Carl Theodor Dreyer

Carl Theodor Dreyer (Copenhagen, 1889 – February 3 – 20 March 1968), Danish writer and film director is one of major European film directors as all film stories.

Trajectory

His parents were Josephine Nilsson and Jens Christian Torp. His mother served on Jens Christian Torp, Sweden farm. He disowns it knowing that she is pregnant due to different social and economic class that exists between the two. Carl Theodor Dreyer was born as illegitimate in Denmark. His mother left him as Denmark, baby while she returned to Sweden. He ended up in an orphanage children was hosted by the Dreyer family in 1891 (biological mother died a few months to be adopted). Gets the name of his adoptive father, Carl Theodor Dreyer.

His adoptive parents were rigid Lutherans and their teaching probably influenced much the severity of his films.

A young man, Dreyer worked as a journalist and perhaps found his vocation writing silent film intertitles and subsequently writing scripts. His directorial debut was a limited success. Fame came to him through the film Du skal ære din hustru (the master of the House), in 1925. Success in his country was transformed into a huge triumph in France, where he moved. The Société generate you des Films commissioned you a feature film about the national heroine: Joan of arc.

The movie the passion of Joan of arc (Jeanne d’Arc passion), whose mounting also worked, appeared in theatres in 1928 and was his very first ‘classic’, but was not a success at the box office. With the help of michel champion wrote the script, based on direct studies on the original transcripts of the process. The film has influenced both the realism and film Expressionism, but without make up the characters. The sets were white and the entire film is shot from close-up.

Her next film was about a “witch vampire” (Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Grey) (1932), based in Sheridan La fanu. It is a surreal meditation on fear, today considered master. Logic gives way to emotions and atmosphere in this story, in which a man protects two sisters of a vampire. The film contains many unforgettable, images such as that of the hero who dreams of his own burial, and one other animal’s starved of blood on the face of one of the sisters while is hijacked under the spell of the vampire. The film was originally silent, but you were added dialogue spoken by dubbing.

The film was a financial failure, and Dreyer was more than a decade without shooting. To end dies irae, a film made in 1943 a severe criticism of beliefs in witchcraft and especially his brutal repression by the fire. With this film Dreyer set the style which would distinguish their subsequent audio projects: very well-tended compositions, raw photography in black and white and takes very long.

In 1955 he filmed Ordet (the word), based on the work of eponymous theater of kaj munk. It combines a love story, Romeo and Juliet with a review of the target-style. The central character, a theologian who by his readings of soren kierkegaard, calls into question alleged religious faith of his family to death. This film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1955. It emphasizes leisurely pace, the lack of Mount by cut between scenes, where Dreyer leaves players entering and leaving framing stage Assembly style. It is a film full of religious concerns.

The latest work by Dreyer was Gertrud (1965). While it is very different to the previous is a kind of artistic copyright, testament that it’s a woman who stays true to his ideal of love: love other paramount; even one’s own. He regrets not never taken elections.

Ratings

Although his career lasted 50 years, from the 1910s until 1960s, her vanity, rigid methods, the idiosyncrasies of their style and obstinate devotion for his own art made its production was less prolific than would have been able to expect.

It in fact preferred quality to quantity, led him to produce some of the older classics of international film. His honesty with himself and his work; as well as their fidelity to their vocation and passion, cinema as artistic expression, made to only make films he thought had to be done and as it should be done. His perfectionism led him to suspend a shoot because clouds were not in the expected direction or developing expensive sets only to make the players feel more inspired.

“Notes on style” Dreyer writes indicating his film seeks the intimate experiences of men, and it’s deep mystery and inner human conflicts.

The documentary Carl Theodor Dreyer: Min Métier’´ (my Office) contains memories of those who knew him to fund

Filmography

As director

* Præsidenten (1918)

* The pastor’s widow (Prästänkan) (1920)

* Pages of the book of Satan ( Blade af Satans bog ) (1919)

* The stigmatized (die gezeichneten) (1921)

* There was once (der var engang) (1922)

* Mikaël desire of the heart ( ) (1924)

* Du skal ære din hustru (1925)

* The Glomdal bride (Glomdalsbruden) (1925)

* The passion of Joan of arc (La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc) (1928)

* Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Grey(1932). Vampyr

* Black jungle (Esclave blanc) (1936)

* Mødrehjælpen (1942)

* Dies Irae (vredens dag) (1943)

* Two beings (Två människor) (1944)

* The water in the field (Vandet på landet) (1946)

* Kampen mod kræften (1947)

* Landsbykirken (1947)

* Of nåede færgen (1948)

* Thorvaldsen (1949)

* Storstrom bridge (Storstrømsbroen) (1950)

* A castle in a castle (Et Slot i Slot et) (1954)

* Ordet (1955), The word

* Gertrud (1965)

Screenwriter

* Arnulf silva barthell (1912)

* Hans Grethe og (1913)

* Balloneksplosionen (1913)

* Krigskorrespondenter (1913)

* Chatollets hemmelighed (1913)

* Ned Med Vaabnene (1914)

* Juvelerernes skraek (1915)

* Penge (1915)

* Den hvide djævel (1916)

* Den skønne Evelyn (1916)

* Rovedderkoppen (1916)

* In forbryders liv og levned (1916)

* Gift Guldets (1916)

* Pavilionens hemmelighed (1916)

* Den Mystiske selskabsdame (1917)

* Hans rigtige kone (1917)

* Fange No. 113 (1917)

* Hotel Paradis (1917)

* Lydia (1918)

* Glaedens dag (1918)

* Præsidenten (1919)

* Gillekop (1919)

* Grevindens ære (1919)

* The pastor’s widow (Prästänkan) (1920)

* Pages of the book of Satan ( Blade af Satans bog ) (1921)