MICHAEL (1924) B/W "silent" 93m dir: Carl Theodor Dreyer

w/Benjamin Christensen, Walter Slezak, Nora Gregor, Robert Garrison, Grete Mosheim, Didier Aslan, Karl Freund, Mady Christians, Alexander Murski

From Cinema: A Critical Dictionary: The Major Film-makers, edited by Richard Roud, where Tom Milne writes about MICHAEL in "Carl Theodor Dreyer: The Early Works": "Adapted from a 'decadent' novel by Herman Bang about an elderly painter, Zoret (extremely well played by the Danish director Benjamin Christensen), who adores the young pupil he adopted first as his model and then as his son, Mikael is at first sight an odd entry in the Dreyer canon. With its fantastically elaborate fin de siècle sets (vaulted ceilings, chinoiseries, grotesque statuary); with more than a whiff of homosexuality about Zoret's love for his pupil; with slinky, black-gowned Princess Zamikoff (Nora Gregor) bringing a touch of the exotic femme fatale to her romance with the innocent boy; and with such stalwarts as [producer] Erich Pommer, [co-writer (with Dreyer)] Thea von Harbou and [cinematographer] Karl Freund among the credits, this film --- not unnaturally since it was made in Germany --- is suffused with the heady atmosphere of Expressionism. Yet it remains unmistakably a Dreyer film, strictly subordinating both its melodramatics and its mondanités to a quiet, beautifully modulated study in loneliness. The opulent mansion becomes a dank, airless hothouse in which the old man watches helplessly as Mikael drifts away from his affection into an affair with the mysteriously entrancing Princess. Driven to despair by the boy's innocent cruelty, he shuts himself away from society, gives up his will to live and dies after leaving everything he owns to Mikael. The echoes of Dame Margaret [in THE PARSON'S WIDOW] are obvious; but there are also presentiments of Gertrud's [in GERTRUD] epitaph on her life ('I have known love') when the dying Zoret, experiencing a mysterious reconciliation, murmurs, 'Now may I die content, for I have seen great love.' For Zoret, as for Dame Margaret, love is inseparable from its memories; it can even sacrifice itself to ensure its continuance; and it is this persistence of love, beyond physical proximity, beyond time, beyond even the grave, which is to become the emblem of the Dreyer heroine --- saint, witch, housewife, vampire and opera singer alike.

"It is in this film that one first becomes fully aware of Dreyer's preoccupation with textures, with the way the material world impinges on the human beings who live apparently detached from it, with the quality of light, with the tangibility of a gesture or a glance and with the equal tangibility of objects. There is a remarkable scene in which two unhappy lovers (she is already married) meet at a party and stare at each other in gloomy silence across the room until a precious objet d'art, a small statuette of a woman's torso, is passed round for inspection; the camera focuses on the couple as the man turns the torso over in his hands, and it is suddenly charged with all their unspoken, hopeless frustration. Above all, Mikael is a tremendous advance technically. Dreyer's conception of the first meeting between Mikael and the Princess, for instance, is not merely sophisticated but extremely subtle. In an atmosphere of hostility --- Zoret wants to get back to 'real' painting instead of doing yet another society portrait; Mikael is suspicious of this intruder who seems to have designs on his admired master --- Zoret politely shows the Princess round his studio, with Mikael following crossly behind with a portable electric light. Grudgingly, Mikael lifts the light to illuminate the huge canvas of a naked boy. After a moment, the astonished Princess turns to him and says, 'It's you.' Embarrassed, Mikael looks away while the others turn back to the paintings, then smiles and playfully turns the light on her; again embarrassed, he hurriedly turns the lamp to the painting she and Zoret are now examining, only to reveal a study of a nude boy and girl embracing; and the Princess, a cat suddenly aware of a dish of cream, turns to gaze speculatively at Mikael."