Dreyer, Carl Theodor

Vampyr - Criterion Collection

With Vampyr Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's brilliance at achieving mesmerizing atmosphere and austere profoundly unsettling imagery (as in The Passion of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath) was for once applied to the horror genre. Yet the result-concerning an occult student assailed by various supernatural haunts and local evildoers at an inn outside Paris-is nearly unclassifiable a host of stunning camera and editing tricks and densely layered sounds creating a mood of dreamlike terror. With its roiling fogs ominous scythes and foreboding echoes Vampyr is one of cinema's great nightmares.SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:New restored high-definition digital transfer of the 1998 film restoration by Martin Koerber and the Cineteca di BolognaOptional all-new English-text version of the filmAudio commentary featuring film scholar Tony RaynsCarl Th. Dreyer (1966) a documentary by Jorgen Roos chronicling Dreyer's careerVisual essay by scholar Casper Tybjerg on Dreyer's influences in creating VampyrA 19TK radio broadcast of Dreyer reading an essay about filmmakingNew and improved English subtitle translationPLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by Mark Le Fanu and Kim Newman Martin Koerber on the restoration and an archival interview with producer and star Nicolas de Gunzburg as well as a book featuring Dreyer and Christen Jul's original screenplay and Sheridan Le Fanu 1871 story "Carmilla" a source for the filmSystem Requirements:Running Time: 75 minutes Language: German Subtitles: English Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR/VAMPIRES Rating: NR UPC: 715515030427 Manufacturer No: CC1757DDVD

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Criterion Collection Spine #62)

Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc is as truly mythic as any film ever shot, its artistic achievement rivaled by its turbulent history. The focal point of controversy when released in 1928, the original film was lost for a half-century until an intact copy of Dreyer's original version was recovered in the early '80s.

Seeing Joan of Arc today remains a cinematic revelation, its approach to storytelling, set design, editing, and especially cinematography (by Rudolph Maté, who also shot Dreyer's visionary Vampyr) radical then, and still strikingly modern many decades later. Influenced by both German expressionist film and the French avant-garde, Dreyer's huge set was designed with asymmetrical doors, windows, and arches, through which Maté's camera moves along equally off-centered, even vertiginous, but fluid trajectories. Although the story is epic in its implications, the film is composed primarily of extreme close-ups, especially of Joan and her principal interrogator, Bishop Cauchon, and medium shots of small groups, often shot from low angles. Dreyer and Maté shot their cast in bright light, without makeup, giving each wrinkle, blemish, or tuft of hair sculptural detail.

For all its visual invention, however, Dreyer's film is most devastating in its central performance by Falconetti (née Renee Falconetti), a French stage actress who made her only screen appearance here--one critic Pauline Kael has suggested "may be the finest performance ever recorded on film." Through Falconetti, Joan's spiritual devotion, simple dignity, and suffering become utterly real; even without a dialogue track and only sparse inter-titles, the film achieves a fevered eloquence.

This meticulous restoration also includes composer Richard Einhorn's beautiful oratorio, Voices of Light, inspired by Dreyer's film and set to texts by women mystics from medieval and early-Renaissance Europe. A luminous work on its own, Einhorn's oratorio matches both the dramatic arcs and tremulous emotions of Dreyer's film, while its juxtaposition of choral and solo voices (with early-music vocal quartet Anonymous 4 evoking Joan herself) echoes the martyr's confrontation with the court. --Sam Sutherland

With its stunning camerawork and striking compositions, Carl Th. Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc convinced the world that movies could be art. Renée Falconetti gives one of the greatest performances ever recorded on film, as the young maiden who died for God and France. Long thought to have been lost to fire, the original version was miraculously found in perfect condition in 1981-in a Norwegian mental institution. Criterion is proud to present this milestone of silent cinema in a new special edition featuring composer Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light, an original opera/oratorio inspired by the film.

Carl Theodor Dreyer Special Edition Box Set (Day of Wrath, Ordet, Gertrud, and Carl Th. Dreyer - My Metier) - Criterion Collection

When asked to describe his work, Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer said that film should present "truth filtered through an artist's mind, truth liberated from unnecessary detail." This collection of Dreyer's three major sound features demonstrates the director's rigorous commitment to that idea.

Day of Wrath (1943)--filmed during the Nazi occupation of Denmark--is set in a 17th-century village where the fear of witchcraft and the repression of human passions lead to tragedy. Ordet (1955) is considered by many to be Dreyer's masterpiece. This complex family drama is both moving and challenging, and the ending is one of cinema's greatest moments. Gertrud (1964) tells the story of a woman's search for fulfillment. Nina Pens Rode gives an extraordinary performance, heightened by Dreyer's peerless pacing and composition.

