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

Chapter 5. A feeling for atmosphere

Dreyer stood on a heath-covered dune facing the North Sea. “The sun was to set at eight twenty-six tonight,” he said. The horizon over the vast water instead had an opaque glow, a ghostly haze brushed dimly with pink. From the southwest, a procession of black clouds was heading toward Vedersø. “It is difficult, very difficult, Herr Wahl, for me to sleep these nights,” he admitted. “I become so anxious—waiting for a morning with good light. We are caught in the middle of two low-pressure systems. If we had one strong rain, it might act as a stout broom and sweep the sky clean. “You know, I was thinking of the old German idea of how to work. Joe May once told me in Berlin that he preferred to film an arrival of a train into a station by building the whole thing inside the studio. Then every breath was A feeling for atmosphere 5 Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet 44 under his control. Of course, he was wrong; the atmosphere of the studio always betrays itself. “I have faced many conditions. While making Jeanne d’Arc, the entire studio was torn down and a new one erected, so Falconetti and I had no roof, often, over our heads. The Rouen set was constructed solidly. Only a few interiors had to be finished in more detail to make them inhabitable.” And he went on: “The set for Jeanne d’Arc was no plaster illusion—it was real and continuous.” He closed his eyes, seeing it clearly. “That is why I like Vedersø.” And he opened them to survey the harsh landscape. “You are secluded but can have a feeling for the atmosphere. It was the same outside Lillehammer in Norway, where we made The Parson’s Widow. Or in the part of Sealand called Hornbaek Plantage, which was ideal for the garden of Gethsemane in Leaves from Satan’s Book.” His voice grew quiet. “A film must grow out of its material ,” he mused, “believably, naturally. That is why I do not care to use famous actors. With Greta Garbo, Marie Dressler, Conrad Veidt, or Mosjoukine, your eyes are drawn straight to them and nothing else matters. Dumas is just as good as Pirandello for their purpose. “However, I once thought I could use Fritz Kortner. I saw him in the play The Patriot. He was much finer than Jannings for it—less fireworks, more real sensitivity. He stirred me greatly. I realized he was what I needed for Mikaël, which I was going to make for UFA. But Kortner was under contract for months ahead. Mikaël was a different milieu for me; it called for a kind of celebrity.” A feeling for atmosphere 45 He paused. “Next, I hoped for Werner Krauss, who had been Caligari, but Erich Pommer the producer was then having a feud with Krauss and said no to my idea. Benjamin Christensen was in Berlin working at the same time I was; we got together and solved the problem—he would do the role!” At nine o’clock, back at the hotel, Dreyer and I had coffee with young Gerda Nielsen, who was still wearing her Anne dress of plain blue cotton, and Sylvia Eckhausen, who was Kristine, the wife of Peter Tailor. Like Anna Svierkier, who had been Herlof’s Marte in Day of Wrath, Fru Eckhausen was an actress from the provinces. Einar Federspiel, who was Peter Tailor, had appeared in the original stage production of The Word in the role of old Borgen. Federspiel’s own daughter Birgitte, a professional actress, was to be Inger Borgen. Birgitte wasn’t required for the outdoor shots; nor was Henry Skjaer, the Doctor. So they had not made the trip to Jutland. Inger’s husband, Mikkel, was played by a popular actor from the New Theater in Copenhagen, Emil Hass Christensen. The Vicar was a young man named Ove Rud, who had played small parts at the Royal Theater, from which he borrowed his pastor’s coat. Soon all the other members of the cast came down for coffee, except for Henrik Malberg, who had already gone to sleep. Cay Kristiansen lived with his wife in a house down the road, in a loft that had been fixed with a bed and a coal lamp. Hass Christensen alternated with dialect coach Svend Poulsen, a student...