Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet: My Summer with the Danish Filmmaker

by Jan Wahl

Overview

This illustrated memoir shares a rare inside look at the legendary director’s process and vision during the filming of his award-winning masterpiece.

Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer is considered one of the most influential filmmakers in cinematic history. His 1955 film Ordet (The World) won numerous prizes, including the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion. In 1954, Dreyer invited young film student Jan Wahl to accompany him during this classic work.

This captivating account of Wahl's time with the director is based on Wahl's daily journal and transcriptions of his conversations with Dreyer. Offering a glimpse into the filmmaker's world, Wahl fashions a portrait of Dreyer as a man, mentor, friend, and director. Wahl's detailed account is supplemented by exquisite photos of the filming and by selections from Dreyer's papers, including his notes on film style, his introduction for the actors before the filming of Ordet, and a visionary lecture he delivered at Edinburgh.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813140520
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	06/29/2021
Series:	Screen Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	155
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jan Wahl is the author of more than one hundred books for all ages. His books include How the Children Stopped the Wars, The Art Collector, Through a Lens Darkly, and DEAR STINKPOT: Letters From Louise Brooks. He lives in Toledo, OH.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 1

1 Pastries at Rungsted 7

2 Small room with a view 17

3 Sardines and cigars 25

4 Lambs in the front yard 35

5 A feeling for atmosphere 43

6 The rain and the fiddle 51

7 Magic of the lens 57

8 Something about Jesus 63

9 In the end is my beginning 71

10 The word that crushes cliffs 75

11 Leaves from a journal 81

12 Did they catch the ferry? 91

Afterword 95

Appendix A "Now the life will begin": Dreyer's introduction for actors in the film 99

Appendix B Plot summary of Ordet 103

Appendix C Letters from Denmark 109

Appendix D Dreyer on color film 119

Appendix E Dreyer's lecture at Edinburgh: "New Impulses" 125

Appendix F Dreyer on film style 135

Filmography 145

Index 155

Editorial Reviews

"Jan Wahl has written a very personal account far from the usual run of 'film studies,' yet all the more fascinating and instructive in that it might be the sketch for another Dreyer film about the novice and the master. This is non-fiction but at its best it reads like a story."—David Thomson, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film" —

From the Publisher