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Suggesting that the American film industry influences one's creative decisions is not necessarily equivalent to making a compromised fiilm, nor did I mean to suggest that. What it DOES do, for most filmmakers, is demand a certain level of creativity based on public expectations formed over a hundred years.

Even if your premise were true, I don't think it is, a certain brand of Hollywood realism isn't inherently lesser nor greater than whatever you wish to call Dreyer's methodology. If you took someone more talented in the artistic history Gibson worked in and someone less talented in Dreyer's methodology, for example Peter Weir vs. Dietrich Brüggemann, you could very easily come up with a case where the Hollywood version is more successful artistically and whatever other category you may deem important.

Important or not there are obvious creative decisions that are made by filmmakers influenced by and marketing to the American market that are not considered by filmmakers from other countries and with different film histories. It's blatantly obvious when you consider film versions of The Gospels and/or (semi) religious subjects common to various cultures. Their styles and approaches cannot help but reflect their histories, which includes a history of the film-going public and the industry that caters to them. You are your history, no?

So?

ando wrote:Important or not there are obvious creative decisions that are made by filmmakers influenced by and marketing to the American market that are not considered by filmmakers from other countries and with different film histories. It's blatantly obvious when you consider film versions of The Gospels and/or (semi) religious subjects common to various cultures. Their styles and approaches cannot help but reflect their histories, which includes a history of the film-going public and the industry that caters to them. You are your history, no?

Yes, but these are terrible examples to support your thesis. As I said above, it was Dreyer's film that was overseen by the money-men (and very closely, as it had a huge budget, and its backers were very worried about how it was being spent), while Gibson was the one operating in near-complete creative freedom. I genuinely don't think Gibson was that bothered about what the American market thought - in fact, one of the few truly interesting aspects of that film is how completely single-minded it is, particularly in its relentlessly gruelling focus on physical abuse to an extent that might well have repelled mainstream audiences if it hadn't been for the free pass proffered by its subject matter.

There's no thesis. You are what you do. Whatever any filmmaker produces is a result of their history. Why would any example be exempt?

That's a totally different argument than you first put forth though and also a fairly meaningless one.

So?

So what are you arguing?

I'm not.

Interesting that this discussion contrasts Dreyer and Gibson, given Dreyer's never-realized film of the life of Jesus. I have the published screenplay, which is accompanied by essays by and about Dreyer (I believe much of this material is also available on the Dreyer website). One of Dreyer's principal aims with the film was to wash the Gospels of any hint of anti-Semitism. He considered the Crucifixion a political execution, while the Jewish high priest Caiaphas held a role better described as "collaborator" than conspirator (in one of the essays): "nothing [...] indicates that Caiaphas was not a conscientious man who had the people welfare in his thoughts." In Dreyer's script, Pilate initiates the discussion and plan to arrest and execute Jesus, while the high priests are shown earlier discussing amongst themselves the intent to protect Jesus from Roman punishment to the extent they can.

Interestingly, the script does not represent the Resurrection (Gibson does so, almost as a footnote), but ends after the Crucifixion with "the shadow of the cross lengthening until it extends beyond the frame of the image" while a voiceover speaks to the lasting impact of Jesus' sayings. The script does depict several miracles, however, healings performed by Jesus, so it is not a strictly "humanistic" portrayal.

Was the screenplay written before or after Ordet (a film I'd always considered Dreyer's Jesus film)?

ando wrote:Was the screenplay written before or after Ordet (a film I'd always considered Dreyer's Jesus film)?

My understanding is long after, it was near the end of his career. And, yes, totally agree that Ordet is very much in line with the concept.

I had thought that Dreyer had been working on the Jesus script for decades, and thought of both Ordet and Gertrud, in part, as "small films" intended to demonstrate to producers his ability to get a film done, in hopes that someone would fund his more ambitious projects.

