Those of us who love working on set
regard one another as equals, and we talk things over
until they fall into place.
He was such a friendly man,
always...
and quiet in his statements as to what was to be done,
but intense and strong-willed within.
The way he hammered into me how he wanted the death scene!
The others fell silent, seeing how I was taken by it.
And then they rolled camera.
We did that first big close-up, back then,
which aroused great attention.
The shot where she sits and...
kills herself with a knife.
Her face fills the screen.
Dreyer stood quite still.
The cinematographer was of the same cut: a great artist.
He rolled the camera the instant he saw me...
They didn't ask: "Are you ready?" as they do nowadays,
for then of course, you're no longer ready.
You have to go back into yourself all over again.
It was a very difficult shot.
But they were both brilliant.
Dreyer stood close and simply told me what to do.
I was so lucky to make two films with him.
They say I am the only woman to have ever worked with him twice.
The movie was well received everywhere.
I attended the premiere.
I remember a party of young business men and their ladyfriends
who were rather loud, whistling, catcalling and booing.
I felt very unhappy, and left the theater.
In the foyer I met the man in charge.
He told me: "Do not be anxious, it will be a great success!"
And it was.
Dreyer had had a certain success with Master of the House.
So a production company invited him to come to France
where they had a lot of trouble choosing a subject.
Finally he decided upon The Passion of Joan of Arc.
He couldn't get an actress as he was very demanding,
very original, he wouldn't admit any commercial compromise,
and the great French actresses,
Madeleine Renaud, Marie Belle,
were frightened by the unusual character Dreyer was
and absolutely refused the magnificent part of Jeanne d'Arc.
Then three months later he was strolling down the boulevards
feeling a little desperate
when he noticed from the Théatre de Paris poster
that Falconetti was playing La Garçonne by Victor Marguerite,
a comedy in which she portrayed a feminist.
I invited myself to her home the following afternoon.
Behind her make-up I thought I saw a woman
who could have been Jeanne d'Arc.
Falconetti was seduced by the extravagant side of the project
and also by Carl Dreyer's extraordinary personality.
So she agreed, and the fact
that she would have to have her head shaved
which had scared off the other actresses, did not stop her.
They got on admirably in their work
for they were two professionals, two geniuses,
two people impassioned by reality and truth.
Dreyer filmed Jeanne d'Arc as he would have a documentary,
where everything is reality.
Falconetti was taken by her character to such an extent
that she forgot she was Falconetti.
She was Jeanne d'Arc.
As it was a silent film, with other stage actors.
Sylvain, the wicked bishop,
who had also been Falconetti's teacher at the conservatoire,
tried to introduce the way stage actors work.
For instance, since it was a silent film,
he tried to make her laugh.
It's a little game actors play.
He would utter obscenities during the most dramatic moments.
Dreyer flew into a rage.
He said: "You must speak your words!
"Words I have extracted from the trial records!
"The audience cannot hear the sound but they will read
"every word on your lips!"
She had not reckoned at all
that she would go down in history thanks to Jeanne d'Arc
and that people would call Falconetti Jeanne d'Arc.
Nowadays if you say "Falconetti" people reply "Jeanne d'Arc!"
As for me, I've never been able to escape the fact
of being the daughter of Jeanne D'Arc.
Even though my career is totally different.
My colleagues, friends, people I meet,
say: "Ah, look, the daughter of Jeanne d'Arc!" It's a nuisance.
She never made another film.
Some say it was because she found filming too exhausting.
True, with Dreyer it was exhausting,
particularly for her, playing the lead.
He kept her there to watch the rushes
long after everyone else had gone home.
But that's not what discouraged her. It was because
as Jeanne d'Arc she was a creature of Dreyer,
created by Dreyer.
On stage she was Falconetti.
She did as she pleased with her characters.
I think that's why she never wanted to make another film.
She was asked to make L'Equipage, Marie Belle did it.
She quit after that one
marvelous, prodigious experience.
Hey! Cripple!
Be quiet!
Whereafter she promised to confess.
Tell us how you entered the service of the devil?
Come along! Answer!
Oh, so you do not wish to confess after all.
- She has not had enough. - I have, I have.
I didn't know Dreyer at all.
But he'd asked me on the phone to go and see him.
At the same time I was told not to bother, because
the part had already been cast.
I knew he was doing Day of Wrath.
But young as I was,
of course I went to see him.
There I had my first surprise.
I didn't think he looked like a director at all.
