Carl Th. Dreyer: My Métier (1995)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Documentary	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	97:00 (Case: 94)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Torben Skjødt Jensen
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Torben Skjødt Jensen Lars Bo Kimergaard Prami Larsen
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	Box	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.66:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English (Burned In)	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Carl Theodore Dreyer - My Metier is a full length documentary about the life and work of the great Danish filmmaker.

It is available as an additional DVD in the Dreyer Master Filmmaker box set from Madman Entertainment. It cannot be purchased separately. It makes an excellent adjunct to the four films presented in the box set (Master of the House, Day of Wrath, Ordet and Gertrud ) although it must be said that extracts of the documentary already appear as extras on Day of Wrath and Ordet with outtakes appearing on Gertrud.

The documentary, by fellow Danish filmmaker Torben Skjodt Jensen, is certainly in-depth. It contains interviews with the actors who worked with Dreyer over the years as well as his long-time cinematographer, Henning Bendtsen.

Either by accident or design the documentary is extremely thin on Dreyer's personal life. The writings and comments from Dreyer himself in the film are complex statements about his job as a filmmaker and in particular his sense of aesthetics and poetry in language and image.

The film is able to relate his birth to an unmarried Swedish housekeeper and his very unhappy adolescence in the home of Danish foster parents who never ceased to remind him that he owed them for every piece of bread he consumed.

It appears that Dreyer lived a solitary life and was often beset by mental health issues. He was meticulous to the point of obsession yet tried to create his films organically on set. Cinematographer Bendtsen relates that Dreyer would often start the day's shoot having made expansive notes of everything to do with the scene. When he arrived on the set he would put the notes aside and begin afresh.

Dreyer was noted as pedantic and sometimes overbearing. There are legendary stories about his work with Marie Falconetti on the set of The Passion of Joan of Arc. It is said that Dreyer bullied and abused the actress forcing her to kneel on cold stone for hours on end to experience the real "passion". Falconetti's daughter and Dreyer himself denied these stories. She was simply an incredibly intense actress who made these demands of herself.

However, if he wasn't overbearing he certainly was unusual. Preben Lerdorff-Rye relates how Dreyer took him to a mental hospital and sat him down with one of the patients for an extended period in order to have the actor understand the vocal intonation he required from him for Ordet.

In essence Dreyer lived for his work. He died a thousand deaths during the script-writing process and his script on the life of Jesus Christ remained unfinished for 20 years until his death in 1969.

On set it appears Dreyer was in fact persuasive more than dictatorial although he always put the poetic aims of the film first. In a superbly ironic story Dreyer was commissioned to make the short film They Caught the Ferry as a film warning of the dangers of speeding. In the film the two characters race across Denmark in order to catch a ferry but meet their fate when colliding with a tree. Dreyer insisted that there be no visual trickery to suggest speed and required his film crew to travel at the same speed as the actors and required them to travel at the scripted speed of up to 100 miles per hour. During the course of filming the film crew motorcycle left the road and hit a tree. Racing over to the accident scene Dreyer gave a sigh of joy when he noticed that the camera was unbroken before ambling over to the cinematographer who had broken his wrist and a rib in the accident.

Though Dreyer had a long life and was heavily involved in script writing for films at the dawn of Danish cinema but his directorial output was meagre. Aside from his films of the silent era (and Vampyr which he made silent as an artistic and economic decision) he made only four films in over 30 years of the sound era. On the strength of this documentary it would seem that Dreyer's perfectionism resulted in a few works of art and a trail of incomplete projects.

Carl Theodore Dreyer - My Metier is an interesting and important documentary for enthusiasts of this artist's work. If there is a lingering feeling that we never really got to know the director it is perhaps due to the fact that he was intensely private and intensely serious about his art. He lived for his films.

Video

    Carl Theodore Dreyer - My Metier is presented on DVD at the original cinematic 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

It is presented in a non-anamorphic letterboxed transfer. I cannot say why the decision was made not to present the film in a 16x9 enhanced form. I can say that in this instance the difference is probably not that great. The film is composed of film excerpts bearing different aspect ratios as well as talking heads stuff and some arty effects over static images. The interview scenes are shown with some peculiar lighting leading to a slightly over-exposed look.

However, for a 1995 black and white documentary it actually looks quite decent. The technical problems with the print are fairly minor with little evidence of damage or artefacts.

In short, fans of Dreyer will not quibble with the look of the documentary.

The film is in English with burnt-in subtitles for the Danish interviewees.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The sound for Carl Theodore Dreyer - My Metier is Dolby Digital 2.0 running at 192Kb/s.

The sound is clear and of reasonable quality. All the dialogue can be heard easily and appears to be in good audio sync.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

  As said Carl Theodore Dreyer - My Metier is not available as a stand alone DVD in any Region. It does come with the Criterion Collection Dreyer box set in Region 1

    Carl Theodore Dreyer - My Metier is an excellent addition to the Dreyer box set and no true fan of European cinema should be without it.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall