The ’20s were, for all intents and purposes, the birth of the feature-length horror film. While there had been some dabbling in the genre prior, (The Student of Prague, The Avenging Conscience, The Queen of Spades) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) changed everything. In its wake came Nosferatu, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Unknown, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Phantom of the Opera, among others, irreversibly changing the course of genre history. But of this early wave of horror, two stand movies in particular stand out: the first two Swedish horror films.
Released back to back in 1921, The Phantom Carriage was one of the most audacious films of its day. Based on Selma Lagerlöf’s classic novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness!, The Phantom Carriage is a supernatural morality play about David Holm (played by director Victor Sjöström), a lonely, miserable drunk spending New Year’s Eve...
Released back to back in 1921, The Phantom Carriage was one of the most audacious films of its day. Based on Selma Lagerlöf’s classic novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness!, The Phantom Carriage is a supernatural morality play about David Holm (played by director Victor Sjöström), a lonely, miserable drunk spending New Year’s Eve...
- 2/2/2018
- by Perry Ruhland
- DailyDead
Master of the House
Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer and Svend Rindom
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Denmark, 1925
It’s telling that the Criterion Collection touts Master of the House as a comedy. So regularly austere are the more popularly known works of Danish great Carl Theodor Dreyer, that perhaps in comparison, yes, this is at times funny. As a standard comedy, it’s admittedly weak; as a drama, however, it’s largely effective. Historian Casper Tybjerg, in an interview included on the new Criterion Blu-ray/DVD, makes a (only slightly convincing) case for the film as “basically” a comedy, noting that it was even made at a studio identified with comedic films. But more accurate is David Bordwell’s description of the film, which he mentions in a visual essay also included. In its employment of “silent film conventions of domestic drama,” it forms something more akin to a chamber play,...
Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer and Svend Rindom
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Denmark, 1925
It’s telling that the Criterion Collection touts Master of the House as a comedy. So regularly austere are the more popularly known works of Danish great Carl Theodor Dreyer, that perhaps in comparison, yes, this is at times funny. As a standard comedy, it’s admittedly weak; as a drama, however, it’s largely effective. Historian Casper Tybjerg, in an interview included on the new Criterion Blu-ray/DVD, makes a (only slightly convincing) case for the film as “basically” a comedy, noting that it was even made at a studio identified with comedic films. But more accurate is David Bordwell’s description of the film, which he mentions in a visual essay also included. In its employment of “silent film conventions of domestic drama,” it forms something more akin to a chamber play,...
- 5/9/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
While he’ll always be best known for his 1928 silent masterpiece, The Passion of Joan Arc (or for his atmospheric 1932 horror film, Vampyr), Danish auteur Carl Theodor Dreyer had a rich and varied filmography that ranged from 1919-1964. Criterion has remastered a 1925 comedy from the director, Master of the House, the first of his films to be adapted from a play (Tyrant’s Fall by Sven Rindom) rather than a novel. A prescient treatise on domestic issues, the film was enormously popular upon release, but it would be the last comedic venture for Dreyer (the only other being 1920’s The Parson’s Widow). Known to enthusiasts of Dreyer, it’s a title that’s been overshadowed by the director’s notoriously somber works, therefore making it ripe for rediscovery.
A harried yet unquestionably doting wife, Ida Frandsen (Astrid Holm) waits hand and foot on her three children as she goes...
A harried yet unquestionably doting wife, Ida Frandsen (Astrid Holm) waits hand and foot on her three children as she goes...
- 4/22/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 22, 2014
Price: Blu-ray/DVD Release $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Johannes Meyer and Astrid Holm star in Carl Dreyer's 1925 silent drama Master of the House.
Before he got up close and personal with 1928’s Joan of Arc, the Danish cinema genius Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vampyr) fashioned the 1925 silent drama Master of the House, a finely detailed, ahead-of-its-time examination of domestic life.
In this heartfelt story of a housewife (Astrid Holm) who, with the help of a wily nanny (Mathilde Nielsen), turns the tables on her tyrannical husband (Johannes Meyer), Dreyer finds lightness and humor; it’s a deft comedy of revenge that was an enormous box-office success and is considered an early example of feminism on-screen.
Constructed with the director’s customary meticulousness and stirring sense of justice, Master of the House is a jewel of silent cinema.
Criterion’s Blu-ray/DVD combo edition of the film contains...
Price: Blu-ray/DVD Release $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Johannes Meyer and Astrid Holm star in Carl Dreyer's 1925 silent drama Master of the House.
Before he got up close and personal with 1928’s Joan of Arc, the Danish cinema genius Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vampyr) fashioned the 1925 silent drama Master of the House, a finely detailed, ahead-of-its-time examination of domestic life.
In this heartfelt story of a housewife (Astrid Holm) who, with the help of a wily nanny (Mathilde Nielsen), turns the tables on her tyrannical husband (Johannes Meyer), Dreyer finds lightness and humor; it’s a deft comedy of revenge that was an enormous box-office success and is considered an early example of feminism on-screen.
Constructed with the director’s customary meticulousness and stirring sense of justice, Master of the House is a jewel of silent cinema.
Criterion’s Blu-ray/DVD combo edition of the film contains...
- 1/29/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
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