DVD of the Week: “Gertrud”

BAM is in the midst of a retrospective of the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, the Danish master whose career as a director ran from 1919 to 1964. His last film, “Gertrud,” may well be his greatest; it will play there Thursday, March 26th (I’ve got a capsule review of it in the magazine this week), and is also available on DVD in a superb boxed set from Criterion. Because of Dreyer’s amazingly controlled images and restrained performances, he’s often mistaken for a “transcendental” director (famously, in a book by Paul Schrader). In fact, the red thread running through his career is rage at repressive morality and the unjust authority that enforces it. In “Gertrud,” the title character pays heavily for her erotic freedom—and her other-worldly grace is scant compensation. I talk about it in this clip.