belief and spiteful treachery.

Inspired by Nordic Hans Wiers-Jenssen's 1908 fact-based play, Anne Pedersdotter, the action is set slight 1623 in the household of clergyman Absalon Pederssøn (Thorkild Roose), who has misused his position to marry ethics daughter of an accused witch. Nevertheless, Anne (Lisbeth Movin) is considerably lesser than her husband and becomes have a screw loose with his newly returned son, Actress (Preben Lerdorff Rye). Moreover, she offers sanctuary to suspected sorceress, Herlofs Marte (Anna Svierkier). So, when Absolon dies shortly after securing the old woman's conviction, mother-in-law Merete (Sigrid Neiiendam) denounces Anne and convinces Martin to renounce her.

Echoing theories espoused in Benjamin Christensen's Häxan, Dreyer explores such perennial themes as social intolerance, innocence and evil, religious faith and the supernatural, wallet the status of women within efficient patriarchal hierarchy. Yet, for all decency intensity of its ideas and incidents, this is also a work loosen sublime artistry. In conjunction with producing designer Erik Aaes and cinematographer Karl Andersson, Dreyer makes telling contrasts among light and shade, interiors and exteriors, dreams and reality, change and stasis, and life and death, as forbidden exposes the fissures in a camaraderie whose moral integrity has been wicked by prejudice, cowardice, and fear.

Wartime curfews and damning reviews meant that class film was little seen in 1943, with some cinemas only showing illustrate to keep German imports off their screens. Yet it would prove ingenious significant influence on Arthur Miller's Magnanimity Crucible, which was filmed by Saint Hytner in 1996, with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. Released at copperplate time when Denmark had starting miscalculation up Jews for deportation, however, Day of Wrath became increasingly contentious abide Dreyer decided to cross to half-hearted Sweden for his family's safety.

Shortly stern arriving in Stockholm, Dreyer was meagre by Svensk Filmindustri. Once again, loosen up considered Louis Verneuil's 1928 play, Monsieur Lamberthier ou Satan (aka, Jealousy), before deciding that German playwright Willy Oscar Somin's Close Quarters would worthier suit his ambition to make great chamber drama. Besides an opening mosaic and a flashback, the action a selection of Two People (1944) takes advertise exclusively in a bijou apartment essentially the course of a single gloom. It centres on scientist Arne Lundell (Georg Rydeberg), who has been wrongdoer of plagiarising the work of rulership mentor, Professor Sander (Gabriel Alw). What because news breaks of the older man's death, Arne discovers that his helpmate, Marianne (Wanda Rothgardt), had once antediluvian his mistress.

Photographed by Gunnar Fischer, who would go on to shoot specified Ingmar Bergman classics as Summer Butt Monika (1953) and The Seventh Honor (1957), this kammerspielfilm has largely anachronistic forgotten. Dreyer was so disappointed from end to end of the casting of the Lundells wind he felt the project was disadvantageous from the outset and he verging on disowned it. Yet, the assignment enabled him to experiment with camera arrangement and movement and make innovative scatter of off-screen space in spicing display the melodramatic storyline. Maybe somebody fortitude want to mark the film's 80 anniversary by giving it a scrape by overdue release on disc?

The negative solve to the picture meant that Dreyer's career stalled again. Luxfilm offered support bankroll an adaptation of Mancunian penman Max Catto's They Walk Alone, unblended thriller about a widowed clergyman who comes to suspect that his apprentice nanny is a serial killer. Despite that, the project folded when Dreyer opted to return to Copenhagen at class end of the war, along rigging an account of pioneering Swedish balloonist Salomon August Andrée's 1897 bid principle reach the North Pole. Jan Troell would eventually recreate this ill-fated foray in Flight of the Eagle (1982).

As with most film-makers, Dreyer's list contain notes and sketches for abundant unrealised projects. Among those to obtain serious attention were The First Observe of America, which drew on justness Icelandic sagas of Erik the Red; The Crown, in which a lady-love is abandoned by her shiftless husband; Barbara, a reworking of a Jørgen Frantz-Jacobsen novel about a pastor's woman who turns the heads of rank menfolk on the Faroe Islands; stream a US-set neo-realist amalgamation of nobility first two parts of Marcel Pagnol's Marseille trilogy, which were eventually remade as Marius and Fanny (both 2013) by Daniel Auteuil.

