An Evening with James Schamus and Carl Th. Dreyer's Gertrud September 25, 2008

Contributed by Mike Fishman

From the website of the Museum of Modern Art:

MoMA welcomes James Schamus, Columbia University professor and CEO of Focus Features, as he introduces a screening of Carl Th. Dreyer's Gertrud. Before the screening, Schamus will sign copies of his book Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud: The Moving Word. "Schamus's book focuses on a single moment in Gertrud. He follows a trail of references and allusions back through a number of thinkers and artists (Boccaccio, Lessing, Philostratus, Charcot, and others) to reveal the richness and depth of Dreyer's work—and the excitement that can accompany cinema studies when it opens itself up to other disciplines and media. Throughout, Schamus pays particular attention to Dreyer's lifelong obsession with the 'real,' developed through his practice of 'textual realism,' a realism grounded not in standard codes of verisimilitude but on the force of its rhetorical appeal to its written, documentary sources" (University of Washington Press).

Went to see a Film with a capital “F.” Carl Th. Dreyer’s Gertrud (1964. Denmark. Written and directed by Carl Th. Dreyer. Based on the play by Hjalmar Söderberg. With Nina Pens Rode, Baard Owe; 115 min.). Introduced by the always-entertaining, extremely knowledgeable James Schamus, founder of Focus Features, Oscar-winning producer, and professor of film at Columbia University. Schamus prefaced his remarks by (not really) joking that more people would see this film that evening than had in the past ten years. Dreyer’s work, stretching from the silent era to the 1960’s and including classics such as La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928), Vampyr (1932), and Ordet (1955), is known for a slow, austere, intense style, often combining realism with expressionism, which more often than not failed to find its audience in its own time, though he was, interestingly, cited as an influence on the French New Wave. This last point is fitting, given that Dreyer made a number of films in France, including La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.

In his introduction, Schamus pointedly prepared us for a slower film – 89 shots in all, compared to the 1,500 or so shots of a typical modern movie. This makes for very long scenes indeed, at times creating a poetry of movement and a poetic experience, the camera movement often exquisite, employing long takes rather than expected cuts . A character moves from one room o the next; we (the modern audience) expect a cut to the other room; instead the camera pans, allowing the character to enter the room and leave our field of vision, remaining focused, for example, on the doorway, or the person’s shadow, while the scene continues. More poetic and more realistic at the same time than the simple expected cut, it is at once both stylized and more true to life and how we see, how we take in information visually.

Unfortunately, the characters’ lives are stifling, their problems somewhat tedious and eventually maddening, so that about two-thirds in, I began to think about the film ending and what I would have for dinner that night. And this was unfortunate, as the ending contains some of the most beautiful and interesting moments in the film. But, for this viewer, if they had come about ten minutes earlier, would have made for a more satisfying film experience. So that it became something to endure, but admittedly with a great payoff, big questions concerning how we live our lives and how we balance regret echoing in my head as I left the theater. Still, I wish even five minutes had been trimmed from within the last third, keeping the ending intact but reducing the tediousness, thereby making the ending more powerful.

Of course, who am I to wish that the great Dreyer had cut even one minute from one of his films? Just a movie-goer who the next night went to see Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona and found it a considerably more enjoyable experience but with a similar payoff much easier to arrive at. Less profound but with similar themes: Fruit Loops to Dreyer’s oatmeal. Well, that’s a bit rough; maybe more like Cheerios with bananas – fun, but not devoid of seriousness. But clearly, two different film experiences, one involving glancing at my watch; the other, not wanting to see it end. How I long for the next film I see that grasps firmly both experiences: profundity and humor. Films of humor and life; seriousness and laughter; roaring characters and quiet moments; truth in a bittersweet chocolate wrapping. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The Seventh Seal. Amelie.