Carl Theodor Dreyer's Ordet
Danish director Dreyer's penultimate film, Ordet (1955), meaning The Word, based on a Kaj Munk play, takes place in 1925. The affluent Borgen family--an elderly father with three sons, one of whom is married with two daughters--must deal with two problems concerning religion. The youngest son, Anders (Cay Kristiansen), loves the daughter of a tailor, Peter (Ejner Federspiel). Peter, apart from being poorer than the Borgens, also belongs to a Fundamentalist sect and will not have Anders for a son-in-law unless he converts from Lutheranism to Peter's religion.
The other religiously related problem for the Borgens derives from the middle son Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) and his absolute conviction that he's Jesus of Nazareth. Regarded as crazy, he's nevertheless gentle and harmless, although he tends to run away for days at a time. He also freaks out visitors unfamiliar with his personality. His prophecies tend to come true, though, such as his devastating prediction of his sister-in-law's impending death. She miscarries and dies, as Johannes prophesied. The next morning he leaves home on another mysterious trip. When he returns he speaks the words that bring his sister-in-law back from the dead, as Jesus did for Lazarus.
By the end, even Peter the tailor has relented in his resistance to having his daughter marry outside her brand of Christianity. Significantly, Johannes's name (John) is the same as in The Gospel According to John, which begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Was Jesus regarded by anyone as a madman? It seems immensely out of the ordinary to make claims for one's abilities, to preach words suggestive of supernatural acts that will be performed in reality.
It's also difficult to buy into a film's premise when that storyline is so dependent on the climactic occurrence of a miracle; yet, Dreyer's handling of this material is convincing since he spends two hours building the plot, to the point where Johannes's act of resurrection flows from a prepared ground of interpersonal relationships among the characters, the reedy landscape, the deep sky, the constant winds, the wrenching miscarriage and death scene, the faces of parishioners at the fundamentalist church, the domestic rituals of having tea and biscuits, of smoking pipes or cigars, the furniture in the Borgen home, the doubts and bewilderment over life's difficulties.
Dreyer's images, as in his other films, seem etched. He photographs something simple, like an arrangement of furniture with a tea service, a lamp, a window, and it somehow resembles something strikingly lined in shadow and light, like a woodcut. Another director whose work has this quality is D.W. Griffith. It's very mysterious--I don't understand how Dreyer and Griffith did this, or maybe I'm just imagining it? but I think it's there. It's as if Dreyer's images are stamped onto the screen.
Far from being a preposterous film, Ordet speaks to the inner and non-rational heart-based experiences of life and death. It's a great film--there are no other movies quite like it.
Vic Neptune
Danish director Dreyer's penultimate film, Ordet (1955), meaning The Word, based on a Kaj Munk play, takes place in 1925. The affluent Borgen family--an elderly father with three sons, one of whom is married with two daughters--must deal with two problems concerning religion. The youngest son, Anders (Cay Kristiansen), loves the daughter of a tailor, Peter (Ejner Federspiel). Peter, apart from being poorer than the Borgens, also belongs to a Fundamentalist sect and will not have Anders for a son-in-law unless he converts from Lutheranism to Peter's religion.
The other religiously related problem for the Borgens derives from the middle son Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) and his absolute conviction that he's Jesus of Nazareth. Regarded as crazy, he's nevertheless gentle and harmless, although he tends to run away for days at a time. He also freaks out visitors unfamiliar with his personality. His prophecies tend to come true, though, such as his devastating prediction of his sister-in-law's impending death. She miscarries and dies, as Johannes prophesied. The next morning he leaves home on another mysterious trip. When he returns he speaks the words that bring his sister-in-law back from the dead, as Jesus did for Lazarus.
By the end, even Peter the tailor has relented in his resistance to having his daughter marry outside her brand of Christianity. Significantly, Johannes's name (John) is the same as in The Gospel According to John, which begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Was Jesus regarded by anyone as a madman? It seems immensely out of the ordinary to make claims for one's abilities, to preach words suggestive of supernatural acts that will be performed in reality.
It's also difficult to buy into a film's premise when that storyline is so dependent on the climactic occurrence of a miracle; yet, Dreyer's handling of this material is convincing since he spends two hours building the plot, to the point where Johannes's act of resurrection flows from a prepared ground of interpersonal relationships among the characters, the reedy landscape, the deep sky, the constant winds, the wrenching miscarriage and death scene, the faces of parishioners at the fundamentalist church, the domestic rituals of having tea and biscuits, of smoking pipes or cigars, the furniture in the Borgen home, the doubts and bewilderment over life's difficulties.
Dreyer's images, as in his other films, seem etched. He photographs something simple, like an arrangement of furniture with a tea service, a lamp, a window, and it somehow resembles something strikingly lined in shadow and light, like a woodcut. Another director whose work has this quality is D.W. Griffith. It's very mysterious--I don't understand how Dreyer and Griffith did this, or maybe I'm just imagining it? but I think it's there. It's as if Dreyer's images are stamped onto the screen.
Far from being a preposterous film, Ordet speaks to the inner and non-rational heart-based experiences of life and death. It's a great film--there are no other movies quite like it.
Vic Neptune
Comments
Post a Comment