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

Appendix C: Letters from Denmark

CARL TH. DREYER 81 Dalgas Boulevard Frederiksberg F. September 26th, 1955 Dear Jan, I thank you for your letter and for your sending me the first half of your book for my consideration. I appreciate very much this act of friendship. According to your wish I have made some corrections and crossed out some sections particularly in the part treating your being at Vedersø. I do so partly because some scenes you describe do not appear in the final film, partly because you in this part give so many details interesting to you who Letters from Denmark Appendix C Appendix C 110 little by little became one of ours, but uninteresting to those who some day are going to read your book. And I did so for your sake as well as my own sake. I think you ought to mention that the actress who played the part of Inger and in the film should give birth to a child in fact was pregnant in life and actually gave birth to her own child in the middle of the film, so when she came back from the clinic and was to make the child-bed scene she knew what it was all about. I am now going to answer all your questions. “In a lens darkly” is an excellent title, only if I were you I should omit the title of Sheridan le Fanu’s book. The plan and composition of your book is excellent too, not too dry or skeleton-like. Easy to read. As to the person of Christ: I do not see him at all, but the first time I happen to meet him I’ll know it is HE! I intend doing the Jesus-film in color—and for widescreen —and for CinemaScope if wanted. I am of course at liberty to end the account of the life of Jesus wherever it pleases me: after the trial before Pilate, after the crucifixion, or after the resurrection. To me it seems most logical to end the film with the crucifixion. According to Isaiah! My “floating shots”? Well, we have a lot of “floating close-ups” in this film [Ordet], some of them to a length of 5–6–7–8 minutes, or 800–1,000 feet long. This method of course gives a rhythm different from the rhythm of a scene cut up in 20–30 close-ups. The “floating close-ups” demand a precise camera-car-work and careful rehearsing. Is there any item I particularly want you to include in Letters from Denmark 111 the book? Yes, I am a little sorry that you do not mention my film made in Berlin [about 1921]: The Stigmatized [based on Danish author Aage Madelung’s fine novel Elsker hverander]. The French “réalisateur” is positively better than both the American-English “director” and the Danish “instruktør.” I shall be pleased if you’ll use my essay on color films as an appendix, but in that case you ought together with it publish not only my essay “On Film-Style” [printed in Filmsin -Review 1, no. 3 (January 1952)] but also the lecture I gave at the Edinburgh Festival on the 30th of August: “New Impulses in Film.” In fact the three treatises complete each other. The lecture has the same length as the two others. If you are interested, please let me know, and I shall send you a typewritten copy in the English language. I have no connection with de Rochemont or any other company. I saw Blevins Davis a few weeks ago in London. He is interested more than ever in making the Jesus-film, so I hope very soon to go to Israel and start the preparatory work that has to be done down there. By the way: before you give your book to a publisher, please kindly send a copy to Mr. Davis —or authorize me to give him my copy to read. He might possibly help you to a good publisher! The photo of Joan of Arc on the black background with the gray matting is fine. My photo is less good. Couldn’t you instead take the drawing by Dorothy Lovell? I am not in Rungsted this year. I went to Venice for two days and from there to Edinburgh. I have been all summer in Copenhagen. My wife, my daughter and son are at present...