A small, dapper, modest,
amiable, very courteous man.
Almost a little office clerk.
Still, it was Dreyer.
I don't recall what he asked me,
but we chatted
for a quarter of an hour or so.
One thing I do recall: suddenly
he looked at me very strangely and said:
"Miss Movin, can you cry to order?"
I was indignant,
I was extremely angry.
You don't ask such questions to an actress!
Very late that same evening, the telephone rang.
Mother answered it, and said: "It's Carl Theodor Dreyer."
I thought: "Oh goodness, I've insulted him and must apologize.
But I won't! I meant what I said. I thought he was rude!"
He just said: "Miss Movin,
"you must play the lead
"in my Day of Wrath, and I will make you famous."
"Yes, but why me?"
And Dreyer said: "I cannot explain now."
Is Master Absalon at home?
No, he has just gone to meet his son.
His son? That is me.
Are you his son?
Are you his wife?
Have I not seen your face before?
Where could that have been?
Perhaps in my thoughts?
I was in two of Dreyer's films.
Day of Wrath and Ordet.
On Day of Wrath we did a lot of preparatory work.
We used to meet regularly.
We went for long walks. We talked and talked and talked.
That's how I got to know Dreyer closely,
if one may use that term at all.
One night at 2 or 3 a.m. the telephone rang.
"Hello, Dreyer speaking.
Would you be so kind as to go to page such-and-such?"
"Of course. Of what?" "The script. Page such-and-such."
"Then I must switch on the light first, I was asleep."
"Asleep?"
So, I switched on the light.
"After all, it's 2 or 3 o'clock!"
"Oh, how time flies! But if you'd just look it up..."
"Then first I must fetch the script, Mr. Dreyer."
"You do not keep it at hand?"
"No, I do not take it to bed with me."
I fetched the script and he said:
"Look, it says such-and-such...
Would you mind if we said so-and-so instead?"
- No, not at all. - Splendid!
"In that case, good-bye, good-bye!"
"Good-bye, Mr. Dreyer."
A director is not just there to keep things together.
He must also be a great psychologist,
able to work with the actors he has chosen.
To me he was a wonderful director.
It was a huge gift
to get him as a director
just at that stage and playing the right part,
and with a perfectly marvelous artist
who knew how to guide me
onto that path, Anna's path, and mold me like a lump of clay.
Martin...
I can... I cannot.
- Pure and clear? - No, deep and mysterious.
We weren't allowed to wear make-up at all.
Every morning, and this might make you smile,
he came to my dressing room and rubbed my cheek.
"You haven't got any make-up on, have you?"
I said: "No, no, I haven't," nor did I have.
But when he had gone,
well, when you're a girl,
you cheat a little.
I put a teeny dab of powder on my nose, and he never noticed.
She is to be burnt as a witch.
She was tied to a very primitive ladder made of sticks.
Somebody suddenly said: "Lunch, Mr. Dreyer!"
"Off we go, then!"
I walked off with Mr. Thorkil Rosen.
Anna Svierkier was still tied up. I said to Rosen:
"Surely Anna Svierkier cannot be left there while we have lunch?"
"No, no, I don't think so, either."
"Listen, Mr. Dreyer, surely she need not lie there
"while we take our lunch break?"
"Yes, she does.
"Leave her to me, Mr. Rosen!"
And no more was said about it.
When we came back sweat was pouring down the poor old lady,
and I promise you, yes, you can see it in the film.
There is terror in that shot.
Let me escape the flames. Or else!
Fear not! The Lord is merciful!
The Lord will bring sight to your eyes
and avert your soul from sin.
I will deliver Anne! D'you hear?
I will get you!
Often ten years lapsed between Dreyer's features.
He was used to this ten year gap and took it very calmly,
patiently waiting for his next great task.
He would ask the producers of his shorts if they had work for him.
He met lb Koch Olsen of Dansk Kulturfilm.
Olsen thought it scandalous that Dreyer was unemployed.
So he helped him making shorts.
When is the next ferry from Nyborg?
- You won't catch it. - I have to.
- I say you won't. - I say I will. How far is it?
- Some 70 kilometers. - That's nothing.
The road is all curves.
That doesn't worry me.
When does it sail?
- In 3/4 of an hour. - Then I'll catch it.
Ib Koch Olsen had the idea that the Road Safety Council
would finance the film.
It would be based on a short story, They Caught the Ferry.
Dreyer wrote the script, but it was Olsen's idea.
