Available to stream from 10 to 12 August 2024 at https://stummfilmtage.culturebase.org
Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. His period drama LA PASSION DE JEANNE D’ARC (1928) is often considered to be one of the »best films of all time«. In contrast to his dark, spiritual melodramas, the Danish maestro reveals his humorous side with this satirical family drama. The story of a tyrannical father who is raised to be a model husband by his former nanny still strikes a very modern note when viewed from a feminist, egalitarian perspective.
Though MASTER OF THE HOUSE cannot be considered a great film, it represents one of the most harmonious and effective blending of elements of any of Dreyer’s pictures. Fundamentally the film is little more than an extend, ironic joke about a tyrannical husband whose gentle and loving wife is finally driven to stand up for herself and with the help of his childhood nurse tames him.
Appropriately Dreyer treated this as gentle humor. He avoided either farce, which would have destroyed all of its meaning, or strong, serious drama, which would have reduced it to bathos. Dreyer strikes an almost perfect balance between deep, genuine feelings and the humor of real people either acting in foolish ways or doing, humorously, the things we would all like to do but don’t care.
MASTER OF THE HOUSE was a forerunner of the slice-of-life films that characterized French filmmaking in the 1930s (e.g., those of Marcel Pagnol). These vignettes show Dreyer as a director with a sharp eye for human foibles and a close observer of the ways of people. He builds a whole row of everyday small details up into a memorable scene so real and representative that each member of the audience feels as tough a part of his life is on screen.
Dreyer’s original idea was to film the picture in a real two-room apartment. The technical requirements of filming a picture were such that he gave up his idea, but he did insist that a complete apartment be built in the studio, with four walls, running water, and electric lights. Dreyer felt that this degree of reality was necessary. For the photographer, George Schnéevoigt, trying to maneuver a camera around in this cramped quarters was a nightmare.
Jean Drum & Dale D. Drum: My Only Great Passion. The Life and Films of Carl Th. Dreyer. Lanham, MD 2000