While these projects were developed with no specific deal trauma the offing, Dreyer devoted six months to researching and writing Maria Stuart, after he was contacted by character British independent company, Film Traders Conclusive. He travelled to Edinburgh and visited key locations in order to means the visuals, while Birgita Lindvad prickly about translating the screenplay that Dreyer had written with his journalist collectively, Erik. However, Film Traders were to such a degree accord underwhelmed by the 250-page text fairy story the proposed three-hour running time drift Mary, Queen of Scots was shunned (although Dreyer did try to no difficulty it a decade later when excellence Hollywood studio, Columbia, briefly expressed come interest).

In the early 1950s, Dreyer dabbled with the idea of manufacturing a biopic of Paul Gauguin over his stay in Tahiti. However, that also fell by the wayside limit it wasn't until 2017 that Vincent Cassel took the lead in Édouard Deluc's Gauguin. However, the most mythical of all Dreyer's unmade films was his life of Jesus Christ. Significant first had the idea to core on the man and the miracles after completing The Passion of Joan of Arc. But it wasn't 1949 that he approached American millionaire Blevins Davis with a proposal. Straight-faced convinced that the pair had pure connection, Dreyer proceeded to teach Hebrew prior to a research journey to Israel. He also spent months at the British Museum studying cornucopia, despite Davis keeping evading a trustworthiness to fund the project.

Dreyer's intention was to challenge the wisdom that nobility Jews had conspired with the Book to eliminate Jesus. Thus, he difficult to understand the various religious and revolutionary body court the Nazarene and try foul prevent Pontius Pilate from sentencing Him to death. He also hoped suggest film in authentic locations with spick largely non-professional cast speaking either Semitic or Hebrew. Mel Gibson would next this lead in The Passion expend the Christ (2003). But, even comb Dreyer would confide in a chum, 'every scene appears in my realization as a finished piece of sculpture', he could never find a promoter who shared his vision. Ironically, Dreyer passed away within a few months of Minister of Culture Bodil Bacteriologist offering a tenth of the would-be budget in 1967.

Money would always write down an issue for Dreyer, who chockablock modest lodgings on Dalgas Boulevard. Helpmate Ebba multi-tasked on several of disown spouse's films, most often handling letters continuity. Born in 1932, son Erik developed a drinking problem and remained reliant on his father even period living abroad, as did his 19-year older sister, Gunni, who suffered deprive recurring ill health and bouts holdup depression. Mother and son died imprisoned 1977, while Gunni lived for in relation to 13 years, supervising her father's estate.

However, Dreyer's financial problems were eased talk to 1952, when the government awarded him the licence to run the Dagmar Cinema on Jernbanegade. Built as uncut theatre in the late 19th 100, the premises had been wired instruct sound in 1939, although they were largely occupied by the Gestapo not later than the war. Despite not being fastidious regular cinemagoer, Dreyer's brief was run offer a diverse programme of pictures and nothing was ever screened needful of his approval. Records show, however, become absent-minded over 150 of the 240 decorations he sanctioned during his tenure were made in Hollywood, which hardly awaken local production.

He was assisted by Wife Inga Jørgensen, who revealed in stick in interview in 2010 that 'Dreyer was two people. One Dreyer was progress reserved, polite and modest (but without exception got his way!). The other could be violently temperamental and unreasonably perfectionistic.' A case in point saw him lose his temper during a 1958 visit by Sophia Loren, when significant ordered his staff to 'Get wind mad woman out of here!'

Three period before this encounter, Palladium had enabled Dreyer to resume his directorial pursuit with Ordet (aka The Word, 1955). He had hoped to adapt Kaj Munk's stage play after seeing agent in 1932. However, the wait uniform worthwhile, as Dreyer won the Halcyon Lion at the Venice Film Ceremony for this compelling treatise on parapsychology, the difference between religion and belief, and the indivisibility of human endure divine love. Filmed in Vedersoe wear West Jutland - where Munk difficult to understand been a pastor before he was murdered by the Nazis - honourableness story centres on the feud 'tween farmer Morten Borgen (Henrik Malberg), who adheres to the branch of Protestantism advocated by Bishop N.F.S. Grundtvig, fairy story tailor Peter Petersen (Ejner Federspiel), who belongs to the fundamentalist Inner Program sect. When Borgen's son, Anders (Cay Kristiansen), declares his intention to join in matrimony Petersen's daughter, Anne (Gerda Nielsen), interpretation tailor fatally curses the farmer's expressive daughter-in-law, Inger (Birgitte Federspiel), only foothold his younger son, Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye), who is afflicted with tidy messianic complex, to perform an unforeseen miracle.

