Carl Theodor Dreyer

[Knappen]

More kick-ass quality from ARTE:





A low quality version (complete?) can be seen for free here, but only for a limited time.

[Tommaso]

Knappen, I haven't watched my recording yet, but a quick glance showed me the same VERY extensive picture-boxing as on your caps. Is this a result of arte transmitting it in HD (which I can't use)? But if so, wouldn't the higher resolution be completely lost if you have to zoom in to fill the top and bottom of the screen even on a 16:9 set? And I wouldn't want to know what those how had to watch it on a 4:3 set without zoom would have said about it....
Apart from that, it seems to look great indeed, and I'm happy to finally be able to see that darn film anyway...

[Knappen]

I didn't do the recording myself, so I couldn't really tell you all about the picture-boxing. Le Ciel est à vous by Grémillon that I got recorded from another channel had the same thing.

As I have gone and bought myself a projector I think I'll get a sufficiently large picture on my wall anyway!

[markhax]

A low quality version (complete?) can be seen for free here, but only for a limited time.

Not in the United States, alas. This is unfortunately true of almost everything on Arte.

[Tommaso]

Just a few words on "Die Gezeichneten":

The film is an example of a number of philo-semite films made in Germany at the time, most of which are rather unknown or (I suppose) lost today. I have no idea how accurate Dreyer's depiction of a Jewish community in rural Russia actually is, but the portrayal of these 'outsiders' is constantly touching and clearly places an emphasis on the importance of sticking to one's customs and cultural heritage in many moments. Visually, this has Dreyer's usual intensity: fantastic outdoor photography a la "The Parson's Widow", but equally great work with close-ups and lavish interiors in the scenes in St.Petersburg which point to "Michael" already, but also curiously reminded me a lot of Evgeni Bauer. The latter also goes especially for the brief dream sequence (referenced above in the second of Knappen's caps), which seems to come directly out of "After Death".

The highpoint, however, is the very long sequence (or sequences) at the end of the film, lasting almost half an hour, concerning the pogrome and the building-up to it. I must say that I found Dreyer's depiction of how easy a group of people can be manipulated and the 'logical' outcome in extreme violence frighteningly intense even today. There is little that compares to this explosion of hatred in the cinema of the time, apart perhaps from some central scenes in Eisenstein's "Strike" or even "Potemkin" - both of which were made a few years later, of course -, and Dreyer's surprisingly fast editing also looked rather 'Russian' as well (or think of Gance, if you like). Completely amazing.

I was not so very happy with the new music, though, which was specially recorded for the arte broadcast. In 'dissonant' early 20th century modernist style, it often was paced too fast for the rather slow-going initial parts of the film and also drew too much attention to itself. Its sometimes slightly enervating character fitted perfectly to the pogrome sequence, though, and underlined its intensity in a helpful way. Still, I would have nothing against an alternative music track should this ever be released commercially. The image/print quality is great for a film of that vintage, despite the usual remaining scratches et al.

All in all, I am very, very impressed indeed. But with Dreyer, how could it be otherwise?

[Erikht]

I posted this somewhere else, but it might fit better here. This is the list over the editions of Dreyer's films that I think will give most for your money, with as little double dipping as possible, though some might prefer other editions.

As well as "The Bride of Glomdal" and "Die Gezeichneten", I believe "Two People" and the short "Water from the land" are the only films by Dreyer that has not been turned out in a readily available format. Somebody did write somewhere on this forum that DFI was saving up the last films for some sort of anniversary; I just can't think of what anniversary that should be.

Other than that, I did compile a list of how to get as much Dreyer as possible in a good quality with as few outlays as possible. The trick is to buy the feature films, and get the shorts as extras. I have gone for quality of the transfer first, and extras second. I list the films under the label they are published. This is the result.

Danish Film Institute:

The President
Leaves out of the book of Satan(Image got one as well, but I would go for the Danish version)
Once Upon a Time
Love one another
The bride of Glomdal
Der var engang

The British Film Institute got some very good transfers, possibly better than Criterion's. These are the ones to buy:

Thou shalt honour thy wife aka Master of the house (With the shorts Good Mothers and They Caught the Ferry as extras)
Day of wrath (with the shorts The Struggle Against Cancer and The Castle within the Castle as extras)
The Word (With the shorts The Storstrom Bridge and Thorvaldsen as extras)
Gertrud ( With the short The Dansih Village Church as extra)

As you can see, that gives all the available shorts as extras with the BFI editions, which makes them better than Criterions. The images are more or less the same, I think. Not that i am badmouthing Criterions Dreyer set, it's great, but you will have to double dip if you want most of these shorts.

