carl theodor dreyer

Vampyr

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Julian West in his coffin

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr was the first psychological vampire movie, or so some of the books say. Cut to FW Murnau in the wings asking forlornly, “So what was Nosferatu?” made ten whole years earlier in 1922. How about Vampyr being the great Dreyer’s first sound movie? There is no doubt about that, even though Dreyer is working as if he’s still making a silent movie, right down to the use of intertitle cards. Really, this is a silent movie with added sound. Murnau stole the Dracula story from Bram Stoker but Dreyer bases his film on In a Glass Darkly, an earlier collection of gothic shockers by another Irish author, Sheridan Le … Read more

100 Years of… Master of the House

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Mads comforts Ida

More than just a miserable face, arthouse darling Carl Theodor Dreyer could also churn out the hits. Master of the House is one such, a counter to the suggestion that he was just an austere Dane interested only in the beauty of human suffering – see The Passion of Joan of Arc or, much later, Ordet, for plenty of that. Madly successful at the box office, Master of the House is, as near as you got from Dreyer, a Hollywood entertainment, telling a story with a clear beginning, middle and end, emotional arcs, good guys and bad guys, fairly realistic performances and a moral at the end that you can actually see coming from … Read more

The Passion of Joan of Arc

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Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 16 December Henry VI of England crowned king of France, 1431 On this day in 1431, Henry VI of England was crowned king of France. Born in 1421, Henry of Windsor had become king of England aged nine months. By 11 months, on the death of his grandfather, Charles VI, he had also been named king of France. Since he was a child and hardly in a position to do anything regal, two uncles ran the show for him. John of Lancaster (brother of the dead king, Henry V) became regent of France, while John’s brother Humphrey became Protector of England. … Read more