Carl Theodor Dreyer

11/5/10 to 12/12/10

The films of legendary Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer strip away the unnecessary and turn what's left-emotion, human contact, faith, and love-into almost hallucinatory forces. His 1928 masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc, will be presented with orchestral and choral accompaniment at Oakland's Paramount Theatre, in collaboration with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the UC Berkeley Choral Ensembles.

Read full description

  • The Passion of Joan of Arc, December 2 at Paramount Theatre, Oakland|

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Gertrud

    • Sunday, December 12 5:00 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Denmark, 1964). One woman's pursuit of-or escape from-a love without borders is the heart of Dreyer's final film, one of the most profound in cinema. In hushed tones and overly staged scenes, Dreyer strips away excess movement or sound, and leaves us only with emotion, desire, and sorrow. “Equal, in madness and beauty, to the last works of Beethoven.”-Jean-Luc Godard. “A film of complete purity and something like perfection.”-David Robinson. (115 mins)

  • Two People

    • Friday, December 10 7:00 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Sweden, 1944-45). Dreyer's rarest film is a two-person character study of a dissolving marriage, constructed around the events of a single day. Dreyer withdrew it from theaters and refused to let it be shown during his lifetime. With short They Caught the Ferry. (86 mins)

  • The President

    • Friday, December 3 7:00 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Denmark, 1918). Several generations of dissolute young aristocrats with a taste for servant girls and miscreant procreation dominate Dreyer's enjoyably over-heated melodrama, his directorial debut. Silent cinema at its pulpiest, but great fun. “Certainly one of the handsomest films of the silent era.”-David Bordwell. (80 mins)

  • Vampyr

    • Friday, December 3 8:40 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (France/Germany, 1931). A stranger arrives in a village haunted by someone, or something, in one of the greatest horror films ever made, a favorite of Hitchcock (“the only film worth seeing twice”), Mario Bava, and Guillermo del Toro.. “All talk of emotional and psychological content in the horror genre begins with Vampyr.”-David Bordwell. (75 mins)

  • Voices of Light/The Passion of Joan of Arc

    • Thursday, December 2 7:30 PM

    At the Paramount Theatre, Oakland
    Carl Th. Dreyer (France, 1928). Dreyer's masterpiece-often named as one of the top ten films of all time, and with hallucinatory close-ups more avant-garde than ever-is paired with a live performance of Richard Einhorn's acclaimed composition for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra. “An overwhelming experience.”-Chicago Tribune. “Dreyer and Einhorn together create a harrowing and exalting symbiosis that, once encountered, cannot soon be forgotten.”-Washington Post. (81 mins)

  • Ordet

    • Sunday, November 28 4:50 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Denmark, 1955). Faith, madness, life, and miracles are portrayed through the life one farming family in Dreyer's transcendental investigation of organized religion, personal faith, and humanity. Voted one of the greatest films of all time in a Sight and Sound poll. “A masterpiece. It is of awesome dimensions-a film about Christianity made with an intensity that achieves exaltation.”-Sunday Telegraph. (126 mins)

  • Leaves From Satan's Book

    • Sunday, November 21 2:00 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Denmark, 1919). This through-the-ages epic, inspired by Griffith's Intolerance, tracks the influence of Satan on human betrayal and sin, whether in the time of Christ, the Spanish Inquisition, the French Revolution, or during Finland's 1918 Civil War. “Dreyer's daring use of psychologically penetrating close-ups still seems decades ahead of its time.” -Dave Kehr. (150 mins)

  • The Master of the House

    • Saturday, November 20 6:30 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Denmark, 1925). Dreyer's “realist comedy” turns its attention to the dramas, passions, and furies found within an everyday worker's flat, and follows a blustery husband's eventual downfall at the hands of his wife and other women. “Full of the most precise and most beautiful details from the daily life at the beginning of the century.”-Jonas Mekas. (105mins)

  • Michael

    • Friday, November 19 7:00 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Germany, 1924). Dreyer's majestic portrait of doomed love and obsession-a surprisingly open examination of the hidden desires between two men, an older artist and his younger male model-merges the visual richness of German Expressionism with the psychological romanticism of Russian literature. With photography by Karl Freud and Rudolph Mate, starring director Benjamin Christensen. (93 mins)

  • Medea

    • Friday, November 19 9:00 PM

    Lars von Trier (Denmark, 1987). Danish bad-boy Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves, Antichrist) turns Dreyer's never-filmed adaptation of Euripides into a vividly realized, feverish drama, shot on digital video yet filmed to reproduce the faded, crumbling images of silent film. “No admirer of Mr. von Trier's work should miss this compelling rarity.”-Dave Kehr. (76 mins)

  • Once Upon a Time

    • Sunday, November 14 2:00 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Denmark, 1922). In Dreyer's delightful medieval fairy tale of royals, commoners, assumed identities, wood nymphs, and confessions of love, a spoiled princess sends most of her suitors to the hangman until a prince arrives with a most unlikely scheme to win her heart. An eye-opening taste of silent cinema at its lightest and most entertaining. With short Bride of Glomdal. (134 mins, plus 15-minute introduction)

  • The Parson's Widow

    • Sunday, November 7 2:00 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Sweden, 1920) A young divinity student is offered a job at a rural parish-but only if he marries the previous parson's ancient widow-in Dreyer's surprising comedy, part naturalist hymn to the countryside, part ethnographic study of folk customs. “Dreyer's first masterpiece.”-David Thomson. (88 mins)

  • Love One Another

    • Sunday, November 7 4:15 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Germany, 1922). During the Russian Revolution of 1905, a young Jewish schoolgirl fights for the Revolution-and her Jewish identity-in Dreyer's historical drama, filmed in Berlin with actors from Max Reinhardt's famous company and refugees from the 1917 Revolution. (84 mins)

  • Day of Wrath

    • Friday, November 5 7:00 PM

    Carl Th. Dreyer (Denmark, 1943). A medieval witch trial provides a scathing metaphor for Dreyer's fusion of Hawthorne and Kafka, filmed during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. “This psychological masterpiece...is one of the most completely moving films ever made."-Pauline Kael. (95 mins)

  • Vivre sa vie

    • Friday, November 5 9:00 PM

    Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1962). Godard's fragmentary portrait of a prostitute makes Anna Karina an object of endless visual fascination, and includes a rapt tribute to Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc. “A film of extraordinary purity.”-Manny Farber. (85 mins)