Image

The Parsons Widow (With the shorts They Caught the Ferry and Thorvaldsen as extras)

Image got other films as well (As do Kino), but this is the only one I would buy from them. It is also the only one you have to buy from them.

Eureka/MoC

Michael
The Vampire

Image and Criterion got Vampire as well (and Kino got Michael). I have never seen Criterion's version, and have only heard good things about it, but I own Eureka's, and like it a lot.

Criterion Collection

The Passion of Joan of Arc

The one and only. If everybody owned sone free DVD-players, there would be no need to ever re-issue this film.

Now, as you can see, Dreyer is quite well covered, with only three features and one short missing from the Complete Dreyer list, and these films all exist in archives, so they are not lost. Not bad for a guy who made his first film in 1919!

[Tommaso]

Eureka/MoC

Michael
The Vampire

Image and Criterion got Vampire as well (and Kino got Michael).

The Kino "Michael" is practically the same as the first disc of the MoC, i.e. the US print with the same piano score and Tyberg commentary, but the Kino misses out on the German print that is on the second disc of the MoC. The music provided for the German version is far superior in my view, and the print, although more scratched, shows far better detail than the US version, which looks somewhat hazy. MoC all the way, then, even though the English subs on the German version cannot be switched off due to some authoring error. But a simple re-burn fixes it; the disc is single-layered anyway.

[HerrSchreck]

Are they two different cuts-- i e versions-- of the film on the MoC? The way you're saying English version vs German version it sounds like they're completely different prints you're talking about. Is this the case?

I'd always had the American edition and this was one of the MoC SE's I never got to grab... I always thought they were different telecine's of the same print or something. The one with the greater detail does indeed have much more detail than the single disc US edition, but the chroma bug on that disc always puzzled me. I always though MoC was giving you the choice between two passes, each with its own quirks, rather than simply the faded Kino/Shepard edition.

[Tommaso]

No, sorry for phrasing it in this misleading way. The booklet speaks of disc one as "USA version" and of disc two as "European version", that's where my words came from. But the cover blurp says "Two different transfers of the film (USA transfer by David Shepard, European Transfer by Transit Film", and the booklet explains that these come from two different prints, which accounts for the heavier scratches on the German version. But it looks like both prints are the same as far as the cut itself is concerned.
And yes, that chroma bug is mildly annoying, but for me less irritating than the hazier image and the anglicized on-screen text of the US version. That Transit telecine was already made way back in 1993, which might explain these chroma artifacts. But the Shepard version was made in 2004, so I really wonder why it looks so much softer than the Transit, unless the different print is the culprit.

[Adam]

The British Film Institute got some very good transfers, possibly better than Criterion's. These are the ones to buy:

Thou shalt honour thy wife aka Master of the house (With the shorts Good Mothers and They Caught the Ferry as extras)
Day of wrath (with the shorts The Struggle Against Cancer and The Castle within the Castle as extras)
The Word (With the shorts The Storstrom Bridge and Thorvaldsen as extras)
Gertrud ( With the short The Danish Village Church as extra)

Thank you. A useful appraisal for me. But I've never seen Ordet referred to as The Word, even if that is the translation. The DVD is called Ordet.

[Erikht]

Thank you. A useful appraisal for me. But I've never seen Ordet referred to as The Word, even if that is the translation. The DVD is called Ordet.

A bit of the old auto-translation, I'm afraid.

[Sloper]

The Kino "Michael" is practically the same as the first disc of the MoC, i.e. the US print with the same piano score and Tyberg commentary, but the Kino misses out on the German print that is on the second disc of the MoC. The music provided for the German version is far superior in my view, and the print, although more scratched, shows far better detail than the US version, which looks somewhat hazy.

