Carl Dreyer's
development of “the face” as an hermeneutical device in
“La Passion de
Jeanne d'Arc”
by
Jennifer Leigh
Rice
Copyright2008
(use by
permission only)
Carl Dreyer's development of “the face”
as an hermeneutical device in “La Passion de Jeanne d' Arc
“Nothing in the world can be compared to
the human face. It is a land one can never tire of
exploring.” - Carl Theodor Dreyer
Carl Dreyer thought of art as
something that ought to “shock the soul”.
He considered the medium of film a transporter of souls and his use of
the close-up became his signatory vehicle for the journey. In this thesis the history of that
development is amplified in a look at the process of making of the 1928 film
“La Passion de Jeanne d' Arc”, Dreyer's transcendental “tour de force”.
Personal history is applied as it's ramification are felt in the development of
Dreyer as a film maker during this period.
As a second dynamic, his
application of abstraction as a tool of communication is used to better understand his development as
an artist. Dreyer's view of “the face” as an hermeneutic device is particularly scrutinized.
Bela Balazs' theory of microphysiognomy underscores a final
piece of the analysis.
Dreyer's use of “the face”
is looked at from a phenomenological perspective using Balazs perspective on
the mechanics of cinematic “seeing”.
I.
Personal Dynamics
I have always been attracted to people's suffering
...women's suffering”
- Carl Dreyer
Dreyer's childhood is somewhat
Dickensonian in it's bleak outlook.
On a cold wintry day in Copenhagen on February 3, 1889, Karl Nielsen was
born to an unmarried Swedish housemaid named Josefine Bernhardine Nilsson. Days
before the babies birth, master of the house and horse breeder Jens Christian
Torp found young Josefine placement in another household. Critics have
conjectured this mysterious placement an indication as to the actual paternal
responsibility for Josefines son. Karl was then passed through at least
two foster homes before landing in the home of a typographer named Carl Theodor
Dreyer and his emotionally distant wife, Inger Marie. Now a toddler of two years, he was given the name Carl
Theodor Dreyer. Before the
adoption could be finalized, however, Josefine attempted to abort another
pregnancy by taking phosphorus.
The attempt was fatal.
It is uncertain when Carl learned
about the conditions of his mother’s life and subsequent overdose. Life with his adoptive family was cold
and harsh from the beginning. According to the Oxford Film Dictionary his
adoptive family subjected him to a miserable and loveless childhood (1). A childhood friend said Dreyer told him
about his stepmother and father continually blaming him for the money they were
supposed to receive upon his adoption.
Because of his mothers untimely death they were left with the toddler
and without the compensation they had been promised.
Carl Theodor Dreyer left home early
in 1906, academically gifted. He found himself naturally adept at journalism.
His articles on aviation led to an association with Nordisk
Film Company, as a hot-air balloon
technical adviser. Eventually through intensified relations with the Danish
Motion Picture industry Carl began titling and writing film scripts. He signed
an exclusive contract with Nordisk in 1913. This led to full time employment where he took on film
editing. Wilhelm Staehr, a Nordisk
technical director mentored Dreyer’s interest in directing. In 1918 for his
first film he took on a script called “The President” which story involved a
respected judge whose moral choice to
acknowledge his illegitimate child would rock his steady life and
career.
History of the close-up in Dreyer's world
In the annals of film making the
technique of the close-up made a steady rise during the
silent era of film. It's origins were utilitarian based on
the human need for intimacy.
