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Some years ago, I read or heard that Dreyer's tempo in terms of 'number of cuts' in his films slowed down considerably. For some reason I remember that he used approximately 1500 cuts in Joan of Arc, 400-something in Day of Wrath, 100-something in Ordet, and only 80 or so in Gertrud.

I know that Casper Tybjerg mentions the number of cuts in Joan in his CC commentary track. But I have no idea about the other ones. It could be from internet sites like Bordwell's or Sensesofcinema. But I've done a search and haven't come up with anything except this site which mentions the number of cuts in Joan and Ordet.

Does anyone know any source (books, internet pages, commentary tracks, dvd booklets or supplements) which mentions these things? I'd like to have some sort of source so I'm not just making things up.

Cinemetrics has entries for most of Dreyer's film. Some have different shot counts from different users, but they're not that far off, so you can get a good ballpark figure (and it appears your memory was more or less correct).

Thanks. I had no idea that there was a tool (and database) for such analysis. Great.

one viewing of Day of Wrath, Ordet, and Gertrud would tell you that not only do they represent a break from Dreyer's silent-film practice, but also that there is a marked "deceleration" in his late period. I believe his film maudit Two People fits neatly into this general trend. IIRC Dreyer himself was well aware of this and attributed it to the talking film demanding a different approach.

Vampyr doesn't fit, even though its median shot length (a more useful measurement for most purposes than average shot length) is in between those of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath. but the film's style seems less "transitional" than a kind of experimental road not taken.

other exceptions are his commissioned short films, which are markedly brisker than the features he was making in the 1940s–50s.

Reading Dreyer's book of essays Dreyer in Double Reflection is an excellent read, as are the extra materials in the Criterion/MOC DVDs. I've never read of him explicitly saying he wanted to "slow down" a film. But if you read his writings, he's always concerned with using film in an interesting way. Whether it's his praise for Gate of Hell due to it's creative use of colors in an unnatural way, or his praise FOR Sjostrom for showing how people slowly plod through life in Sweden in a natural way. So I think the final three big films of his are just a product of him mastering thoughts and techniques he'd been talking about or using for years.

In my interpretation of his progression, in really, really condensed terms, is that Dreyer almost didn't like the way a film cheated to create suspense and to force the emotion of a viewer. Certainly lots of cuts and edits would disrupt the flow of his later films. Rather than using standard editing techniques that force a viewer to feel a certain way, the way he filmed his later films (and quite frankly, it also comes through in Joan and Michael as well), was to have the lived emotions of the actors guide the rhythm of the picture. As Gertrud internalizes each heartbreak, for example, the tension of the film builds. He doesn't rely on "cheaper" (for lack of a better term, and it's the term I'm choosing, not Dreyer), external events such as a death or financial hardship, either. Gertrud internalizes all, until the explosive finale where her scorned husband lashes out at her magnificently. It may at first seem like it comes out of nowhere, but thinking about it in terms of the other emotional moments of the film, it's a beautiful, effective, and perfectly sensible climax.

you forgot to mention the shot of the closed door that seems to last an eternity!

seriously: that's a good interpretation, I think. what's most interesting to me is the contrast between the fairly conventional way that Dreyer typically explained his preferences and intentions (often speaking in terms of psychological realism), and the fairly radical stylistics of his films. I'd also add that in the case of both Ordet and Gertrud he was adapting stage plays (indeed, the only onscreen credit on the former belongs to Kaj Munk), and he would sometimes suggest that his long takes respected, not the theatrical space per se but a certain kind of dramatic approach integral to the theater.

The first time I tried watching Gertrud, I was totally put off by how "theatrical" it seemed. Dreyer is one of those many directors who requires patience, repeated viewings, and perhaps even reading his intentions and philosophies to really appreciate.

Has there been any hint of a restoration for Vampyr?

To my understanding the version of Vampyr on both the Criterion and Eureka DVDs is the result of a painstaking restoration by Martin Koerber. I don't think there's been any major subsequent effort.

Yeah, the restoration by Koebner is pretty magnificent, and I don't see the reason why anyone would need another one in the foreseeable future unless the original camera or sound negatives are discovered somewhere.

Isn't the Koerber resto from the late 90s? Is it good enough for the labels to create a blu ray?

At the moment, no. If the elements were to be rescanned in 2K/4K, possibly, but someone would have to stump up the budget.

That's what I kind of thought. Thanks for the confirm... I could see Criterion taking this on themselves. Not sure about MoC.

Koerber's restoration was scanned in HD for the Criterion/MoC releases. This was 2008, prior to both labels releasing Blu-rays. Criterion carried out more clean-up on the master themselves, MoC issued it without any cleanup.

I seem to remember Koerber feeling that it was possible to vastly improve upon his film restoration (which involved photochemically duping materials held all over the world) by HD scanning those original materials *directly* and then stitching it all together in a computer. This would obviously cost quite a bit.