I disagree about the scores – they’re both equally good, I think, and after revisiting both versions many times I’ve actually come to prefer the piano score. These are easily two of the best silent film scores I’ve ever heard, though, and the MoC is well worth picking up just to hear Oser’s remarkable music. They’re really two different films. Also, the ‘hazy’ look of the US print is not wholly unfitting to the somewhat dream-like atmosphere that pervades much of the film (visually it has close affinities with Vampyr and Gertrud), but I do generally prefer the German print in this respect. It’s pretty much my favourite film, and the MoC set is one of my most treasured possessions.

It should be mentioned that for those who are reliant on English subtitles, the BFI editions of Day of Wrath, Ordet and Gertrud are less than ideal.

I’m not sure I had the subs switched on while I watched the BFI Day of Wrath (it’s worth getting just for the commentary, of course), but apparently there are un-translated passages.

The subs on Ordet really are quite poor, and apart from the otherwise unavailable Storstrom Bridge, that edition has nothing to recommend it, the Bendsten interview being of negligible value.

Although the translations on Gertrud are generally more elegant than on the Criterion version, they leave the students’ song un-translated, which is fairly important. The same is true of the otherwise excellent Madman release, which also features the same interview excerpts as the Criterion and a great commentary from Adrian Martin.

So for real devotees, the Criterion set is an essential purchase, if only for the sake of Ordet.

[zedz]

Interesting Dreyer footnote gleaned from the excellent Alberto Cavalcanti interview included in the BFI's We Live in Two Worlds set.

During Dreyer's late 30s career lull he (like several other great unemployed filmmakers) was approached by Cavalcanti and Grierson to direct North Sea (1938, ultimately directed by Harry Watt) for the GPO, and actually went so far as to prepare a script for it, which Cavalcanti rejected. The excerpt:

"I had brought Carl Dreyer to visit the unit and had introduced him to Grierson who immediately, in an almost Mussolini-like fashion, decreed that Dreyer should direct North Sea. Dreyer was given a log of the real incident, took it away and wrote a script. I read the script and refused to have anything more to do with it. Whatever Dreyer's other virtues as a filmmaker, he had no documentary sense. For example, when these tough Scottish fishermen see the rescuing trawler, he had them bursting into tears! Can you imagine that? I had a big quarrel with Grierson over this, but fortunately Dreyer had by this time found other employment and so the matter went no further."

[HerrSchreck]

I'm suffering my own version of Dreyer Tears, as I've a copy of Two People-- whose opening few minutes are as tour-de-force as anything he ever did-- without subtitles.

[zedz]

We'll be expecting a full report from you in due course, in that case.

[Ishmael]

I'm suffering my own version of Dreyer Tears, as I've a copy of Two People-- whose opening few minutes are as tour-de-force as anything he ever did-- without subtitles.

Well, if you're willing to take a trip to DC, the National Gallery of Art will be showing it December 12 (scroll down the page). They'll either have subtitles on the print or they'll project soft subtitles below it.

[lubitsch]

We'll be expecting a full report from you in due course, in that case.

And are still waiting ...
In the meantime I can't fail to express my surprise at Tommasso's positive review of Die Gezeichneten. After seeing The President and Leaves from Satan's Book which were trashed in Tom Milne's book on Dreyer, I decided to pass on Gezeichneten which got a similar note, but then submitted out of a feeling of duty. I'm still astonished at how few of dreyer's talent you can see in this three early features. Weren't it for The Parson's Widow I can't imagine his career would have gone very far. Dreyer is wading through incredibly melodramatic stuff and what's worse he hasn't any idea how to deal with it. He dabbles a bit with decor, but mostly shoots the scripts scene by scene without any overarching idea. With somebody like Borzage you see clearly in his 10s short westerns that you'll get a special director in time and often young directors try to impress visually even if the material itself isn't particularily impressive, but Dreyer's films are dead wood. Didn't he care? Thank god he hit his stride with Michael, otherwise I can easily imagine him ending up nowwhere. I find this simply surprising because Dreyer belongs to the powerful auteur directors who massively influence their movies like e.g. Angelopoulos or Ozu and therefore one expects a very consistent style and tone. The rediscovery of a gaudy, early Angelopolous comedy couldn't have me surprised more than this flat stuff.
I agree however that the pogrom scenes are the most interesting ones, they have a certain suddenness and unexpected anarchy even though you know that everything leads up to them.

