Carl Theodor Dreyer

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ando
Bringing Out El Duende
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#126 Post by ando » Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:30 am

Suggesting that the American film industry influences one's creative decisions is not necessarily equivalent to making a compromised fiilm, nor did I mean to suggest that. What it DOES do, for most filmmakers, is demand a certain level of creativity based on public expectations formed over a hundred years.

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knives
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#127 Post by knives » Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:49 am

Even if your premise were true, I don't think it is, a certain brand of Hollywood realism isn't inherently lesser nor greater than whatever you wish to call Dreyer's methodology. If you took someone more talented in the artistic history Gibson worked in and someone less talented in Dreyer's methodology, for example Peter Weir vs. Dietrich Brüggemann, you could very easily come up with a case where the Hollywood version is more successful artistically and whatever other category you may deem important.

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ando
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#128 Post by ando » Thu Apr 06, 2017 2:01 am

Important or not there are obvious creative decisions that are made by filmmakers influenced by and marketing to the American market that are not considered by filmmakers from other countries and with different film histories. It's blatantly obvious when you consider film versions of The Gospels and/or (semi) religious subjects common to various cultures. Their styles and approaches cannot help but reflect their histories, which includes a history of the film-going public and the industry that caters to them. You are your history, no?

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knives
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#129 Post by knives » Thu Apr 06, 2017 10:42 am

So?

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MichaelB
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#130 Post by MichaelB » Thu Apr 06, 2017 10:56 am

ando wrote:Important or not there are obvious creative decisions that are made by filmmakers influenced by and marketing to the American market that are not considered by filmmakers from other countries and with different film histories. It's blatantly obvious when you consider film versions of The Gospels and/or (semi) religious subjects common to various cultures. Their styles and approaches cannot help but reflect their histories, which includes a history of the film-going public and the industry that caters to them. You are your history, no?
Yes, but these are terrible examples to support your thesis. As I said above, it was Dreyer's film that was overseen by the money-men (and very closely, as it had a huge budget, and its backers were very worried about how it was being spent), while Gibson was the one operating in near-complete creative freedom. I genuinely don't think Gibson was that bothered about what the American market thought - in fact, one of the few truly interesting aspects of that film is how completely single-minded it is, particularly in its relentlessly gruelling focus on physical abuse to an extent that might well have repelled mainstream audiences if it hadn't been for the free pass proffered by its subject matter.

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ando
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#131 Post by ando » Fri Apr 07, 2017 1:09 am

There's no thesis. You are what you do. Whatever any filmmaker produces is a result of their history. Why would any example be exempt?

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knives
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#132 Post by knives » Fri Apr 07, 2017 1:17 am

That's a totally different argument than you first put forth though and also a fairly meaningless one.

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ando
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#133 Post by ando » Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:40 am

So?

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MichaelB
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#134 Post by MichaelB » Fri Apr 07, 2017 3:39 am

So what are you arguing?

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ando
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#135 Post by ando » Fri Apr 07, 2017 3:49 am

I'm not. :)

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All the Best People
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#136 Post by All the Best People » Fri Apr 07, 2017 4:05 am

Interesting that this discussion contrasts Dreyer and Gibson, given Dreyer's never-realized film of the life of Jesus. I have the published screenplay, which is accompanied by essays by and about Dreyer (I believe much of this material is also available on the Dreyer website). One of Dreyer's principal aims with the film was to wash the Gospels of any hint of anti-Semitism. He considered the Crucifixion a political execution, while the Jewish high priest Caiaphas held a role better described as "collaborator" than conspirator (in one of the essays): "nothing [...] indicates that Caiaphas was not a conscientious man who had the people welfare in his thoughts." In Dreyer's script, Pilate initiates the discussion and plan to arrest and execute Jesus, while the high priests are shown earlier discussing amongst themselves the intent to protect Jesus from Roman punishment to the extent they can.

Interestingly, the script does not represent the Resurrection (Gibson does so, almost as a footnote), but ends after the Crucifixion with "the shadow of the cross lengthening until it extends beyond the frame of the image" while a voiceover speaks to the lasting impact of Jesus' sayings. The script does depict several miracles, however, healings performed by Jesus, so it is not a strictly "humanistic" portrayal.

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ando
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#137 Post by ando » Sat Apr 08, 2017 5:38 pm

Was the screenplay written before or after Ordet (a film I'd always considered Dreyer's Jesus film)?

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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#138 Post by All the Best People » Sat Apr 08, 2017 10:04 pm

ando wrote:Was the screenplay written before or after Ordet (a film I'd always considered Dreyer's Jesus film)?
My understanding is long after, it was near the end of his career. And, yes, totally agree that Ordet is very much in line with the concept.