Maybe a Kickstarter campaign would grease the wheels? It's a vampire movie, that alone could draw a lot of support outside of the usual cinephile circles.

There's a New York City screening of Michael (1924) on April 23 at The Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center. It's part of their Queer Cinema Before Stonewall series beginning April 22. Sadly, it's the only Dreyer NYC screening I've been able to find this spring. Michael is up on the Tube for the time being (wonder if Criterion intends to pick this up).

A little more than a month later and 40 miles to the south The Princeton Festival will host a screening of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) in the University Chapel and featuring The Princeton Symphony Orchesta with The Princeton Festival Chorus. It's 35 bucks a ticket but might be worth a trip down Route 1 to see this silent classic with a live orchestral accompaniment.

Well, if you're in NewYork over the next weekend The Anthology Film Archives will be screening four Dreyer films which is part of their Essential Cinema series. Luckily, I'll just be able to catch, Day of Wrath (one I've never seen), the last of the four screenings, next Sunday.

And like most Dreyer films, it'd absolutely brilliant

Actually, I just noticed that Ordet (The Word?) is the fifth screening. That I have seen though never in a theater. Hmmm. Two Dreyer films back to back would test the hardiest among us.

He isn't as soul shattering as others, but having yet to see Ordet I'm not sure how soul ducking that is. Day of Wrath is brilliant yet I wasn't really depressed after watching it. More saddened yet still breathless from the brilliant film.

I'd love to take off Friday to watch The Passion of Joan, then watch Bresson's Joan of Arc, say, the next night. Wonder if anyone's ever done a Joan of Arc series. Passion films, in general, seem to be the stuff of festivals and retrospectives these days. The last big one on this side of The Atlantic, of course, was Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ, but as the almighty dollar remains the primary impetus for making films here Gibson had to have made decisions that people like Bresson and Dreyer were not considering. Be interesting to explore.

Potemkine is releasing Vampyr on blu-ray as part of a five-film collection in June.

ando wrote:I'd love to take off Friday to watch The Passion of Joan, then watch Bresson's Joan of Arc, say, the next night. Wonder if anyone's ever done a Joan of Arc series. Passion films, in general, seem to be the stuff of festivals and retrospectives these days. The last big one on this side of The Atlantic, of course, was Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ, but as the almighty dollar remains the primary impetus for making films here Gibson had to have made decisions that people like Bresson and Dreyer were not considering. Be interesting to explore.

I'd be surprised if this was the case, as Gibson self-financed his film and was therefore under no external pressure at all (I assume he was personally wealthy enough to be able to risk a write-off). Hence, amongst other things, the decision to film in Aramaic, a decision that pretty much every commercially-minded producer would have vetoed.

By contrast, Dreyer in particular came under considerable pressure from his producers, and the almighty franc very much was an issue. It's a great tribute to the finished film that it shows no sign of this.

MichaelB wrote:

ando wrote:I'd love to take off Friday to watch The Passion of Joan, then watch Bresson's Joan of Arc, say, the next night. Wonder if anyone's ever done a Joan of Arc series. Passion films, in general, seem to be the stuff of festivals and retrospectives these days. The last big one on this side of The Atlantic, of course, was Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ, but as the almighty dollar remains the primary impetus for making films here Gibson had to have made decisions that people like Bresson and Dreyer were not considering. Be interesting to explore.

I'd be surprised if this was the case, as Gibson self-financed his film and was therefore under no external pressure at all (I assume he was personally wealthy enough to be able to risk a write-off). Hence, amongst other things, the decision to film in Aramaic, a decision that pretty much every commercially-minded producer would have vetoed.

By contrast, Dreyer in particular came under considerable pressure from his producers, and the almighty franc very much was an issue. It's a great tribute to the finished film that it shows no sign of this.

Well, let's begin with the decision if presenting a "realistic" historical situation. Dryer had absolutely no interest in realism.

BFI.org.uk wrote:For Dreyer, realism was not something to aspire to – it wasn’t art, he claimed. Instead, Dreyer strove for what he termed psychological realism, attempting to capture the ephemeral essence that lies beneath surface reality. To this end, Dreyer stripped away everything he saw as superfluous to his goal, resulting in an abstract, minimalist aesthetic which often breaks with the rules of conventional filmmaking.

Mel Gibson in [url=https://youtu.be/n8GM0Fqpt3c]The Making of The Passion of Christ[/url] wrote:It's gotta look real. And it does... to me it looks pretty horrendous. Not that we sort of focus too much on too many gory things, although you get the message. But where it has be quite real it is. And the special effects are nothing short of brilliant. I've never seen anything quite like them. You don't know that they're special effects. That's how good they are. You don't know.

Gibson having different (and, I think pretty conclusively, lesser) artistic ideals doesn't mean Gibson's ideals were therefore compromised.