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

Chapter 2. Small room with a view

Vedersø is located in a remote part of Jutland, which sticks up from Germany like a rather large thumb. To reach it, I took a series of trains with a boat in between—coming to the last part of the trip by bus. That is, I arrived as far as the village of Ulfborg, where there was a travelers’ inn. Carl Th. Dreyer and his company had used up every spare room in the vicinity of Vedersø. I’d left Copenhagen on the island of Sealand, crossing the tiny island of Fyn (going through Hans Christian Andersen’s birthplace of Ødense), and coming at last to the peninsula of Jutland. The Denmark known to most of the world is a composite of many islands. Every inch of space is made interesting. There are little fishing harbors with painted houses and wide nets spread out to dry, elfin hideaways and beech forests, Small room with a view 2 Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet 18 and the King’s Deer Park at Klampenborg. The baroque, noble, splendid city of Copenhagen is full of spires and sharply slanted roofs, a network of delicate parks and busy canals, and bicycles that appear in full force in late afternoon . Tivoli Gardens has a fireworks display at midnight that sends explosions of color into the sky. Outside the city are workers’ suburbs with modern apartment houses and active playgrounds. In the countryside, next to the clean roads, lie handsome cultivated farms—some houses wearing thatched roofs. A few abandoned windmills relieve the vast plane of flat landscape. A decade after World War II, Denmark hadn’t changed much. I was told that during World War I, however, a real change of spirit did occur. On a late summer’s night, most of Copenhagen had walked down to the harbor at Langelinie to bid farewell to the small, gallant navy. One by one, the boats slipped away from the Sound, heading out to open sea. The people stayed until the last boat disappeared from view. Most of the fleet never returned. In World War II, Denmark was quickly conquered by the German invaders. The heroic story of Danes one night taking the Jews across to Sweden by fishing boats to safety is well known. It speaks to the courage of the inhabitants of this special “little land.” Generally, Danes keep a cheerful mien. They demand their social rights, and they are famous for wanting to live in reasonable comfort. But the stimmung of Jutland in many respects is different from the rest of Denmark. For one, the terrain is more difficult. Long ago, the great oak forests that covered Jutland got chopped down to build Viking ships, leaving the unpro- Small room with a view 19 tected land to be whipped by the North Sea and beaten by the strong winds. The land fell to waste, becoming a lonely, sparse area of heath and moors and fjords. Still, the people clung to it and managed to grow simple crops. On the coast, every farmer also became a fisherman, and these two occupations fed the families. A significant advance in the last century has been a growing movement to reclaim parts of the land and make the soil usable. This is done by marking off a large section of loamy ground and planting fir trees. Such a section is called a plantage, or planting place. Twenty-five to fifty years later, there is a full-grown evergreen forest. It is then possible to remove some firs, leaving others as shelter, and to grow rye and barley. One generation ’s labor is carried on to the next—the end is not yet in sight. On my first evening in Ulfborg, I was encouraged by visiting the endless plantage outside the village. The following morning, when I awoke at six, the sun was peering through a sky that was rimmed with thick, swollen clouds. The air was chilly. I set out with a pocketful of crullers, my midmorning snack. Dreyer had sent a message to meet him for middag at the Vedersø Hotel. Vedersø was several hours’ distance by foot. The farmhouses I saw (which were few), unlike the village houses with red tile roofs, were thatched and sodded. Pots of plants sat at the windows. Beside the homes, flower or vegetable gardens were arranged with the delicacy of Japanese art. Most of the land...