Dreyer, Carl Theodor [key], 1889–1968, Danish motion picture director. He began making films in Denmark in 1919. His Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), widely regarded as a classic of silent filmmaking, made extensive use of close-ups and stark lighting to increase the film's dramatic effect. He experimented with innovative techniques in Vampyr (1931), his first movie with sound, which explored the power of evil and the horror of human suffering. His later works, usually adaptations of plays that employed a slow pace to build great cumulative power, include Day of Wrath (1943), Ordet (1955), and Gertrud (1964).
See studies by T. Milne (1971) and D. Bordwell (1973).
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