Beginning in the late 19th and early 20th century,
Kammerspiele was the immediate stylistic precedent for Dreyer. In
“Transcendental Style in Film”, Paul Schrader says that the intimate nature of Kammerspiele was the
antithesis of the elaborate showcase staging which had been most popular in the
late 1800's. (2) In 1906 Max
Reinhard founded Die Kammerspiele and August Strindberg opened his “Intimate
Theatre the next year. In these
intimate settings, Schrader quotes critic Lotte H. Eisner as saying an elite of less than 300 could “feel
all the significance of a smile, a hesitation, or an eloquent silence.” The viewer, with this new form, was
able to experience the depths of the characters psychologies. Kammerspiele were known for lack of
frivolity much as
Dreyer would come to be known for
gritty emotional realism. The
Kammerspielfilm (the chamber play transferred to the screen) Eisner writes, is
the psychological film par excellence. (3)
Dreyer from the beginning of his
film career was influenced by Kammerspiele and was proud of his affiliation
with intimate theatre. For a man
whose life had begun with so little in the way of personally satisfying
relationships choosing to undertake an emotionally literate path with his art
form was a particularly daunting and cathartic choice. Dreyer once described “Mikael” as a
true Kammerspielfilm and later said he was flattered that Mikael had been
called the first Kammerspielfilm. (4)
Dreyer uses Kammerspiele techniques
in relating to his actors as well, teasing expression out of them, never
forcing emotion. On directing
actors Dreyer says “One cannot push feelings out. They have to arise from themselves
and it is the director's and actors work in unison to bring them to that
point”. In making “La
Passion de Jeanne d'Arc”, Dreyer
uses physical stimulus to create and expand a particular emotion. For instance, Falconetti was asked to
kneel in front of the camera with bare knees on stones until the pain was so
severe that she cried. Dreyer exposes this pain in close-up over and over
creating an almost Pavlovian response in intimate connection between the
audience and Falconetti's character, Jeanne, the saint.
Before 1928 with the making of “La
Passion de Jeanne d' Arc close-ups had been something used rarely until D. W.
Griffiths filming of “Birth of a Nation” where he applied close-up extensively
combined with crosscutting. When
Dreyer saw Griffith's “Birth of a Nation” he was deeply affected. He summed up
the attributes of American
film by saying, “ The best of the
American films bring three
essential boons: Close-up
photography, individual types and realism.”(6) Later in a 1920 article he wrote
for Dagbladet (Copenhagen Daily Blade) his personal film philosophy about the
close-up is again tied to Griffiths direction of the gendarme in “Birth of a
Nation” giving it the “stamp of realism”.
In Double Reflection Dreyer spoke
of the courage of “the Americans” in using close-ups. He differentiated the usage of close-up as a creator of
disturbance, the old fear, and the new language the close-up was developing as
a producer of variety. He noted how this development changed the actor’s large
gesticulations in long shot to the betrayal of the smallest twitch forcing
natural and honest acting. By
directing Falconetti from the inside out he was able to capture these subtle
nuances in her performance which some critics such as the late Pauline Kael, have
called the greatest film performance ever ( 7).
However, Dreyer began to formulate
a polemic regarding the “soul” of a film.
He said that with all the technical ability of the Hollywood film there
was one thing missing and that was the “soul”. Dreyer positioned film in two opposing fields; one in the
realm of the technically adept and one being the realm of art. Dreyer’s
implication was that Hollywood films were of the former. It was indeed a deep chasm to dig. He referred to the Danish actor Victor
Sjostrom (also Terje Vigen and Bjerg Ejvind). Sjostrom was for Dreyer the first in Scandinavia to realize
one cannot “manufacture” films if they are to have some cultural value.
Sjostrom led film into Art's
Promised Land for Dreyer. At the
time he formulated this differentiation between art film and the non-art film
Dreyer had one film under his belt.
But his path as an artist was already grounded in a basic understanding
of the essence of
film making, capturing the human
heart.
Dreyer made six more films before
he made “La Passion de Jeanne d' Arc”.
His use of the close-up had become confident and well articulated by
1928. With Jeanne d' Arc he
used the idea of intimacy between characters and extrapolated every moment with
artistic accuracy. It was a
groundbreaking epiphany in the history of the film. Narrative filming became an
expressionistic/transcendental experiment in cultivation of “the face”.
II . “The Face”
as Tool of Abstraction
In an October 23, 1950,“New
Perspectives on the Arts and Sciences” radio interview Dreyer said “ I try to
force the realities into a form of simplification and abbreviation in order to
reach what I will call psychological realism.” In Jeanne d' Arc, Dreyer developed the use of the face
empirically. he went back to the
15th century transcripts of the trial itself. He was struck by the innate form it
took. The trial consisted only of
dialog back and forth between Jeanne and the English clergy that had been hired
to “examine” Jeanne’s case. As he read the transcripts the faces of Jeanne and
her oppressors passed back and forth visually in such a manner that he “saw”
the movie in close-up in his head. And that is exactly how he filmed it, back
and forth in close-up. Gaining
access to Jeanne d' Arc existentially through abstracted technique became an
integral part of Dreyer's filming in a utilitarian need to capture the essence
of the struggle between Jeanne and the English clergy that took place during
the trial. In the final footage
this is precisely what comes through; a mandate of form dictated by
content. Conversely, Dreyer has
been accused of maintaining form and style at the expense of content.
