In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based entirely on where my interests lead me.
Carl Theodore Dreyer is one of those directors that is well-known to cinephiles but not so much to the general public. That’s a shame because he was extremely influential in the early years of cinema and his best films display an amazing sense of visual storytelling. On the other hand, they can feel slow and rather austere to modern audiences and Dreyer had his particular obsessions that are probably not of universal interest. By his own word, Dreyer had no intention of making realistic films, and although his filmography stretches well into the sound era, the influence of his silent years were always obvious.
Carl Th. Dreyer: My Métier, directed by Torben Skjødt Jensen and written by Jensen, Lars Bo Kimergaard, and Prami Larsen,is a traditional documentary made up of interviews (mostly of people who worked with Dreyer, excerpts from Dreyer’s writings (read by Brian Patterson), clips from Dreyer’s films, and stills. It feels more unified than many documentaries made up of similar materials because the interviews are staged and lit in a way that is reminiscent of visual Dreyer’s style.
Dreyer got a rough start in life, beginning with being born “illegitimate” in 1889 to a Swedish maid and her married Danish employer (yes, the Nordic countries were not always as enlightened about such things as they are today), spent several years in orphanages, and then was adopted by a married couple who were fond of telling him he should be grateful for everything they did for him. He worked as a journalist before getting into the film business by writing title cards and screenplays, and eventually worked his way into directing.
Dreyer didn’t have a golden touch: his films were a mix of flops and hits plus some misfires that never got made, but his best films are rightly valued as among the best ever in the history of cinema. Among Dreyer’s best known films are The Passion of Joan of Arc (1926), which is regularly voted one of the greatest films of all time; Vampyr (1932), an atmospheric Gothic horror film; Day of Wrath (1943), a film about paranoia during the witch trials in 17th century Denmark, which was produced while Denmark was occupied by the Nazis; Ordet (The Word, 1955), about religious faith; and Gertrud (1964), his last film and the winner of numerous awards including the FIPRESCI prize at the 26th Venice International Film Festival.
Judging by the interviews included in this film, Dreyer was not an easy person to work with. One woman notes that she was the only actress to work with him twice, while another said that “everyone became a pawn in his universe.” Dreyer is probably neither the first nor the last director to be described in those terms, but it gives you useful context for what the film business can be like, then and now. The work is separate from the person making it, however, and if we refused to consider every film by a director who treated his cast (or even female members of the cast) badly, there wouldn’t be much left to watch. In the end, Carl Th. Dreyer: My Metier doesn’t offer a deep analysis of Dreyer’s films or his method, but it can serve as a useful introduction to the man and his work. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 128
Technical details: 94 min.; B&W; screen ratio 1.66:1; Danish, French, and English.
Edition reviewed: DVD
Extras: biographical essay about Dreyer by Edvin Kau; outtake interview excerpts from this film and Jørgen Roos’ 1966 documentary Carl Th. Dreyer; the film’s trailer; illustrated booklet introducing some of the interview subjects and including an essay by Dreyer, a statement from director Torben Skjødt Jensen, and an interview with Jensen conducted by Ulrich Breuning.
Fun Fact: Dreyer was given the name of his adoptive father, but without the designation of “Junior” which would have been granted a birth son.
Parting Thought: Spirituality was an important subject for Dreyer, but his works often criticized organized religion. Is this a contradiction or a distinction between personal experiences and bureaucratic structures?