They got frames built to be fastened to the motorcycle.
So close-ups of the wheels and riders
in motion could be easily shot.
Dreyer sat in the sidecar, and I sat on the pillion.
On our way from Copenhagen
we were caught in a storm.
We dried ourselves in the toilets of the great belt ferry.
Dreyer, in his cap and goggles,
thought it most amusing.
I suggested that the script indicate
how fast we were to go in the various sequences.
I told him I could lower the speed of the camera
and make it seem we were going faster.
But he said: "No, we must ride at the right pace".
So, if the script said 70 mph, that was the speed we had to reach
before I might start shooting.
For some shots I had the camera fixed to the sidecar.
I squatted there, so I could check into the viewfinder.
We were to get a take where the bike
overtook a lorry from the inside.
So, I was to overtake in the sidecar from the outside.
But he moved ahead just a little too late.
I said: "Let's try again, a bit faster this time
"so you're on camera when we come up."
The bike accelerated considerably
and the lorry driver got worried.
He pulled left and caught us.
Our bike swerved and, we hit a tree,
between the bike and the sidecar.
I flew off to the right of the tree,
and the rider to the left,
39 feet into the field.
I broke my wrist and a rib.
I woke up in the field.
The first thing I saw was Dreyer, standing there,
hands behind his back, examining the camera.
It was all right. So he came over to see how I was.
"No great harm done, then."
He wasn't really interested in his shorts.
But they meant he could pay the rent for a while.
A profound interest in shorts... that, he didn't have.
Dreyer had written a script for Shakespeare in Kronborg.
The idea was that perhaps Shakespeare had visited Kronborg
and now we would see the castle through his eyes.
Some sequences from Hamlet would be played.
That same year an American company
was playing Hamlet there.
We got to know them. I got to know their Ophelia,
Ruth Ford.
I got on very nicely with her...
The manager of the troupe was Blevins Davis,
a multimillionaire who liked putting on classics in Europe.
He heard via Ruth Ford that I was working with Dreyer.
He was astonished that this celebrity was making shorts.
He asked to meet him.
I told Dreyer.
Dreyer wasn't keen on it,
but things worked out and I got him to Davis' room.
Dreyer asked Davis what he was up to.
Then he told him he wanted to do a film about the historical Jesus.
Davis was fascinated, and he asked what Dreyer needed to get started
"Well, first I must write a script.
"That will take a year,
"so what I need is my living expenses for a year."
And Davis thrust his hand into his pocket for his checkbook.
Woe unto you, you hypocrites!
You...
and you...
and you!
Woe unto you for your heresy!
Woe unto you for not believing in me, the resurrected Christ,
who has come to you at the command
of Him who created Heaven and Earth.
"We are going to Vordingborg, there is a hospital there!"
"I understand," I said. But really I didn't at all.
Well, we got there and I was admitted into a patient's room.
It was no ordinary hospital.
The room was sort of a cell.
It had no door handle on the inside.
There sat a very nice man,
almost beautiful, if one may say that of a man.
He resembled
the most beautiful pictures one has seen in print of Jesus.
I learned later that Dreyer wanted to use him,
but no, for when he was to be returned to the hospital
he might be difficult to reacclimate. Or so I surmise.
Anyway, there I sat,
talking to this man who told me he was an artist.
He spoke most peculiarly.
"I am a painter." "I see..." I said "how interesting!"
"Yes, it is very interesting."
"Perchance, perchance..."
A peculiar situation.
I don't know how long it took but I did manage to get out.
On our way home, Dreyer asked:
"What did you think of that man?"
"Oh, a splendid fellow," I said.
"What did you think of his manner of speech?"
"Speech? Well, it was rather strange."
"How about speaking that way in the film?"
I am the light of the world but the darkness does not fathom it.
I came to my own
and my own people did not welcome me.
It was hard, really hard.
And of course the press took me to task.
For all my pains!
Why put the candles there?
So my light can shine out into the darkness.
- Such a shame! - He's as mad as a hatter.
He thinks he's Jesus.
Will he ever come to his senses?
It's all that reading that's done it for him.
That was forty years ago.
But I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Perhaps because I was very happy.
One reason was that Dreyer had asked me
if I'd like to play Inger in Ordet by Kaj Munk, with him directing.
Anyone knows a young actress would love to.
But I was rather worried, because I was pregnant.
Personally, a huge joy.
Still, I had to tell him because, although Inger is also pregnant,
it might not suit him. My size might not suit him.