However this may be a
misunderstanding of his methods, seamless that they are.
Throughout his career Dreyer is
concerned with viscerally evoking the torment of the soul. (8) Carl's knowledge of his mother
Josefine's tragic life comes into play here. Richard Alleva in “Corruption and Transcendence: the films
of Carl Dreyer”, asks the question “Did Carl Dreyer become such an acute
psychologist of individualism because he had trouble becoming an “I”? Alleva begs the question, does the
subconscious of the artist have dominion over his work? Dreyer never answered
these questions when asked by critics if his past had informed his present
work. However, is it not far
fetched to assume that a boy who grew up in a cold loveless environment where
even a basic level of identity was met with the issues of displacement and guilt
would grow up with subconscious fodder for his creativity? Whatever the true nature may be, Carl
Theodor Dreyer continued throughout his career to address women and suffering
as a theme through the unifying element of the martyr.
Hermeneutics
of the Close-up
There is a process known as the “hermeneutical
circle” which basically means that an investigation of particulars yields
results which are added to what is already known until a satisfactory conclusion is reached by
the interpreter. In 1960,
Hans-Georg Gadamer developed what he called the hermeneutic experience
described in “Truth or Method” where he describes how works of art are an
“emergence of truth” in that they give enlightening structure to otherwise
confusing and chaotic human experiences. (9) Thus
hermeneutics is a way to describe
the synthesis between Dreyer, his work and his history.
In “The films of Carl Theodor
Dreyer”, David Bordwell says “Dreyer turns the face into a theatre. An
acrobatic range of bodily behaviour (such as we find in Keaton or Eisenstein)
is replaced by a subtly nuanced range of facial behaviour.” (10) In “Mikael” (1924), Dreyer pursued the
use of the face as an expressionistic tool. In Jeanne d' Arc the technique of “the face” is pushed much
further. Space takes on a new layer of isolation dislocating from classic
construction of the 180 degree axis.
Depth of space is unresolved, dissociative flatness obtained with pure
white backgrounds and geometrically shaped architecture. The result is that Falconetti's face is
orphaned in a sea of the unnameable. Facial expression, hence “the face” as an
hermeneutic device, is amplified.
Each twitch, flinch and moment of fear is gigantic both spatially and in
psychological ramification.
Martyrdom is underscored successfully as Dreyer molds Falconetti's bare
face into an exploration of Jeannes sainthood. He uses over 1500 cuts,
¾ of them are of Jeanne and
only 15 of the total are matched cuts.
Discontinuous space and action cuts matched with still shots are
additional devices that help to maintain a feeling of the spiritual
battleground Jeanne kneels on. As
David Bordwell points out, the only consistency becomes the white space itself.
(p.78).
Promotion of the face becomes a
sub-motif in it's false eye line matches.
Relationship between Jeanne and the English captors is successfully
fractured and painful to watch. In
fact, all that remains possible is the viewers relationship with Jeanne because
every word, every blink, every gesture points to her condition. Thrust as she is into the world of the
“seer”, Jeanne becomes a visual pun as a “seer” in the content of the film's
spiritual form
and a conduit for our “seeing” on a spiritual plane. In fact, in the course of the unmatched
edits, since it is visually impossible to relate reliably the eye line of one
character to another, for a fleeting moment the viewer becomes the “viewed”,
the “seen” by the on screen presence of Jeanne. The viewer becomes the
viewed. It is in this
achievement that the mystery of “La Passion de Jeanne d' Arc” is found. Existential moments of transcendental
material collide to create gestalt between the film and the audience.
