THE PARSON'S WIDOW (1920) B/W "silent" 80m dir: Carl Theodor Dreyer

w/Hildur Carlberg, Einar Rod, Greta Almroth, Olav Aukrust, Kurt Welin, Mathilde Nielsen, Emil Helsengreen, Lorentz Thyholt

From Cinema: A Critical Dictionary: The Major Film-makers, edited by Richard Roud, where Tom Milne writes about THE PARSON'S WIDOW in "Carl Theodor Dreyer: The Early Works": "For Prastankan (The Parson's Widow, 1920), ... perhaps abandoning his ambitions for the Danish cinema, he went to Norway and came down to earth with a delightfully tender and bawdy folk tale about a young parson who preaches a rousing hellfire sermon to win his first living in a country village, only to find that, according to local custom, he has also inherited the previous incumbent's widow, an aged lady who has already buried three parson husbands. Trapped by this rustic 'Catch 22' --- if he marries the old lady he can't marry his pretty fiancée; if he doesn't marry the old lady, he can't afford to marry the fiancée --- he has his fiancée masquerade as his sister and introduces her into the parsonage as a maid. There, frustrated by the constant vigilance of old Dame Margaret, who has no illusions as to the desirability of her own person but is determined that no hanky-panky shall go on under her roof, the young lovers set about doing away with her in a plan which goes sadly awry.

"Much of the film is irresistibly funny in a manner which recalls Buster Keaton's use of sight gags carefully built up not for their own sake but to express character. The opening sequences, for instance, sketch in the general air of drowsy boredom as the hero waits for his two rivals to deliver their test sermons before he can make his own play for the job: Sofren (the young parson) busily inks over his shirt-sleeve so that the hole in his jacket will not shame him; an indignant beadle circulates with a long pole to prod members of the congregation dozing off after the first candidate's effort; the villagers remain awake long enough to dissolve in hysterical laughter when the second candidate appears with a quill (the one Sofren inked his sleeve with, then found malicious use for) nodding absurdly above his head. The capping joke comes when Sofren, so anxious to make a good impression but reduced to manic boredom, is discovered practising standing on his head when the beadle (himself asleep after the second candidate's sermon) finally comes to summon him. This element of childish innocence in Sofren's character, so important if the later scenes in which he tries to deceive and then to murder Dame Margaret are not to misfire, is itself beautifully capped when he eventually arrives at the parsonage, tries out the armchair for size and soon begins trying to assert himself as master of the house. Dame Margaret, with quiet amusement, simply has her enormous gardener pick him up by the scruff of the neck and shake him like a naughty kitten.

"For the first time in Dreyer's work, his characters are more than one-dimensional. When Dame Margaret first appears, the sight of the gaunt, emaciated old harridan puts Sofren's rivals to flight, leaving him to steel himself to claim his prize. Through the bulk of the film, as she persistently frustrates the lovers' attempts to steal a kiss or jump into bed together, she remains the tiresome impediment Sofren sees her as. But a hint of tender mockery, almost of protectiveness, as she goes about her duties as chaperone, gradually transforms Dame Margaret into a human being, preparing the way for the magnificent sequence in which she and Sofren at last realize how much they have misunderstood each other in this headlong clash between the selfishness of youth and the selfishness of old age. She is reluctant to give up the memories which are all that remain of her life; he is too impatient to begin creating his own memories to wait for her. Moved by the love of the young couple into recalling her own happiness with her first husband, Dame Margaret sits peacefully in the churchyard beside her first husband's grave, taking leave of the life she now knows is behind her. Slowly, with resignation but also an infinite regret, she takes a last walk round her farm, pausing for a moment in the sun, gently caressing a horse; she looks for the last time on the familiar surroundings of her room, raising a withered wedding-garland to her lips and laying it on the open Bible as she begins to read; and at last she lies down on the bed to die. Seventy-seven-year-old Hildur Carlberg is superb in this sequence, but the warmth, the rich textures, the magic of this transference of life's continuity --- a last shot of the young couple shows the fiancée, now married and dressed as the parson's wife, looking exactly like Dame Margaret come to life again --- are entirely Dreyer's.

"The importance of The Parson's Widow in Dreyer's development, quite apart from the fact that it was his first good film, is that it initiates his investigation of the human soul not as an abstraction but as a thing of substance created by and faithfully reflecting its material surroundings (the rustic calm of the Norwegian landscapes, the placid oak-and-whitewash interiors of the museum village where the film was shot). It also began his exploration of the motive power of sex in human affairs (later absolutely central to Day of Wrath, and inescapable in both Ordet and Gertrud), and in acknowledging the paramount importance of love, it gave to woman the dominant role she was never again to relinquish in his work, whether as the natural source of bliss who is to be adored, or as the temptress sinning against the man-made laws of puritanism who is made to suffer. Spreading both backwards and forwards from the key point of Vampyr, there is a vampiric quality in Dreyer's women (certainly in Day of Wrath, even in Ordet, and most especially in Gertrud). Here in The Parson's Widow, there are several joking references to witchcraft (Sofren is convinced that Dame Margaret is trying to cast a spell over him), not to be taken seriously but acting as signposts to the genuinely supernatural quality of that mysterious benevolence willed by Dame Margaret when she simply ceases to exist in order to leave the young couple free to begin making their life together."