Michael (Mikael)
An early and direct expression of Dreyer's interest in the complexities of passive, suffering characters, Michael is beautifully photographed by Karl Freund and was hailed in Germany as the first kammerspielfilm (the chamber play as transferred to the screen, or, as Lotte Eisner writes, “the psychological film par excellence”). The Danish director Benjamin Christensen stars as the artist Claude Zoret (modeled in part after Rodin), whose irrepressible love for his model, Michael, withstands the boy's infidelities and finds its most complete expression in his last painting.