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

Chapter 7. Magic of the lens

A specialty of the hotel cook was fried eel. I grew fond of it and never would have guessed it was so tasty. Always there were several kinds of potatoes. The small Jutland potatoes are most delicious boiled and without skins, then sautéed with a light coating of sugar. The local bakery tempted us each afternoon with wondrous delights, flaky and devilishly tasty. Since I was a student and had no work permit, I had no official capacity. However, I would fetch obscure objects required by Herr Dreyer—such as a 1925 Jutland newspaper. It had to be in pristine condition and from 1925, not 1927! I climbed on a borrowed bicycle to pedal up and down the road to dozens of farmhouses until I located a newspaper— which would only lie in a drawer on the set. But it must be the Magic of the lens 7 Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet 58 correct date, lest it break the spell of concentration, should an actor happen to see it. It was exhilarating to speed through the brisk air, getting exercise after typing up so many notes or delivering hot coffee from Fru Kristensen’s kitchen to whomever huddled inside the old Dodge and trying to calm anxious actors’ frayed nerves. Local dogs seemed to sense I was a foreigner. They came flying at me, nipping at my heels. It was a toothless widow in fastidious black garments who searched for and found the exact item I was seeking—a 1925 newspaper. Both of us rummaged through stacks of immaculately preserved newspapers—her entire life. I believed if I named any year in a hundred she might unearth it. And I brought the prize to Dreyer, who nodded, saying, “Excellent, Herr Wahl,” as if he had not expected anything less. Permission was granted for the company to drive with its heavy equipment onto the Husby Plantage. By law, ordinary visitors are admitted only on foot or by bicycle. Involved trolley shots were constructed; in one of them, Anne-Marie Kristensen and Cay Kristiansen were to be out searching for Johannes. The camera followed them on a long track. Anders (Cay) was to emerge from the bushes, go around a sheep shelter and search it, find it empty, then turn around and call the name of his missing brother—then dash out of the picture as the servant girl comes running down a scrub-covered dune from a different direction. Soon a thick layer of clouds folded over, so Dreyer and the sound man spent an hour recording various people calling “Johannes! Johannes!”—the voices echoing throughout Magic of the lens 59 the plantage. A rather deep ravine among the dunes served as a natural echo chamber, and everybody was happy. Yet I sensed Cay was jittery. After all, this was his first significant solo moment, and he had rehearsed it time after time. The sun returned; the camera was now in place and began rolling smoothly, smoothly along the track. Cay came out, explored the sheep shelter as he’d been instructed, cupped his hands, and shouted in earnest against the loud wind his own character’s name: “Anders! Anders!” No one said a word. Immediately, Dreyer’s eyes went absolutely blank. Sighing , he said, “We will dub in the correct name at the studio.” There were successes also. At Borgensgaard, the camera splendidly caught the return of Johannes, no longer insane, striding into the courtyard of the farm. It was a complicated shot, with Lerdorff in sharp focus in most of it. He was to pass under the shadow of the arch, departing from the camera, which halted momentarily and then turned its gaze upon the elderly driver sitting atop the hearse parked fifty feet distant. John Carlsen managed the trick with the quick shift of field superbly. At Ulfborg, when the rushes were shown to a few of us, Dreyer raced up to Carlsen and clasped his hand. There were tears in his eyes. Ordinarily, rye is cut down by the first week in August. The farmer who owned the field, which in reality lay ten kilometers away from Borgensgaard, let the rye lie fallow, as Dreyer wished. Early-morning or late-afternoon sun was demanded to give the “summer-diffused” effect the scene required. In it, Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet 60 Anne sets out to deliver a pair of trousers for...