[Sloper]

Well I guess you're not the first person on this forum to express dislike for Leaves From Satan's Book. I couldn't disagree more, though: I'd say it's about my third favourite Dreyer (after Michael and Gertrud), and I love The President as well. The amazing thing about these two films, to me, is just how much of Dreyer's greatness is already apparent in them. Yes the subject matter of The President is hoary melodrama, but how you can fail to be moved by the visuals is beyond me. You didn't even like those idyllic scenes where the lovers meet and we see their reflections in the water? Does this not foreshadow Michael, Vampyr, Day of Wrath, Gertrud? Or the night-time torchlight parade, with the salutes of the torches juxtaposed with the men in suits raising their glasses, and Karl-Victor in the middle isolated by guilt and despair (hints of Michael again, and the party in Gertrud)? You say he 'dabbles a bit with decor' but surely the accumulation of spare, telling details is more than dabbling? And I know that even Dreyer commented on the deficiencies of the acting, but I find the performances very sensitive and restrained, but at the same time very intense - pure Dreyer, through and through.

And Leaves was a project Dreyer invested a huge amount of time, effort and research in. Ultimately he was only allowed about half the budget he had expected, so we can only assume that he had something even more impressive in mind, but this seems to me a film where every moment, every detail, every perfectly composed shot and every subtle camera movement (see Marie Antoinette being taken to her cell) or iris effect (the shot where Judas is hounded out of the frame by a great wall of blackness is just astonishing) counts for so much. The first episode in particular has a simple grandeur that puts all other films about Jesus to shame (except maybe Alice Guy's from 1906, which is about the same length as Dreyer's and bears comparison with it). All the way through Leaves, the characters' homes have that authentic 'lived-in' feel that Dreyer does better than anyone. And Helge Nissen works wonders with the ironically passive role of Satan. He expresses so much with so little movement of his features; that scene in the French episode where he reveals his identity and damns the young man could easily have been over-the-top, but because of the restraint of what has led up it it becomes an intense, even quite frightening moment. I do feel that the suspense-oriented fourth episode sees Dreyer on less stable ground, but largely the film seems to avoid melodramatic excess in favour of understatement - it's a film about small sins and betrayals, not grand acts of villainy, and it's interested in the psychological damnation we inflict on ourselves without even realising it. There's so little gesturing and arm-flinging, especially for a film from this period.

Out of interest lubitsch, are you watching the Image release or the DFI? I haven't seen the former, but I understand the frame rate is hugely accelerated, and I imagine this would ruin the effect entirely (as it does on Kino's Outlaw and His Wife); also the DFI has a lovely score based on Dreyer's own notes.

I adore Dreyer's early films (though I haven't seen Gezeichneten or Bride of Glomdal), and find them much more accessible than his later, more celebrated, masterpieces.

[Tommaso]

Despite of having already said goodnight on the Mizo thread, let me just add that I have little or nothing to add to your post, Sloper, even though I seriously think that "Leaves" is Dreyer's most uncharacteristic film. How one cannot be amazed by the climax of "Die Gezeichneten" is a little beyond me, really, but so it seems to be. Different strokes for different folks. As to "Glomdal", it's certainly a good film, but ever since I've seen Breistein's "Bridal Party in Hardanger", there's simply no comparison to that film if it comes to Scandinavian pastoralism. Nevertheless, it's completely incomprehensible why "Glomdal" isn't available on disc anywhere.

[lubitsch]

Hm, we have to agree to disagree on this point, at least I seem to occupy the majority position regarding general critical opinion. I've usually a very good memory, there are however films which disintegrate completely and in some cases even while I watch the films. I watched this trio and didn't feel anything, no characters, no story rhythm or development (I have the DFI dvds and the arte broadcast of DIE GEZEICHNETEN). I'm never satisfied if there are a few interesting visual moments because that alone never can carry the interest of an audience over feature length, but that aside there was nothing to hold my interest and this trio surely goes straight to my lowest 100 of watched silent features. It's interesting that you mention the Jesus episode, you however surely mean that it's the most impressive one in cinema up to 1920? I've finished a yet to be published article about Jesus films, seen all the big ones and would be genuinely shocked if you put these scenes in Dreyer's film ahead of all of them.
The whole affair puzzles me all the more with the contrast to Parson's Widow which has a deceptively simple story which begins amusing, gets a partly humurous but also partly sinister turn with the forced marriage before it switches around and opens up the older woman for us and ends gently without any hurry all supported by restrained performances and a unobtrusive pictorial style.
While I can usually see the other's point of view even if I can't share it, ranking President as third favorite Dreyer ... oh well, the world is wide and colorful .
I agree that earlier Dreyer is in fact more accessible and for quite a few people Gertrud really is an endurance test and a dead end of cinematography with Dreyer unwittingly peeling everything away which makes a film art.

