Carl Theodor Dreyer

Carl Theodor Dreyer (born Feb. 3, 1889, Copenhagen, Den.—died March 20, 1968, Copenhagen) was a motion-picture director whose most famous films were explorations of religious experience, executed in the Danish “static” style.

Dreyer was a pianist, a clerk, a journalist, and a theatre critic before entering the cinema in 1913 as a writer of subtitles. He eventually became a well-known scriptwriter and editor. His first film as a director was Praesidenten (1919; “The President”), followed by Blade af satans bog (1920; Leaves from Satan’s Book); Prästänkan (1920; The Parson’s Widow); Die Gezeichneten (1922; Love One Another); Der var engang (1922; Once upon a Time); Mikaël (1924), filmed in Germany; Du skal aere din hustru (1925; Master of the House); and Glomsdalsbruden (1925; “The Bride of Glomsdal”).

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928; “The Passion of Joan of Arc”), Dreyer’s most famous silent film, was based on the official records of her trial and execution for witchcraft. Filmed in France, it starred Maria Falconetti as the mystically inspired heroine. Dreyer created a new kind of historical drama by using sustained close-ups to establish an intimate relationship between the audience and the characters.

(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)

Dreyer’s distinctive directorial style was based on his use of authentically detailed settings and extensive close-ups. The action of his films, centring on an individual who separates himself from the group and thus becomes an object of persecution, usually takes place within a limited geographic area and a short span of time. Slow in tempo with an aura of sombre grimness, his pictures often deal with witchcraft and the supernatural and with the tension between good and evil in even the most ordinary human situations.

Dreyer also directed outstanding sound pictures. Vampyr (1932), filmed in France, is based on a story of vampirism by Sheridan Le Fanu; Vredens dag (1943; Day of Wrath) is a drama of witch-hunting and religious persecution, set in 17th-century Denmark, that won international recognition and substantially contributed to the revival of the Danish cinema; Tvä människor (1945; Two People); and Ordet (1955; The Word), winner of the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival, dramatizes the complex relationship between social good and spiritual good in an ambiguous story of a hardworking, down-to-earth farm family who are burdened by the younger son’s insane delusion that he is Christ. Dreyer’s last film Gertrud (1964), is a subtle character study of a woman to whom love is all important.