Dreyer In Double Reflection


Book Description

Carl-Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968) is recognized as one of the great stylists of the cinema. The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, Day of Wrath, Ordet and Gertrud are among the best-known works of this rigorous, austere and powerful film-maker.




Rites of Realism


Book Description

Rites of Realism shifts the discussion of cinematic realism away from the usual focus on verisimilitude and faithfulness of record toward a notion of "performative realism," a realism that does not simply represent a given reality but enacts actual social tensions. These essays by a range of film scholars propose stimulating new approaches to the critical evaluation of modern realist films and such referential genres as reenactment, historical film, adaptation, portrait film, and documentary. By providing close readings of classic and contemporary works, Rites of Realism signals the need to return to a focus on films as the main innovators of realist representation. The collection is inspired by André Bazin's theories on film's inherent heterogeneity and unique ability to register contingency (the singular, one-time event). This volume features two new translations: of Bazin's seminal essay "Death Every Afternoon" and Serge Daney's essay reinterpreting Bazin's defense of the long shot as a way to set the stage for a clash or risky confrontation between man and animal. These pieces evince key concerns—particularly the link between cinematic realism and contingency—that the other essays explore further. Among the topics addressed are the provocative mimesis of Luis Buñuel's Land Without Bread; the adaptation of trial documents in Carl Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc; the use of the tableaux vivant by Wim Wenders and Peter Greenaway; and Pier Paolo Pasolini's strategies of analogy in his transposition of The Gospel According to St. Matthew from Palestine to southern Italy. Essays consider the work of filmmakers including Michelangelo Antonioni, Maya Deren, Mike Leigh, Cesare Zavattini, Zhang Yuan, and Abbas Kiarostami. Contributors: Paul Arthur, André Bazin, Mark A. Cohen, Serge Daney, Mary Ann Doane, James F. Lastra, Ivone Margulies, Abé Mark Normes, Brigitte Peucker, Richard Porton, Philip Rosen, Catherine Russell, James Schamus, Noa Steimatsky, Xiaobing Tang




Toward Cinema and Its Double


Book Description

Jayamanne brings together her discussions of Australian films, Sri Lankan films, European art films, silent film comedy, contemporary American films and her own films.




Cinematography of Carl Theodor Dreyer


Book Description

Legendary Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer (3 February 1889-20 March 1968) was born in Copenhagen to a single mother, Josefine Bernhardine Nilsson, a Swede. His Danish father, Jens Christian Torp, a married farmer, employed Nilsson as a housekeeper. After spending his first two years in orphanages, Dreyer was adopted by Carl Theodor Dreyer, a typographer, and his wife, Inger Marie Dreyer. He was given his adoptive father’s name. At age 16, he renounced his adoptive parents and worked his way into the film industry as a journalist, title card writer, screenwriter, and director. Throughout his career he concealed his birth name and the details of his upbringing and his adult private life, which included a period in which he explored his homosexual orientation and endured a nervous breakdown. Despite his relatively small output of fourteen feature films and seven documentary short films, 1919-64, he is considered one of the greatest filmmakers in history because of the diversity of his subjects, themes, techniques, and styles, and the originality of the bold visual grammar he mastered. In Cinematography of Carl Theodor Dreyer: Performative Camerawork, Transgressing the Frame, I argue: 1) that Dreyer, an anonymous orphan, an unsourced subject, manufactured his individuality through filmmaking, self-identifying by shrouding himself in the skin of film, and 2) that, as a screenwriter-director who blocked entire feature films in his imagination in advance—sets, lighting, photography, shot breakdowns, editing—and imposed his vision on camera operators, lighting directors, actors, and crews in production, he saw filmmaking essentially as camerawork and he directed in the style of a performative cinematographer.




Speaking the Language of Desire


Book Description

Although Carl Dreyer is universally acknowledged to be one of the supreme masters of world cinema, it is one of the oddities of film history that beyond The Passion of Joan of Arc, his works have seldom had the general recognition that they undeniable deserve. This book is an attempt to bring his films to the awareness of contemporary filmgoers everywhere. The author argues that the key to an understanding of Dryers work is to be found in an appreciation of his distinctive style.




The Demons of Modernity


Book Description

Ingmar Bergman’s films had a very broad and rich relationship with the rest of European cinema, contrary to the myth that Bergman was a peripheral figure, culturally and aesthetically isolated from the rest of Europe. This book contends that he should be put at the very center of European film history by chronologically comparing Bergman’s relationship to key European directors such as Carl Theodor Dreyer, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Andrei Tarkovsky, and also looks at Bergman’s critical relationship to key movements in film history such as the French New Wave. In so doing, it demonstrates how Ingmar Bergman’s films illustrate the demonic struggle in modernity between faith and secularity through “his intense preoccupation with the malaise of intimacy.”







A Companion to Nordic Cinema


Book Description

A Companion to Nordic Cinema presents a collection of original essays that explore one of the world’s oldest regional cinemas from its origins to the present day. Offers a comprehensive, transnational and regional account of Nordic cinema from its origins to the present day Features original contributions from more than two dozen international film scholars based in the Nordic countries, the United States, Canada, Scotland, and Hong Kong Covers a wide range of topics on the distinctive evolution of Nordic cinema including the silent Golden Age, Nordic film policy models and their influence, audiences and cinephilia, Nordic film training, and indigenous Sámi cinema. Considers Nordic cinema’s engagement with global audiences through coverage of such topics as Dogme 95, the avant-garde filmmaking movement begun by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, and the global marketing and distribution of Nordic horror and Nordic noir Offers fresh investigations of the work of global auteurs such as Carl Th. Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, Lars von Trier, Aki Kaurismäki, and Roy Andersson. Includes essays on Danish and Swedish television dramas, Finland’s eco-documentary film production, the emerging tradition of Icelandic cinema, the changing dynamics of Scandinavian porn, and many more




The Six Day Horror Movie


Book Description

When someone offered Michael DiPaolo $5,000 to help make a Digital Video horror film, he jumped at the chance to test a theory: an ultra-low budget feature, shot in less than a week, with a paid cast and crew, could be successful if meticulously planned. Using one computer and one camcorder, he produced and edited Daddy, which had its theatrical premier in New York City in 2004. This book breaks down the production through a detailed daily diary, emphasizing that the most important aspects of successful producing are careful planning and camaraderie in the group. The work covers many points important for the low-budget filmmaker, including selecting a story; budgeting; scheduling; picking cast and crew; scouting locations; finding wardrobe, food, and transportation; and what to do if you run out of time or money. Postproduction is also covered (editing, computer work, and sound design), as is the result of all this hard work: screenings, festivals, and distributors. One chapter covers the primacy of cinematic point-of-view, and another profiles some role models for the aspiring low-budget filmmaker: Edgar Ulmer, Val Lewton, Roger Corman, John Cassavetes, Ed Wood, Jr., and Jean-Luc Godard. Later chapters explain strategy and tactics of guerrilla filmmaking and show the budding filmmaker how to recognize both his limitations and his strengths.




Modernist Montage


Book Description

Tracing the history of modernism in cinema, this study provides readings of a range of classic films made between 1925 and 1980 by such filmmakers as Carl Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman and Robert Bresson. It argues that the act of vision and visual experience are problematized in literary modernism.