Since Dreyer's
main concern is revealing the soul, he resolves the problem of union between
concrete and symbolic. In Vladimir Petric's article “Dreyer's concept of
Abstraction” he says Dreyer elucidates his own method for this union. “I can see only one way:
abstraction. In order not to be
misunderstood, I must define abstraction as something that demands of the
artist to abstract himself from reality in order to strengthen the spiritual
content of his work.” (5) (As an
orphan Dreyer in an unhappy home would have had ample opportunity to learn
detachment.) Spacial negation and
distillation of “essential information”, all basic of abstraction make possible
bringing the spiritual to the forefront.
Abstraction
as a Tool of Communication
"The artist alone sees
spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees
them."- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Dreyer insists objective reality
must be replaced with the film makers own subjective interpretation. “The filmmaker must get outside of the
fence with which naturalism has
surrounded this medium. To achieve this the director must use
his mind to transfer what his eyes can see into a “vision”. (6) This comment
seems born of the Dreyer's times.
The history of film making to that point had been mainly in real
time. He sees making the leap into
the film makers own frame of reference of utmost importance if the film is to
cross over into art. He says “the
director must be free to transform reality but without
losing grip on the world of
reality; the abstraction must be made with tact and discretion. Around the time Dreyer is
breaking the components of the historical figure of a saint down into a separate
reality, the process of abstraction is developing stream in other mediums, most
directly painting and photography.
Dreyer's mise-en-scene is often likened to this worldwide abstraction
Anschauung, or new frame of reference.
In 1900, many works by Impressionists
and Post-Impressionists were being shown at the World Fair. Symbolists like Edvard Munch flourished
depicting mood and state of mind. Matisse was developing Fauvism which built
form through pattern. In 1915 Kazimir Malevich introduced Suprematism with
“Black Square” which consists of a single black square on a white canvas. According to Malevich the black square
was an expression of the cosmic, of pure feeling and the white was the void
beyond. Pablo Picasso
painted “Three Musicians” in 1921, an exercise in synthetic cubism which
comprised of solid geometry forming a collage.
Upon several viewings of “La
Passion de Jeanne d' Arc” it is easy to see the influences of many different
areas of the abstract movement, especially the Suprematists, in the white
background and black geometric
architecture with which Dreyer surrounds Jeanne. The aim of the Suprematists, according to it's founder,
Malevich, was to achieve the mystical through pure form which embodied pure
feeling. Like the symbolists, Jeanne evokes
mood and her state of mind is
always a major element of the theme of “La Passion”. The lack of spacial reality being pure cubist, Jeanne's
world remains detached and intangible, components of Dreyers definition of
abstraction. All that is left as
humanly recognizable is the gaze of the saint, now stark and penetrating in
it's heightened visual weight.
Abstraction as a tool of communication serves to shock the soul, in the
words of Kaj Munk who wrote the original version of Ordet. Falconetti's face becomes an
hermeneutic key to a Saint's soul.
III. Microphysiognomy: Phenomenological use of “the face” in Jeanne d'arc
In 1953 Bela Balazs wrote “The
Theory of the Film”. In it he
describes the phenomenology of
“the face” as hermeneutic device.
He defines this process of reading the face in a system he terms
“microphysiognomy”. Physiognomy
itself has existed for hundreds of years going back to ancient
Egypt. Early Egyptians believed one's inner self developed exterior
correlations manifesting in differences in facial construction. Homer and
Hippocrates mention physiognomy in their philosophy. Aristotle examined
character derived from features and limbs. In the 1920's, immediately preceding the making of “La
Passion”, a United States Supreme
Court Judge, Dr. Edward Vincent Jones, began to study physiognomy traits
because people coming into his courtrooms in the thousands seemed to have
similarities.
Balazs, film theorist, composer
and scholar applies physiognomy to
the arts and forms his own theory of “the face”. In film, he says, what we see on screen is different than,
say, the art form of painting whose images have never been seen before. (11) In film
making there was a set, a location,
actors all in the process of production. The activity was filmed to form the image which is an image
of a reality that did exist before.
The camera carries the spectator into the film. We see through the consciousness of the
characters whose vision we are identifying with. We are reading this new reality into what becomes an
aesthetic microcosm. He uses
the example of European and Greek philosophers definition of artistic space as
having an external and internal distance between spectator and work of art.