Anyway, I told him.
And he was overjoyed that I was pregnant.
He liked working in long sequences.
He could work for days on the technical aspects.
Then he would join us in the afternoon
and rehearse the sequence. For days at a time.
Long sequences, rare in movie-making.
I'd never been involved in such long sequences before.
To begin with, one might be nervous,
but because he took his time,
you felt there was a whole world around him
and what he did technically,
so you gained confidence
and began to think it was natural to make suggestions.
In the summer 1954, when Dreyer was to shoot Ordet
I had been engaged by Palladium
for Denmark's first color feature.
A Danish-American co-production. The deal with Palladium
was that a colleague and I would audition
camera-wise and framing-wise,
and then Dreyer would decide which of us was to do the job.
I understood that Dreyer and my colleague
fairly quickly had some dispute, so I landed the job.
We started with relatively simple shots.
We had to travel miles to see the dailies.
But Dreyer was most satisfied
with the first days' shooting.
His sense of what the final result would be like
was something he couldn't judge as we worked.
Only when he saw the rushes the next day
could he tell whether it was
what he'd wanted and expected.
I was so fortunate as to strike a style that
harmonized with his taste and he told me to stick to it
and complete the film that way.
The child whose mother is in heaven can no man harm.
When your mother is dead,
she is always with you.
- She is when she is alive, too. - Yes...
But then she is busy with so much else.
She has to milk the cows, scrub floors and wash up.
- The dead don't have any of that. - Yes...
But I would still rather you woke her up, uncle.
- You would? - Yes, so we could keep her here.
- My child! - Won't you wake her up?
If the others will let me.
Don't you mind them.
- Oh, I am so excited! - Are you?
Yes, I am.
Will you come and tuck me in?
Yes, and I will have one of my father's angels watch over you.
- Will you also bless us as usual? - Yes, I will.
I was young, 29 years old, when we started Ordet.
The shooting script showed he'd done a huge amount in advance.
Every single camera position was sketched in, and every move.
Yet I was puzzled, for when we turned up in the morning
we started from the beginning again
and built up every single scene together
until we finalized how the scene would run.
Eventually I couldn't refrain from asking Dreyer
why he prepared so thoroughly in advance
when he was ready to jettison everything in his script.
And he said: "Bendtsen! I will tell you why."
"It's because one of these days I might be in bad form!"
I think everyone became a pawn in his universe.
There is no doubt he knew exactly what he wanted in the can,
the contents, and the way to express them.
But he never said it that way,
never whispered words of wisdom in one's ear
the way so many directors do, and that can be a great help.
No, he created the atmosphere, the calm,
the time we needed to reach what he wanted to tell.
As for the technical side, always so complicated in movies,
I don't think he made it any less complicated.
There was a period of three weeks or so
when it rained every day. Real rain.
One day the sun did shine, and who showed up?
Our beloved president, Tage Nielsen, from Palladium.
I am sitting beside a cart track on the heath.
He gets out of his car and says:
"You must be getting lots in the can in this lovely weather!"
"No, sir. The clouds are moving in the wrong direction."
"Oh? Oh?"
"Mr. Dreyer is standing over there, sir, you can talk to him."
"To Dreyer? No, God bless my soul, no, no!"
And he got back into his car and drove off again.
He did have a reputation for being despotic and tyrannical.
But I never witnessed that. He was always amiable, courteous.
Of course, he had an inner unremitting stubbornness.
He could work for ages without tiring.
He hadn't that notion of time the rest of us succumb to.
If one cautiously asked him
when we might be finished for the day,
he would offer you a candy and say:
"Here, have a sweet."
So naïve and incredible, yet somehow one fell for it.
If he offered you a sweet, you could last another hour or two.
Death is the gateway to eternity.
Through that gateway this young woman
has passed ahead of her loved ones.
We grieve as we do for we think only of ourselves, our loss.
For her there are no grounds for grief.
We were shooting the scenes with Birgitte Federspiel
in her coffin. Dreyer wanted to shoot them
in the evening to avoid being disrupted
from craftsmen and others who frequented the studio.
All must be quiet.
Halfway through we took a break.
As we headed for the canteen for coffee and sandwiches
Dreyer said to Jepsen, the production manager:
"Jepsen, bring the corpse up to the canteen for a cup of coffee!"
Jesus Christ...
If it is possible,
allow her to come back to life.
Give me the Word!