Of the many directors who have sought to make their "Jesus film," Paul Verhoeven's effort to make an entirely humanistic, de-sanctified version is worth mentioning. It was to be based in part on some then-recent scholarship on ancient Palestine. He ended up writing a book synthesizing some of that scholarship (though not in a way that would probably earn him tenure), and I think he's more or less abandoned the idea of a film.

Been slowly making my way through Ordet and oddly enough I find Johannes, the "Jesus" figure the least interesting of the lot. The father is the character I sympathize with the most - probably because he feels that he has the most to lose. Of course he's holding on to attitudes and assumptions he should have dropped long ago as, ultimately, they keep him separate from the people around him (including loved ones). But observing this makes him that much more fascinating than Johannes, who, though blessed with foresight and compassion, is unable to effectively communicate with his family. They're two opposite types with the same problem really.

Dreyer really came into his formalized blocking style here as well...

Okay, I pulled out the Bordwell book on Dreyer. He reports, citing his own 1972 Film Comment article, that Dreyer attempted to make the Jesus film in the early 1950s with the help of American theater producer Blevins Davis. He says that the first draft was written in the late 40s, and that making the film was an overriding goal for the next two decades of his life: "[his] documentary work, Ordet, and Gertrud were seen as preparations for Jesus, proofs that Dreyer could still direct." He also tried to get the film off the ground after Gertrud; the Danish government offered funding in late 1967, and Italy's RAI offered funding in early 1968; Dreyer passed away in March of that year.

So, yes, believe whaleallright!

And, actually somewhat tangientally to Dreyer as he made him a book subject, here's Paul Schrader on Verhoeven's book on Jesus (wherein he surprisingly makes an error as to what the Immaculate Conception is).

All the Best People wrote:And, actually somewhat tangentially to Dreyer as he made him a book subject, here's Paul Schrader on Verhoeven's book on Jesus (wherein he surprisingly makes an error as to what the Immaculate Conception is).

It's not that surprising- it's a common mistake, and the actual meaning of the phrase is exceedingly Catholic (ie Scorsese's ground, rather than Schrader's.)

There is a book (Danish printed but in English) of all the correspondence between Blevins Davis and Dreyer, over decades, solely about the JESUS film. It's one of the saddest, most depressing books I've ever read. Davis really cocked Dreyer about for a long, long time – for no real reason.

Never seen it listed on Amazon, is there another way to find this book? Been interested in it for some time.

Drucker wrote:Never seen it listed on Amazon, is there another way to find this book? Been interested in it for some time.

I found one copy at abe.com. If you keep looking there, you may find another.

This may sound kind of nuts but in the late 50s/early 60s John Cassavetes talked about doing a collaboration with Dreyer on a film about the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus, shot in one of the foreign locations he was eyeing at the time.

There's also a 1943 letter from Dreyer to Louis B. Mayer (which I found on eBay, of all places, and sent to Nick Wrigley) in which he proposes remaking Day of Wrath at M-G-M.

That reminds me of Bresson's wish (as expressed in correspondence with George Cukor in the 1960s) to cast Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn in his version of Lancelot. Makes one wonder if Bresson's preoccupation with "models" rather than professional actors derived as much from economic necessity as principle.

Imagine a very different Hollywood studio system where the likes of Dreyer and Bresson (and Renoir) were working alongside Ford and Hawks and Hitchcock....

Well we did get that one at least in the case of Renoir.

Right — but he stopped making studio films in the 1940s, moving on to international productions. Same with Ophuls. What if they had found Hollywood more hospitable and stayed?

Screenplays for Dreyer´s Jesus, Mary Queen of Scots and Medea, available to read in English:
https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdr ... s/projects
https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdr ... jesus-film
https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/carlthdreye ... rt-1946-47
https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdr ... ects/medea

Articles:
https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdr ... yer/themes
https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdr ... jesus-film
https://www.kosmorama.org/node/31274

Mods: sorry if any of the above is a re-post.