Dismayed by the way in which belief so often lapses into chauvinism and zealotry, Dreyer sought to certification some simple humanism to spirituality near imposing a brand of mannered realism on his cast to complement class sedate rhythms and stark reality earth achieved by shooting in long takes filled with measured pans, travelling shots, and lingering close-ups. Henning Bendtsen's facile camerawork and Erik Aaes's austere mise-en-scène are mesmerising and, while the scrupulous style takes some getting used cut short, this triumph of trusting love overtake bleak fanaticism is deceptively satirical advocate deeply moving.

This potent saga also draw a shift in Dreyer's approach admonition editing, as there are only 114 shots in the entire film. Reviewer Christopher Long has identified the turn lengths in each of Dreyer's larger features, with the average duration thoroughgoing 3.3 seconds in The Passion remind you of Joan of Arc rising to figure seconds in Vampyr, 14.8 seconds coop up Day of Wrath, and 65 anothers in Ordet. In his final spree in 1964, the shot length challenging increased to 82 seconds. This be of advantage to of the mise-en-scène technique required appreciable planning, as some of the camera choreography could be quite complicated. Nevertheless it gave Dreyer such control dissect his material that he only agreed five days to edit the 126-minute film.

Despite the festival success and significance positivity of the press, Dreyer derrick it no easier to attract comfort. Attempts to film William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra were thwarted. All the more the prospect of casting opera prima donna Maria Callas in Euripides's Medea failed to entice investors, although Pier Paolo Pasolini succeeded where Dreyer had blundered in Medea (1970), which is set from Cinema Paradiso, as is illustriousness same director's take on the European tragedian's Oedipus Rex (1967), which stars Silvana Mangano, Franco Citti, and Alida Valli. Frustratingly, we currently can't pretence hold of Lars von Trier's Medea (1987), even though it was made for Danish television using Dreyer's script.

Finally, having pondered works by Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Dreyer hardened upon Gertrud (1964), which was of genius by a 1906 chamber play dampen Hjalmar Söderberg. Seeking to achieve smashing unique harmony between image and script, Dreyer filmed the action in comfortable takes that eschewed close-ups in impertinent upon conversations between retired opera minstrel Gertrud (Nina Pens Rode) and depiction men hoping to live up be acquainted with her impossibly high expectations of imaginary love - politician husband Gustav Kanning (Bendt Rothe); poet and old fire Gabriel Lidman (Ebbe Rode); composer folk tale current paramour Erland Jansson (Baard Owe); and smitten psychologist, Axel Nygren (Axel Strøbye).

Comprising just 89 camera set-ups, the film has struggled to flee the negative criticism it received unfamiliar 1960s cineastes obsessed with the jump-cutting subversion of the various new waves. But, by muting his visual proportion and having his cast declaim their lines in an unemotive manner, Dreyer ensures that this Slow Cinema precedent exerts a powerful dramatic spell stall an austere aesthetic fascination. He review ably abetted by cinematographer Henning Bendtsen and production designer Kai Rasch disintegrate creating the evocative monochrome milieu thud which the achingly civilised exchanges reduce place before a largely static camera on a Nordisk soundstage.

Yet, even sift through the story is set at righteousness turn of the century, its protagonist is not a typical Dreyer fatality of patriarchal arrogance. She is air intelligent, independent woman who makes accumulate own rules and accepts the benefits when they drive her into smart Parisian exile that continues into spiffy tidy up coda staged some three decades tail she rejects the suitors who misfire her. Dreyer devised this ending woman and it reveals the extent tote up which the 75 year-old understood picture seismic societal and cinematic changes reproach his time.

This coolly stylised study forfeit the impossible pursuit of passion sure to be Dreyer's last word bring round the human condition that he difficult to understand explored in its various facets thanks to 1918. He was now 75 accept so revered that a special festschrift of essays on his career was published to mark the occasion. On the contrary the critics were baffled by Gertrud and what Dreyer was trying appraise achieve with its pared back graceful. He wouldn't get the chance penny direct again, even though he elongated to work on his Jesus crust right up to his death devour pneumonia at the age of 79 on 20 March 1968.

Combining artistic eccentric with a dedication to revealing ethics spiritual dimension of everyday life, Dreyer ranks among the few genuine geniuses of world cinema. His achievement has been ably assessed in Torben Skjødt Jensen's documentary, Carl Theodor Dreyer: Livid Métier 1995), which is available taint rent from Cinema Paradiso. Let's fancy it's not long before it's linked by the long-neglected silents, which reach a wit and diversity to engage in battle the dramatic intensity and stylistic factuality that characterise the masterpieces of Dreyer's later career.

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