The Word that can make the dead live.
Inger...
in the name of Jesus Christ...
I bid you...
rise!
Inger...
My darling...
Again it was lb Koch Olsen from Dansk Kulturfilm
who wanted to shoot a documentary on Dreyer.
Dreyer was kind enough to suggest that I make it.
I started talking to him about how we'd shoot it,
when, and so forth. Dreyer was preparing Gertrud.
He said that as long as he was working on that
he couldn't manage the other, too. It would disturb him too much.
When he started shooting Gertrud
and told me that now we could get started,
he said he was very nervous
because he couldn't get the actors into place, as he called it.
He was having trouble getting Nina Pens into place.
We'd have to wait until she was in place.
Then, it was Ebbe Rode's turn.
So he'd rather not be disturbed.
Tonight my life snapped.
When one sees that which one has loved more than anything else
sullied by renewed youth one turns old.
Oh, Gertrud, that we should meet this way! I had never thought it!
But nothing ever turns out the way one thought it.
How had you thought it, Gabriel?
Gabriel...
Gabriel, you take it so much to heart...
The special mark of Gertrud
was that the script was not divided into scene numbers.
It is continuous.
The tracking shots were not rigidly laid down by Dreyer in advance.
We would turn up in the morning
and the cast would come in with no make-up, nor in costume.
We would slowly build up the sequence
the way the actors and Dreyer found it natural
and accordingly with the lighting options open to me.
Dreyer became so enthusiastic about this technique,
that several times I had to tell him
we couldn't stuff any more film stock in the camera
and would have to find somewhere to stop up.
You are my all. My new life, in joy and sorrow.
- In sorrow? - Yes.
It is my sorrow that I must love you as I do,
though I do not understand you.
To you I am no more than a passing fancy.
- You sent me roses. - After your first concert.
Two roses and a card.
And I received no reply.
- Not even a thank-you. - I received lots of roses.
We met... Do you remember our first kiss?
I remember many kisses.
A rain of kisses, kisses that passed through bone and marrow,
kisses that made me gasp for breath.
One wonders how it is done. I have often done so.
How come the lines fall in that typical Dreyer fashion?
How come the arrangements he gets us to make
become his arrangements?
How come the cinematography becomes typical Dreyer?
Bendtsen would say: "Dreyer, will you check in the viewfinder?"
"Do I have to?" he said, and sat with his back half turned
as we shot the scene.
It's a question that remains unanswered.
This peculiarly dragging way of saying our lines
happened quite by itself, not even because we thought it was good.
That's how it turned out.
When Dreyer made a film after an interval of many years
the script wasn't something he'd finished half an hour earlier.
He'd been working for 30 years
and he'd meticulously arranged every single second and minute.
He knew what he wanted.
He'd collected loads of newspaper cuttings and photos over the years.
He'd put them into big manila envelopes.
He'd appear quietly with his big envelopes and say modestly:
"I would like it this way," and point quietly at something.
We'd say: "Mmmm, we'll do our best".
That's pretty much what his direction consisted of.
If you acted so you'd look like his photo, he was satisfied.
That is the dream I had the other night.
Advocate Kanning has finished his speech.
He'll be coming in a moment.
Nice to see you again, Axel.
Pity you must leave so soon.
God be praised, Gertrud, you are not ailing.
I am feeling better now, thanks to Axel's pills.
- Thank you... - What matters is that they worked.
He was so meticulous.
Everything had to be so true, so true.
I remember a line of mine to Nina Pens on my return from Paris.
She had a headache and I had to offer her tablets for it.
I was to say they were from Paris.
"Can't I just say they are for headaches?"
"No, you must say they are from Paris."
I looked down, at the box in my hand
and saw that the tablets really were from Paris!
So all was truth. The truth was in my hand.
They were Parisian headache pills and it had to be said.
So I said: "Would you like some headache tablets from Paris?"
Everything is authentic.
Tangible. It created an atmosphere.
You open a drawer and there is something in the drawer.
And whatever's lying in the drawer looks as if it's always lain there.
You get the impression that he has...
that he has created this...
place, and it is your place.
There is quite a bit of interpretation there
that you can't put your finger on,
but which has an effect.
This meticulousness and...
and love, for I am compelled to call it that, is what I saw most.
Strange that the man was so self-effacing,
yet had such enormous self-esteem!
I remember him asking in that quiet voice of his
if he couldn't have the shadow of some beech leaves
vibrating in one corner.
