>The sustained panning shots represent the both the connection and the separation between the characters in the film — this effect would be completely diminished if chose to edit/cut from one speaker to the next. For example, the panning camera is the only way to express the distance between Johanna and his father (it is worth noting that although Dreyer is using this as a metaphor for emotional and spiritual separation, it is also realistic, and therefore never abstract from reality), cutting would lose this effect dramatically. The way Dreyer does it, you can physically see the distance between them in real time.
I also think that the camera work, with its slow and contemplative movements, is a way to restrict the viewer from making judgements on the character—I mean to say, that the camera itself (Dreyer perhaps) is also unsure and non-judgmental.
I have more to say, but I have to run as well.
@J and K
The sustained panning shots represent the both the connection and the separation between the characters in the film
Hmm, that’s interesting. I think there might be something to this, but does Dreyer employ this method even when the characters are not necessarily separated? I got the feeling that Dreyer didn’t seem to be comfortable using editing in a scene. The staging and movement of the camera (swiveling from left to right or moving forward or back) were pretty elaborate, and I’m not sure separation/connection between characters explains this. (I’d have to watch it again.)
Also, the remark, “slow and contemplative movements” struck me as I didn’t really think of it that way (although I suspect that I’ve recently watched films that were even slower and more contemplative). I’m interested in hearing more about the way the camera is “non-judgmental.”
but does Dreyer employ this method even when the characters are not necessarily separated?
I think that one of the central themes (if you could call it that) of any Dreyer film is the confounding struggle of human connection and communication. But the camera does not only suggest “separation” or alienation, also the belief that humans—despite our inability to express ourselves others— are fully entwined in each others lives. There is no single perspective of a single character (like in Hitchcock films), Dreyer’s camera suggests to the viewer that there are competing souls at work, each one with their own reality, but nevertheless inexorably connected.
In other words, the “method” is not simply used to show how emotionally close or separated people are from one another—but to suggest that we are all connected regardless. If there is any conclusion that Dreyer reaches, it’s the danger of shutting oneself away from that connection.
I’m interested in hearing more about the way the camera is “non-judgmental.”
Hitchcock is famous for using point of view camera movement, in which the viewer could clearly see what the character (usually a lone character), was looking at and a clear reaction shot of how the character felt about the thing he was looking at (Rear Window is a perfect example)—Dreyer does the opposite. I can’t be quite sure, but I would be willing to bet that there are no point of view camera movements in Ordet. Dreyer does not judge the characters—there are no villains with grimacing looks and scary music—and there is rarely a close up shot. Dreyer wants to keep us on the move, he doesn’t want us to be settled into one feeling or moral direction. He wants to open the viewers up to many possibilities.
SPOILER:
Nowhere is this more important than in the last scene, in which all preconceptions are blown away.
For me, the film seems to be about faith—specifically a indictment of a shallow faith by many Christians.
Ordet is about the importance of the spirit—but also the importance of the physical world. Johanna’s may be more in tune with the spiritual world, but his closeness to “God” is rendered useless, because it is too abstract to be useful in any practical, grounded ways. The father, on the other hand, despite his religious beliefs (he does not believe in miracles), is almost entirely grounded in the material world. It is Inger, and only Inger, that is able to utilize the spirit into practical use. I think she acts as a mediating figure between the spiritual world and the physical world.
I think the film is more about finding a way to connect the soul and the body than any particular religion. Though, as a Christian as well, it’s meaning does have a special significance to me.
ugh… hope that makes sense. I’ll have more later, hopefully, when I have some time. Ordet is my favorite movie, by the way.
@J and K
I think that one of the central themes (if you could call it that) of any Dreyer film is the confounding struggle of human connection and communication. But the camera does not only suggest “separation” or alienation, also the belief that humans—despite our inability to express ourselves others— are fully entwined in each others lives.
This is interesting, and something I will definitely keep in mind as I watch (re-watch) more of his film. (I have seen most of his films, except for some of the early silent film.)
Hitchcock is famous for using point of view camera movement, in which the viewer could clearly see what the character (usually a lone character), was looking at and a clear reaction shot of how the character felt about the thing he was looking at (Rear Window is a perfect example)—Dreyer does the opposite. I can’t be quite sure, but I would be willing to bet that there are no point of view camera movements in Ordet.
I like observation you make about Hitchcock and the way this contrasts with Dreyer’s approach, and based on my memory, I think you may be right a lack of point of view camera shots in Ordet.
Dreyer does not judge the characters—there are no villains with grimacing looks and scary music—and there is rarely a close up shot.
I think I agree with this for the most part. (In terms of lack of judgment, I think of Ozu—actually, there are other similarities with Dreyer—the very formal, almost perfect compositions (Dreyer’s camera moves a lot more though). There are some close-ups, but not used in the point of view way you mention, I think.
Btw, have you seen Breaking the Waves. I think that comparing and contrasting both films would make for an interesting discussion.