Belazs extends this logic to the art form of film. Every work of art by force
of its self-contained composition is a microcosm with laws of it's own. Hollywood invented an art which
disregards the principle of self-contained composition and not only does away
with the distance between the spectator and the work of art but deliberately
creates the illusion in the spectator that he is in the middle of the action”
(Belazs, p.49-50) This is the
foundation for Belazs' theory of microphysiognomy.
What Griffith pioneered and
Dreyer exercised more extensively
was to then take the viewer from the “external world to the internal soul-life”
with revolutionary use of the technique of the close-up. Belazs says a good film with its
close-ups reveals the most hidden parts in our polyphonous life and teaches us
to see the intricate visual details of life as one reads an orchestral score.
Belazs uses polyphony to mean the
appearance on the same face of contradictory expressions. Synthesis occurs, he says, between
passions and thoughts. This cannot
always be seen by the naked eye.
The camera reveals a new world of facial expression penetrating to a new
dimension of the soul (Belazs,p.65).
This is where microphysiognomy takes hold. Microphysiognomy is the
phenomenon of seeing into the
soul through the cinematic
lens. Dreyer utilizes Falconetti's
bare make-up less face as a portal into Jeanne. Dreyer uses his intrinsic understanding of this principle to
lead us through hundreds of years of homeostatic liturgical layers of sainthood
to the corporeal larceny of that soul committed by the English clergy at that
1421 trial. Woman as victim is vindicated by the ultimate glory, the glory of
being seen and understood. Albeit hundreds of years later. (This is not something Dreyer could
give Josefine directly but he has given it to her symbolically as Jeanne.)
In conclusion Dreyer brings much to
film making despite and because of
personal history that informs his work; he harnessed his ability as a director
specific in it's humanistic aim to embolden the spirit through adversity.
Belazs specifies (p.74) a scene in
Jeanne d'Arc of Jeannes examination where 50 men sit in the same place, several
hundred feet of film showing nothing but big close-ups of heads, of faces...
fierce passions, thoughts, emotions, convictions do battle but their struggle
is not in space... this series of duels between looks and frowns, duels in
which eyes clash instead of sword... are an attempt to present a drama of the
spirit.
Dreyer's transcendental “tour de
force” of “La Passion de Jeanne d'
Arc” is but a jewel in a vibrant, revolutionary artistic career defined by a
search for truth. He has succeeded
in his aim to transport the soul of his audiences as well as pioneer new
technique in transcendental film theory for the journey of future film
directors. Carl Theodor Dreyer leaves a most breathtakingly powerful and
dauntingly human body of work. He
has proved to be an inspiration to film makers world wide leaving an
unforgettable legacy of courage in his wake.
1. Works
Cited
2. Oxford
Film Dictionary, Director's 4th Edition, Ib Monty, Oxford Press,
p.278-80.
3. Schrader, Paul, Transcendental Style in
Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, Da
Capo Press, 1972.
4. Eisner,Lotte H. , The Haunted Screen,
Univ. of California Press, 1969, pp.177-221.
5. Eisner,Lotte
H., Recontre avec Carl Dreyer, Cahiers du Cinema , 9 July 1955 p.5.
6. Petric,
Vladimir ,Dreyer's Concept of Abstraction, Sight and Sound, Spring 1975.
7. Dreyer
in Double Reflection, edited by Donald Skoller, E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. New
York, N.Y. 1973, p23.
8. Curnette,
Richard, The Film Journal, Divine Comedienne: Renee Maria Falconetti and
La Passion de
Jeanne d' Arc, www.filmjournal.com, 2002.
9. Scalia,
Bill, Literature Film Quarterly:
Contrasting Visions of a Saint: Carl Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc and
Luc Besson's The Messenger, www.findarticles.com.
10.
Gadamer, Hans Georg, Truth and Method, as cited
in Jensen, 184, www.publiciastate.edu
.
11.
Bordwell, David, The Films of Carl- Theodor
Dreyer, Univ. of California Press, 1981.
12.
Belazs, Bela, Theory of the Film: Character and
Growth of the New Art, Dover Publications, Inc, New York, 1952.