[Tommaso]

Let me come back to "The President" briefly; as I've seen it only once so far, my memory is a bit hazy, but what I distinctly remember feeling is that there was already in this first film a certain austerity that I would usually associate with Dreyer's later films (although that typical austerity is actually not so very apparent in most of his pre-"Jeanne" work). Sloper has already mentioned a certain spareness which nevertheless accumulates to a great effect. What you describe as 'dead wood' in your first post is for me rather a sign of a director already trying to 'reduce' his style. There is indeed no direct attempt to impress visually, but in this case I see it as a positive. Even the striking visuals of his later films are never an end in itself, but clearly serve the artistic goal he wants to achieve (I'm thinking of "Jeanne" and "Vampyr" here). In that respect, both "Michael" and "Die Gezeichneten" are perhaps a little unusual for Dreyer. That last half hour of "Die Gezeichneten", which I find amazing in itself, wouldn't necessarily make me think of Dreyer if there was a quiz about who directed it.

I watched this trio and didn't feel anything, no characters, no story rhythm or development (I have the DFI dvds and the arte broadcast of DIE GEZEICHNETEN). I'm never satisfied if there are a few interesting visual moments because that alone never can carry the interest of an audience over feature length, but that aside there was nothing to hold my interest and this trio surely goes straight to my lowest 100 of watched silent features.

I seem to remember that you also placed "Die Finanzen des Großherzogs" in the lowest 100. Good company for them, then (seriously, the more I think of that Murnau film the better I seem to like it; now waiting for the MoC to finally listen to that Kalat commentary). I'm with you that of those very early Dreyers "The Parson's Widow" is the best, but the difference is not too dramatic and somehow I see a lot of Stiller and Sjöström-influence in "Widow", so I find the film a little bit less characteristic than "The President". The same goes for "Der Var Engang", which however I find a hugely enjoyable film, despite it being in so incomplete form now.

I agree that earlier Dreyer is in fact more accessible and for quite a few people Gertrud really is an endurance test and a dead end of cinematography with Dreyer unwittingly peeling everything away which makes a film art.

Not quite sure about this. I've repeatedly said that "Gertrud" indeed is an endurance test; but it doesn't seem to me that Dreyer's 'peeling away' was unwitting, but rather the most logically consistent development of tendencies that run through most of his filmmmaking career: the sparsity and austerity, the seriousness of the subject matter. In this respect, the film is perhaps a dead end, but also the highest peak of his art. Even if I find it almost impossible to watch, I admire it endlessly. And it always makes me wonder about what his planned Jesus-film would have been like.

[HarryLong]

It's been a couple years since I saw LEAVES & I'll admit there's a good deal of it I don't recall clearly (possibly a sign that I was not entirely whelmed) but I do remember the amazing lighting effects in the Gesthemane sequence as the torch-bearing soldiers move among the trees on their way to apprehend Christ.
I also recall an bit where the camera travels down the street following a character & thinking that - although Freyer never gets credit for it - that surely this is one of the first examples of a moving camera ...

[HerrSchreck]

At least seven yrs prior you have G. Pastrone's Cabiria, with the camera so mobile throughout the entire film it seems like it might launch straight up into the heavens.

I haven't watched The President recently enough to comment, but I will say that Leaves is in terms of cinematography, an extremely impressive film. In terms of narrative, it's a riff on Intolerance but without the sense of abstracted montage. Not a mindblower, but certainly not a failed film in retrospect, either.

[Erikht]

I liked Leaves, to tell you the truth. All four story lines. I found the rape scene to be very strong, and I think that Dreyer already here started a narrative line that followed him all the way to Joan d'Arc, even if it is far more elegantly done in Passion. It tastes like Dreyer, is what I mean. And like the taste, even if I could wish for a more refined one. But that came later.

Ramblings, I know.