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whaleallright
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#139 Post by whaleallright » Wed Apr 12, 2017 10:05 am

I had thought that Dreyer had been working on the Jesus script for decades, and thought of both Ordet and Gertrud, in part, as "small films" intended to demonstrate to producers his ability to get a film done, in hopes that someone would fund his more ambitious projects.

Of the many directors who have sought to make their "Jesus film," Paul Verhoeven's effort to make an entirely humanistic, de-sanctified version is worth mentioning. It was to be based in part on some then-recent scholarship on ancient Palestine. He ended up writing a book synthesizing some of that scholarship (though not in a way that would probably earn him tenure), and I think he's more or less abandoned the idea of a film.

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ando
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#140 Post by ando » Wed Apr 12, 2017 11:10 pm

Been slowly making my way through Ordet and oddly enough I find Johannes, the "Jesus" figure the least interesting of the lot. The father is the character I sympathize with the most - probably because he feels that he has the most to lose. Of course he's holding on to attitudes and assumptions he should have dropped long ago as, ultimately, they keep him separate from the people around him (including loved ones). But observing this makes him that much more fascinating than Johannes, who, though blessed with foresight and compassion, is unable to effectively communicate with his family. They're two opposite types with the same problem really.

Dreyer really came into his formalized blocking style here as well...
Last edited by ando on Wed Apr 12, 2017 11:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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All the Best People
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#141 Post by All the Best People » Wed Apr 12, 2017 11:20 pm

Okay, I pulled out the Bordwell book on Dreyer. He reports, citing his own 1972 Film Comment article, that Dreyer attempted to make the Jesus film in the early 1950s with the help of American theater producer Blevins Davis. He says that the first draft was written in the late 40s, and that making the film was an overriding goal for the next two decades of his life: "[his] documentary work, Ordet, and Gertrud were seen as preparations for Jesus, proofs that Dreyer could still direct." He also tried to get the film off the ground after Gertrud; the Danish government offered funding in late 1967, and Italy's RAI offered funding in early 1968; Dreyer passed away in March of that year.

So, yes, believe whaleallright!

And, actually somewhat tangientally to Dreyer as he made him a book subject, here's Paul Schrader on Verhoeven's book on Jesus (wherein he surprisingly makes an error as to what the Immaculate Conception is).

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#142 Post by matrixschmatrix » Wed Apr 12, 2017 11:35 pm

All the Best People wrote:And, actually somewhat tangentially to Dreyer as he made him a book subject, here's Paul Schrader on Verhoeven's book on Jesus (wherein he surprisingly makes an error as to what the Immaculate Conception is).
It's not that surprising- it's a common mistake, and the actual meaning of the phrase is exceedingly Catholic (ie Scorsese's ground, rather than Schrader's.)

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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#143 Post by peerpee » Thu Apr 13, 2017 11:08 am

There is a book (Danish printed but in English) of all the correspondence between Blevins Davis and Dreyer, over decades, solely about the JESUS film. It's one of the saddest, most depressing books I've ever read. Davis really cocked Dreyer about for a long, long time – for no real reason.

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Drucker
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#144 Post by Drucker » Thu Apr 13, 2017 11:20 am

Never seen it listed on Amazon, is there another way to find this book? Been interested in it for some time.

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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#145 Post by kekid » Fri Apr 14, 2017 6:29 pm

Drucker wrote:Never seen it listed on Amazon, is there another way to find this book? Been interested in it for some time.
I found one copy at abe.com. If you keep looking there, you may find another.

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Gregory
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#146 Post by Gregory » Fri Apr 14, 2017 6:44 pm

This may sound kind of nuts but in the late 50s/early 60s John Cassavetes talked about doing a collaboration with Dreyer on a film about the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus, shot in one of the foreign locations he was eyeing at the time.

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whaleallright
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#147 Post by whaleallright » Sun Apr 16, 2017 12:57 pm

There's also a 1943 letter from Dreyer to Louis B. Mayer (which I found on eBay, of all places, and sent to Nick Wrigley) in which he proposes remaking Day of Wrath at M-G-M.

That reminds me of Bresson's wish (as expressed in correspondence with George Cukor in the 1960s) to cast Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn in his version of Lancelot. Makes one wonder if Bresson's preoccupation with "models" rather than professional actors derived as much from economic necessity as principle.

Imagine a very different Hollywood studio system where the likes of Dreyer and Bresson (and Renoir) were working alongside Ford and Hawks and Hitchcock....

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knives
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#148 Post by knives » Sun Apr 16, 2017 1:03 pm

Well we did get that one at least in the case of Renoir.

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whaleallright
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Re: Carl Theodor Dreyer

#149 Post by whaleallright » Sun Apr 16, 2017 1:09 pm

Right — but he stopped making studio films in the 1940s, moving on to international productions. Same with Ophuls. What if they had found Hollywood more hospitable and stayed?


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