Re: the issue of faith
On this second viewing, I noticed that in the beginning the father, Morton, talks about his early hopes for his oldest son, Johannes. He mentions sending Johannes to school because he showed promise and Inger (Mikkel’s wife) asks if Morton wanted him to be a parson. Morton says no, that he hoped Johannes would rekindle or reform Christianity in some way. He talks about how disappointed he is and how he has prayed so long for his son, but to no avail. Inger encourages him to continue to pray.
On the first viewing, I forgot about this earlier scene. So on the second viewing, I realized that the Morton’s prayers are answered—Johannes becomes himself again, but, at the same time, he presents a revolutionary type of faith.
On a side note, what do people think about Inger saying that Mikkel’s goodness indicates that he’s not far from faith?
I didn’t mind the Christianity aspect of the film. I have more trouble with the staging. Characters are rolling their heads around, staring off into space, having entire conversations with each other without looking at each other. Also the characters seemed a bit too archetypal. Maybe I should watch it a second time, though other than Passion of Joan Of Arc I’ve never been a big fan of Dreyer.
@Jirin
I have more trouble with the staging. Characters are rolling their heads around, staring off into space, having entire conversations with each other without looking at each other.
I don’t really recall this. Are you saying that the behavior seemed unnatural or strange?
Rigid. I don’t mean their behavior, I mean their movement.
Oh, OK. I think I know what you’re talking about. For me, I describe it as stilted and almost theatrical (as in, theater acting). I don’t care for this element in Dreyer’s films, but I actually didn’t come to mind during this second viewing.
So maybe I should just watch it a second time with fresh eyes.
Well, I think it’s a terrific film, so, yeah. Plus, you’ll definitely have some one to talk to about it! (But don’t wait to long!) :)
I think that the staging is integral to the meaning of the film. Dreyer is a realistic filmmaker—but is also an imaginative one, who uses the camera and the staging to suggest (and I think suggest is the perfect word—rarely does Dreyer tell the viewer anything, nor does he come to concrete solutions), something beyond the physical.
The reason, I think, for the supposed awkwardness of the characters—specifically their tendency to aimlessly stare off into the abyss, is Dreyer’s way of suggesting to us that the character is moving him/herself further away from the collaborative world or community and into their own inwardness—which I think Dreyer believes to be a dangerous place.
@J and K
Dreyer…is also an imaginative one, who uses the camera and the staging to suggest (and I think suggest is the perfect word—rarely does Dreyer tell the viewer anything, nor does he come to concrete solutions), something beyond the physical.
I’d like to hear more about this (examples, perhaps?), but my sense is almost everything that is important to the film’s meaning is in the film’s dialogue. I don’t mean that the dialogue is didactic, but I do think the film’s
The reason, I think, for the supposed awkwardness of the characters—specifically their tendency to aimlessly stare off into the abyss, is Dreyer’s way of suggesting to us that the character is moving him/herself further away from the collaborative world or community and into their own inwardness—which I think Dreyer believes to be a dangerous place.
Wow, that’s interesting. I didn’t get that at all, but, again, I’d be interested in hearing more about this. Are you saying that Dreyer community versus individuality/inwardness is a big issue in this film? I totally did not get that—especially the idea that inwardness (as in drawing away from community) is a dangerous thing. (But I’m not saying you’re wrong.)
What I mean by “beyond the physical” is that Dreyer will sacrifice realism in order to get at something which can not be realized without help from the camera. For example, it is not realistic for characters stare off into the abyss while there talking, but in order for Dreyer to suggest something else, beyond the dialogue or facial expressions; beyond the plot and action; he uses the camera to suggest something else, that could not otherwise be explained. The pacing and movement of the camera, as well as the set design and spatial distance between people, help the viewer see things that would not be readily available otherwise—and are almost certainly not readily available to the characters themselves.
Ray Carney (of all people) has written a lot about Dreyer— he does a lot better explaining his style than I do:
The camera movements in Ordet are not masterful and manipulative like Hitchcock’s. The re-framings are not tendentious and virtuosic like Welles’. They are diligent and scrupulous acts of knitting persons together. They are slow and ponderous at times. They are hesitant and tentative. They are deliberate and deliberative. They make us aware of the work of weaving separated threads together, slowly, conscientiously, diligently. Dreyer’s careful camera does not abstractly “know” or “see” relationships, so much as it gradually, haltingly discovers them, meditates on them, slowly maps them out. Above all, Dreyer’s camera does not rise above time and space and human particularities, foibles, and missteps, like a God, but makes its meanings in time and space and the mess of human events like a human being. Dreyer’s camera is a celebration of the virtues of a doggedly human point of view rather than an Olympian one…
Dreyer’s camera searches out and reveals complications of involvement or awareness of which the characters themselves are frequently unaware–connections which they themselves can’t themselves participate in, or which (because they are so painful and troubling) they may prefer to deny or decline. Precisely because connections cannot be made by the characters themselves (or made through the merging of their points of view with the viewer’s), it falls to the camera work and editing to make them instead, so that they are not lost entirely. The camera work and editing tenderly carries the expressive burden of what can’t actually be expressed and shared in the actual society of the characters. The camera work and editing lovingly keeps alive possibilities that would otherwise not exist.
