Gertrud

Director: Carl Th Dreyer

Released: 1964

Featured Actors: Nina Pens Rode, Bendt Rothe, Ebbe Rode

Set around 1900
Seeks ‘ideal love’ and examines the institution of marriage (also studies fidelity)
Note: the grammar of glances
More than in the other Dreyer films, visuals & dialogue are balanced
Again, in this film Dreyer prunes the narrative and its presentation…he subtracts
Central character is, once more, a woman…she is the primary focus
Dreyer’s long interest in the struggle for love and salvation is personified by the social predicament of women
In Gertrud, Dreyer reduced his already self-conscious style to basic locations and a gestural, hieratic manner of performance that avoids false pathos
No scene numbers in the script, shot/scenes are continuous
worked on the script and vision for 30 years
People would die for love, would they die for sex?

Gertrud

Consider: “what is she attempting?” – “what is she trying to accomplish?”
While most women would embrace the opportunity to have a powerful husband, with the comforts that money & power can provide, Gertrud is lonely & wants something else
Portrayed through mirrors…a kin to a piece of art in her husband’s collection
She is framed in the scene (again, like a painting)
She grows in self-awareness through the film’s plot
Each man temporarily resolves her issues
She gains knowledge through her encounters with men
Summary, she is in pursuit of an ideal
“Love is all”

Dreyer’s style has been pared to its dreamy essence — extraordinarily long takes, a few simple interiors, a handful of characters.
Gertrud uses a lot of tracking shots. Because the script isn’t divided into scenes, but more like one unbroken string of action
- This lent towards fewer takes
- Only completed one take per day
- Shot around what would be natural for the actor
- Actors must be “in their place”

As a meticulous film-maker/artist, Dreyer sought to capture Truth with insistence on details
For example, the settings, though sparse, contain documentary-like details. The headache pills from Paris are actually headache pills from Paris. When an actor opens a drawer, the drawer contains scattered contents that might be contained in a drawer (for that particular character)
Tragedy is the form in which he preferred to place his perspective
Dreyer, “I don’t think about the audience when I make a film. My only consideration toward them is that they understand the film.”
Dreyer, “What is imperfect, lives. What is perfect is dead and set aside.”
Great Dreams are unfolded in silence, people conceal feelings and don’t reveal their raging emotions
In artistic films, we want to learn about the emotional experience of human beings