124-128 Carl Theodor Dreyer Box Set

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Saturnome
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Re: 124-128 Carl Theodor Dreyer Box Set

#101 Post by Saturnome » Sat Jun 27, 2020 11:35 pm

Has anybody read on Gustaf Molander's version of Ordet (made in 1943), or even seen it? I'd be curious to see how it compares. I think it's available right here, but without subtitles I guess.

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martin
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Re: 124-128 Carl Theodor Dreyer Box Set

#102 Post by martin » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:02 am

I've never seen it.

As you maybe know, the Swedish Film Institute has an English language page on the film. There are 155 images (stills, posters etc.) and lots of miscallenous info. The film has been showed on Swedish tv in 1988 and 1998 (I've missed it, unfortunately). It was shown in Stockholm in 2015 (Filmhuset), and a DCP source is available for projection. SFI also has real prints.

SFI's Swedish language entry on Ordet has excerpts of contempoary press reviews (very positive ones) in the section "kommentarer".

I found a couple of more recent English-language bits about the film, the 1st one from a 2016 garbo-seastrom blogpost (sic):
[Forsyth] Hardy later chronicles that Molander had filmed The Word (Ordet) written by slain playwright Kaj Munk. "Molander recreated the theme in the setting of a small Swedish coastal community and gave it an atmosphere so realistic that there was no hint of a stage or studio. Victor Sjostrom played the tyrannical old farmer...and Rune Lindstrom, who collaborated in the treatment, played one of the sons, who studying for the church, loses first his faith...The supreme test for director and players came in the final scene of the half-demented youth's miraculous act of faith after tragedy had overtaken his family...Molander had succeeded because he was able to create and sustain an atmosphere in which the events he described seemed natural and convincing."
The 2nd one is from IL CINEMA RITROVATO 2005, page 65 of the pdf:
Jon Wengström – Svenska Filminstitutet wrote:Ordet has been unjustly neglected over the years, mainly becau-se of Carl Th. Dreyer’s adaptation of the same play twelve years later. Molander’s film may lack the austerity of Dreyer’s version, but it has a tense, dramatic atmosphere and the visual imagery at times evokes that of silent cinema. Victor Sjöström is magnificent as the ageing patriarch, clenching his fists to God in the manner of Terje Vigen. In Molander’s version of Ordet the action is set on the West coast of Sweden, traditionally a strong-hold for schartaua-nism, a very grim form of lutheranism. Shooting took place at the studio in Råsunda and on location in the south-west of Sweden between August and October 1943, and the film was released at Christmas 1943. The war tragically cast its shadow over the film as Munk, a priest involved in the Danish resistance, was killed by orders from the Gestapo in January 1944, just ten days after the film’s release.

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jegharfangetmigenmyg
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Re: 124-128 Carl Theodor Dreyer Box Set

#103 Post by jegharfangetmigenmyg » Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:53 am

Also wondering if Criterion will soon upgrade this set to bluray. The Danish Film Institute took over the rights and got the original prints of these films when Palladium shut down its business some years ago.

They did a new 4K scan of Ordet that premiered at Berlin last year, and a clip from the restauration can be viewed here. It looks stunning! https://www.dfi.dk/nyheder/carl-th-drey ... s-i-berlin

I suppose that they will have scanned all of the Palladium films so a new box that should look much better than the old masters BFI released should be possible now.

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