The awkward moment demands an awkward camera or an awkward camera creates the awkward moment?
This might be one of instances Polaris was talking about on the ‘young people today’ thread.
Wasn’t that theatrical style left over from the silents ?
So it isn’t that the camera reveals something, but the speed with which it reveals it that is at issue? Oy…ya gotta love adjectives…
Ordet was more than an adaption but a remake of a play.
Bazin said something like this: the reality of filmed theater lies in its underlying text…… the dramatic primacy of the word…. we become present to the transcendent reality of the word.
It’s very Kierkegaardian and I wonder how much the playwright was influenced by Kierkegaard.
Not sure if you picked up this detail, but it’s actually reading Kierkegaard that drove Johannes “crazy.”
Chris Fujiwara:
“The camera movements of Ordet are deeply embedded in the patterns of the film, and deeply affect our response to the film, in ways that even the most minute verbal analysis must fail to explain. The camera follows the characters, but also goes beyond them—suggesting both the real-time sympathy of an observer and a supernaturally exact foresight of when and where the characters will appear and move. The smoothness and deliberateness of the camera movements give us a unique sense about the reality of the film’s world, the sense that everything is both happening for the first time and happening in eternity. We get this sense not only from the sweeping, circular shot that establishes the parlor and its adjoining bedrooms, but also from the short, sudden (but hardly casual) pan that briefly encompasses Mikkel as he tries to stop Peter the tailor from speaking at the funeral.”
“If we naturalize Ordet, if we forget what is so strange about the film, we’ll lose the ability to be awed by the film and its qualities of otherwordliness and ritual. Yet neither does Dreyer want us to regard the Borgens as remote, enigmatic, stylized beings or to see their lives as opaque and inaccessible. The triumph of Ordet is to bring us a moving, detailed image of a life that is rich, ordinary, practical, and physical—an image that makes us ache for such close comprehensiveness—and at the same time to purify this image so that it comes to us as new and absolute, so that we feel the necessity, justice, and marvelousness of the moment (stretched to eternity) when the dead Inger comes back to life.”
@Matt
Not sure if you picked up this detail, but it’s actually reading Kierkegaard that drove Johannes “crazy.”
Yeah, it’s a scene that gets a chuckle out of me. Mikkel says that something happened to Johannes, and the new pastor, whom Mikkel is talking to, says, “Was it a girl?” And Mikkel quickly replies, “No, no, it was Soren Kierkegaard.” It’s not meant to be funny, but it comes across that way—especially since I can see how SK would drive some one mad. :)
Re: the Fujiwara quote.
I’ll definitely keep this in mind the next time I see the film (which I might do again soon), but I must say it sounds a little hokey.
I actually think the Kierkegaard thing is supposed to be something of a joke.
Anyway, I’d also recommend checking out Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Mise en Scène as Miracle in Dreyer’s ORDET, as well as one of the works JR quotes from, P. Adams Sidney’s essay on Dreyer in Modernist Montage: The Obscurity of Vision in Cinema and Literature (which can be partially accessed via Google Books).
I actually think the Kierkegaard thing is supposed to be something of a joke.
That’s not the sense I get, although you could be right. Maybe Mikkel is saying this as a bitter joke.
I’ll keep the links in mind. Thanks.
Not a joke that way but a joke between the filmmaker and the audience.
Well, I guess the Danes (and some philosophy majors) would get the joke, but I can’t see many others getting it.
Jazzaloha
Just watched this over the weekend. Yeah, I’d say it’s still among my favorite films. Here are some thoughts/comments/questions:
>I have mixed feelings about Dreyer’s use of the camera. On the one hand, I think the skill is undeniable. In terms of framing/composition and moving the camera to achieve this, the film feels perfect. On the other hand, there’s a part of me that finds that a bit boring and constricting. I think part of my feeling stems from the fact that Dreyer doesn’t seem to like to use edits (except transitions between scenes). I also noticed that in this film he often swiveled the camera from left to right or vice-versa—creating a kind of pendulum kind of effect. Does anyone feel like this indicated supported or enhanced the larger meaning of the film? (Maybe the wavering of faith?)
>This is a very Christian film and I wonder how non-Christians feel about it. I am very sympathetic to the notions of Christianity in the film, so in some ways, knowing if the film is a good on an artistic level is a little difficult for me.
>What do people make of the meaning and significance of the title—which I understand can be translated as “the word?” There are several times the film references this: 1) I think Johannes says to Mikkel that he only need say the word and his wife need not die; 2) I think there is a reference to Christ being the Word of God; 3) there’s another moment which I can’t recall right now.
>For me, the film seems to be about faith—specifically a indictment of a shallow faith by many Christians. It’s very Kierkegaardian and I wonder how much the playwright was influenced by Kierkegaard.
I have to run, but I’ll try to post more thoughts later.