Carl Theodor Dreyer - Två Människor aka Two people (1945)

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Synopsis

Dr. Arne Lundell, a brilliant young assistant in a mental hospital, is accused of plagiarising his thesis from a work published simultaneously by his superior, Professor Zander. The film proper begins with the return of LUndell's wife, Marianne, to their flat. Finding her husband in a state of uncomprehending despair, she does her best to console him. Then they hear on a radio news bulletin the report of Zander's death by suicide; and later (...) that the suicide is in fact murder and that Lundell may be accused since he is known to have threatened Zander. Gradually the true story is told between husband and wife after he discovers (a letter pushed under the door) that she had formerly been Zander's mistress. It transpires that Zander had threatened to wreck her marriage unless Marianne secretly passed him her husband's thesis, which she did, chapter by chapter as it was written; and had then proposed to wreck Lundell's career unless Marianne divorced her husband and came to him, whereupon she shot him. Moved by these revelations, Lundell urges Marianne to make her escape abroad while he stays to shoulder the blame; but she poisons herself, and he chooses to die with her.

Quote:

File this under Fascinating Failure. Few people have ever seen this rare Dreyer, which was made in Sweden between Day of Wrath and Ordet. Dreyer lost interest in the project after he was denied the two actors he had in mind for the leads, and subsequently disowned the film. Taking Dreyer’s love of chamber drama to an extreme, Two People literally focuses on two characters in one setting. “In this tragedy for two actors, a wife, despite her love for her husband, ruins his career, and his honour. The story is constructed around the events of a single day and takes place in the apartment/laboratory of a doctor and scientist, Arne Lundell, and his wife Marianne. (The camera leaves this setting only once, for a flashback.) It is a day of revelations as Arne, accused of a scandal involving theft of scientific material, and then of murder, incredulously follows his fate in the newspapers. Marianne’s involvement in the whole affair is unearthed slowly as the day’s sorrows progress into night’s tragedy” (Pacific Film Archive). David Bordwell claims that, though the film is a failure, it “does open a path to Ordet in its use of camera movement.”

Cinèmathéque de Ontario

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Saturday, May 29, 2010

Carl Theodor Dreyer - Två Människor aka Two people (1945)

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