Many of the operators and gaffers and so on,
didn't have much understanding for him.
"Is it really necessary, Dreyer?"
And he said: "I'd like the shadow of some beech leaves."
"Come off it, Dreyer!" You could see Dreyer...
He was so stubborn that the dynamo inside him
reached 10,000 volts
and a wave of anger burst out from across the horizon,
as a little twitch above his lower lip:
"I would like the shadow of some beech leaves!"
And he got it. Beech leaves.
Do you remember your own words?
"There is no other life than loving?"
"Nothing. Nothing else."
Do you stand by what you said then? No regrets?
No, no regrets. I stand by what I said.
There is nothing in life but youth and love,
infinite tenderness and quiet joy, Axel.
When I am on the edge of the grave and look back at my life
I will say to myself:
"I have suffered much, and often been mistaken,
"but I have loved."
It was the last day we could shoot in the park at Vall.
They had acres of tulips,
and the next day the park would open to the general public.
Filming would be impossible with so many people there.
We needed sunshine.
Dreyer wanted a particular light.
It was... drizzling;
we were concentrating on a statue of Aphrodite he'd brought in.
Time came to shoot. Everyone was waiting.
Dreyer had vanished!
Then we saw him beside Aphrodite.
Nobody said a word to him as he stood there,
hands behind his back, gazing across the lake.
Then I heard: "Bendtsen, would you come down here?"
Bendtsen joined him.
I couldn't help myself; I tiptoed after him.
I had to hear what was going on.
Bendtsen stepped up beside Dreyer, who said:
"Bendtsen, do you see how the trees are reflected in the water?"
Yes, Bendtsen could see.
"Bendtsen, we'll leave Aphrodite in peace.
"Film those trees!"
I was mystified. I thought about this man
and the whole of this colossal production,
all the significance put into it, and then: "Let's have the trees!"
I went up to Dreyer and said:
"Dreyer! Mr. Dreyer, what if we don't get it in the can?"
"Then we'll get it next year," Dreyer replied.
I've never forgotten it.
That fabulous calm,
a stubbornness wrapped up in mildness.
A self-assertion that is...
paired with an utterly self-effacing modesty.
I think he was the first Zen master I ever met.
In the solitude he spun around himself
there was high voltage, so you didn't approach that man
unless he invited you to.
He could stand there so humbly,
you would think he needed rescuing.
But you mustn't.
I remember when the film won a Bodil, the Danish Academy Award.
There was a big party.
Several hundred people in evening dress...
and in a corner, squashed against the decorations
stood little, gray Dreyer in his black-green dinner jacket.
Dressed up for the occasion.
Nobody came up to talk to him, nobody made contact with him,
and I don't suppose he wanted them to.
Have you had the opportunity to look at modern French cinema?
Yes, at home. I like the new wave.
Many exponents of modern French cinema
have come to celebrate you this evening.
Yes, Truffaut, Luc Godard, Clément and Clouzot...
and others I don't quite know.
It's been very nice meeting them.
The Danish embassy threw a party.
There was a big room where one could greet
the ambassador and Dreyer.
Dreyer scuttled off into a corner so there'd be nobody behind him.
I'd often observed on our travels
that he hated having anybody behind him.
In the street he would stop at some window or other
displaying corsets or whatever, which we would study closely
until the people behind us had passed.
Earlier, I'd always held the door for him to enter first.
One evening he said:
"That door-holding business could you please stop it?
"I'd rather you went in first."
He did suffer from a kind of persecution mania.
When we'd completed shooting Ordet, Dreyer told me:
"Bendtsen, I'd like to give you a token of my appreciation.
"Now, you must tell me if they are of no use to you,
"but I have a fine pair of shoes that rather pinch my feet."
He didn't like to go and exchange them.
"If you like, you may have them as a present!"
I did because I had never had such fine shoes.
Then when we finished Gertrud, he came up to me again and said:
"Bendtsen, we've worked so splendidly together
"that I'd like to give you a token of my appreciation.
"I have a very fine dinner jacket made in Paris in 1926
"by a Danish tailor resident in there
"but I am too stout for it now. If you are interested,
"I will pay to have it altered to fit you."
As a result I received the loveliest dinner jacket.
It is a pleasure making films, and a great experience.
I have been asked to do many other things
such as direct opera at La Scala
and the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, but I've declined.
"Cobbler, stick to your last."
I'm a film maker and will die one.
English translation and subtitles Jonathan Sydenham