Accompanying the three films is a documentary by avant-garde filmmaker Torben Skjodt Jensen. Dreyer claimed to be surprised that anyone would want to make a film about him, but a greater understanding of the personality and the craft that went into the making of these films only enhances their impact. In spite of a career characterized by as many setbacks as successes, Dreyer's uncompromising commitment to his art (he once suspended filming because the clouds were moving in the wrong direction) resulted in work that continues to enthrall audiences and inspire filmmakers to this day.

Interviews with Dreyer's collaborators provide the backbone of My Metier, but it is Jensen's visual approach--building layered images from photographs, manuscripts, and film clips--that explores and responds to Dreyer's movies in subtle but powerful ways. Instead of a succession of talking heads and illustrative excerpts, Jensen offers an impressionistic portrait of Dreyer in a documentary that is often as beautiful as its subject's own work. --Simon Leake

Following the release of Carl Th. Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Criterion Collection renews its commitment to this major director with a Special Edition box set of his sound films, Day of Wrath, Ordet, and Gertrud. Each is an intense exploration of the clash between individual desire and social expectations, with Dreyer's famously perfectionist attention to detail shining throughout. With brand new digital transfers supervised by Gertrud director of photography Henning Bendtsen, the Criterion Collection is proud to present these Dreyer masterpieces on DVD for the first time. The fourth disc in the set presents the masterful 1995 documentary on Dreyer by Danish filmmaker Torben Skødt Jensen, Carl Th. Dreyer-My Métier. Extensive interviews with collaborators and actors provide fresh insight into the life and work of one of cinema's great masters.

Vampyr

In this chilling, atmospheric German film from 1932, director Carl Theodor Dreyer favors style over story, offering a minimal plot that draws only partially from established vampire folklore. Instead, Dreyer emphasizes an utterly dreamlike visual approach, using trick photography (double exposures, etc.) and a fog-like effect created by allowing additional light to leak onto the exposed film. The result is an unsettling film that seems to spring literally from the subconscious, freely adapted from the Victorian short story Carmilla by noted horror author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, about a young man who discovers the presence of a female vampire in a mysterious European castle. There's more to the story, of course, but it's the ghostly, otherworldly tone of the film that lingers powerfully in the memory. Dreyer maintains this eerie mood by suggesting horror and impending doom as opposed to any overt displays of terrifying imagery. Watching Vampyr is like being placed under a hypnotic trance, where the rules of everyday reality no longer apply. As a splendid bonus, the DVD includes The Mascot, a delightful 26-minute animated film from 1934. Created by pioneering animator Wladyslaw Starewicz, this clever film--in which a menagerie of toys and dolls springs to life--serves as an impressive precursor to the popular Wallace & Gromit films of the 1990s. --Jeff Shannon

Carl Theodor Dreyer's eerie horror classic stars Julian West as a visitor to a remote inn under the spell of an aged, bloodthristy female vampire. Extremely atmospheric, this rare gem delivers a decided chill.

The Parson's Widow : Three Films by Carl Theodor Dreyer

One of the world's greatest directors, Carl-Theodor Dreyer has long been hailed for such masterpieces as The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, Day of Wrath and Ordet. Now we meet a different Dreyer who engages with broad humor, then gradually guides to a wise, bittersweet resolution. Aspiring parson Sofren is engaged to Mari, but her father won't allow them to marry until Sofren gets a ministry. He's hired by a small rural congregation only to discover that according to local custom, the widow of the deceased pastor may marry his successor. An aged woman who has already buried three earlier husbands, Dame Margarete asserts her right in order to keep her home, but Sofren also brings Mari to the parish claiming that she is his sister. The two plan to wait for the elderly woman to die. When it appears she might be eternal, Sofren begins a series of silly pranks to hasten the old lady's end, but before her death her wisdom, dignity and selflessness teach the young couple a great deal about fundamental humanity. Called "the first real Dreyer film," The Parson's Widow (aka The Witch Woman) prefigures key themes in his later work. Beautifully photographed in the 17th-century museum village of Lillehammer, Norway, the film's original luminous quality is captured in this digitally mastered edition from a 35mm camera-negative print. Plus two rare Dreyer shorts! They Caught the Ferry (1948, 12 mins.) adapts the technique of Dreyer's horror/fantasy Vampyr to a chilling and unforgettable miniature on driver safety. Thorvaldsen (1949, 11 mins.) uses the long lenses and confrontational style of The Passion of Joan of Arc to illuminate the search for truth in the work of the greatest Danish sculptor, which turns out to have a surprising affinity with Dreyer's own cinema. All three films digitally mastered from 35mm archive prints. The Parson's Widow is speed-corrected and tinted, with new music compiled by Neal Kurz from the works of Edvard Grieg.

Carl Theodor Dreyer's Michael

Leaves From Satan's Book

Satan attempts to win God's favor but is doomed to cheerless participation in dark episodes of human history: the temptation of Jesus, the Spanish Inquisition, the French revolution, and the Russo-Finnish war of 1918.

Chained: The Story of the Third Sex [Region 2]