Carl Theodor Dreyer –
Master Filmmaker (Master Of The House/Day Of Wrath/Ordet/Gertrud/My Metier/Region Four/4/PAL Import/Madman DVD Set)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B Films: B
PLEASE NOTE: This DVD set can only be operated
on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Four/4 PAL
format software and can be ordered from our friends at Madman Entertainment at
the website address provided at the end of the review.
Carl
Theodor Dreyer is the kind of significant director from the first decades of
world cinema that cannot be written off or ignored. His version of The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928) has remarkably never been
surpassed, while his Horror classic Vampyr
(1932) is as significant as Murnau’s Nosferatu
(1922) and one of the most important vampire films anyone will ever make. Yet, you can bet that most so-called Horror
fans don’t even know about it, let alone have seen it. Yet Dreyer was more than about genres or
epics as the recent DVD box set Carl
Theodor Dreyer – Master Filmmaker demonstrates.
Back in
2001, Criterion issued a box set of three of his most significant works: Day Of Wrath (1943), Ordet (1955) and Gertrud (1964). All
significant works, Madman Entertainment has decided to issue a set that is an
expansion of Criterion’s U.S.
release, including his 1925 silent film Master Of The House, not included in the U.S. Criterion set and not
in print in the U.S.
at all as of this posting. It is also
loaded with a great number of extras.
Likely restored after 2001, Master Of The House is a comedy with edge as Viktor (Johannes
Meyer) looses his small business and takes out his failure on everyone back
home. When his old nanny (Mathilde
Nielsen) returns, her shock at what he has become will expose the house’s
biggest problems and shake up the family.
This is very watchable (save the piano music) for its age, is
intelligently done and is the kind of silent film I would recommend for people
to see how good they can be. Extras
include a profile of Dreyer and three of his short films: Good Mothers, The Fight
Against Cancer and They Caught The
Ferry. Turns out he was an ace
documentarian too.
Day Of
Wrath is a film he dared to make about the ugly atmosphere of
what Nazism is all about when while still living in Nazi occupied Denmark. Like Carné’s Children of Paradise (1945, reviewed elsewhere on this site), this
subversive act could have gotten him killed.
The tale about a 17th-Century witch-hunt has a palpability
few such films set in that period have and it is a classic of that period,
especially because it is amazing it was made, let alone made so well. Extras include Dreyer’s short film A Castle Within A Castle, cast/crew
interview clips and a booklet inside the case with illustrations and a fine
essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
Ordet takes
place on a farm and involves a family that has slowly drifted from the Lutheran
religion that once held them together, with subtle twists and turns throughout
that leads to a climax that you will either buy into or not. When I saw this film many years ago, I had
mixed feelings about the conclusion and though I like what he was trying to do
with it, you have to give him room to do what he does here and then you will
get his points. Maybe he could have
tried to do it in other ways, but you’ll see what I meant when you see the
film. Note that its black-style frame is
playing with the idea of claustrophobia, with the image drifting between that
space being so and not being so. Extras
include two Dreyer short films: Danish
Village Church and Storstrom Bridge,
plus interview clip with co-star Torben Skjodt and a booklet inside the case
with illustrations and another fine essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
Gertrud was his
last film and in an era where the film form was changing via the French New
Wave, Alfred Hitchcock and so many masters of the format, this would be
Dreyer’s last film, his only widescreen film at 1.66 X 1 and is a great
film. However, it was ravaged and bashed
to no end because too many thought it too slow, stagy and flat. However, the story of a the title character
(a remarkable performance of subtlety by Nina Pens Rode) growing so unhappy
with her married life to a politician, that the save, comfortable living it
offers drives her to a young composer (she was an opera singer back in the day)
and then finds it still leaves her unhappy and empty. How the audience missed what he was doing
here (including critics) is stunning, but it turned out to be highly
influential and its compositions are fascinating in the way few films of the
1960s are. Extras here include Dreyer’s
short film They Caught The Ferry,
interview clips with co-stars Axel Strobye and Baard Owe on the film and an
outstanding audio commentary track by Dr. Adrian Martin (from Rogue Film
Magazine at www.rogue.com.au) in the
film and the director that is among the best I have heard about any director
lately.
The interview clips come from deleted portions or the
actual final cut of Torben Skjodt Jensen’s terrific documentary Carl Th. Dreyer: My Métier (1995) that
offers clips and rare film and audio covering his career and that of those he
worked with. I recommend you watch it
only after seeing these films at least and it is a rich profile every serious
film fan should see. Additional
interview clips are also included.
The 1.33 X 1 black and white image on three classics (and
a fourth classic in Gertrud,
letterboxed at 1.66 X 1) have been restored and except for the limits of the
age of the stocks and the DVD format (even PAL here), look about as good as
they are going to look. Some softness
and fine detail is missing due to some parts of some of the transfers, but
Video Black is solid and Video White is cleaner than expected without being
blown out. For the record, the Directors
of Photography over the four films include George Schnéevoigt, Karl Andersson,
Henning Bendtsen and Arne Abrahamsen.
The 1.66 on My Métier has a
larger bottom black bar.
The Dolby Digital 2.0
Mono on all four films sounds very cleaned up without much compression, though
the piano music on the silent film House
is a little limited in fidelity for what sounds like a newer recording of the
soundtrack. The documentary is Dolby
Digital 2.0 as well in simple stereo. Carl Theodor Dreyer – Master Filmmaker is a set that goes all out to
deliver and it does.
As noted
above, you can order this PAL DVD import set exclusively from Madman at:
https://www.madman.com.au/actions/channel.do?method=view
-
Nicholas Sheffo
