Film Review
Leaves from Satan's Book
(a.k.a.
Blade af Satans Bog)
was the second film that Carl Theodor Dreyer made for Denmark's leading
film company Nordisk at the start of his career. After his first
film,
The President (1919), over
which he was given complete artistic freedom, Dreyer had great
ambitions for his second film, which was originally conceived on the
scale of the film that inspired it: D.W. Griffith's
Intolerance
(1916). With Denmark's film industry in decline, Nordisk could
not afford the blockbuster Dreyer had conceived, so the director had to
take a reality check and make do with a more modest budget - a
situation he would become all too familiar with in the course of his
career. Marie Corelli's 1895 novel
The Sorrows of Satan provided the
story for the film, which divides into four chapters in which Satan
appears on Earth at pivotal moments in history and tries to lure an
unsuspecting human into a Faustian pact. The first of these
depicts Judas's betrayal of Jesus, one of the episodes that Dreyer
later intended to include in his epic film on the life of Christ.
(Although he got as far as writing the screenplay for this magnum opus,
Dreyer never succeeded in finding a financial backer to make the film
and it remained an unfulfilled dream project.)
Dreyer may not have had the resources he had wished but
Leaves from Satan's Book was an
ambitious production for a relatively inexperienced filmmaker and
involved its director undertaking meticulous research, which is evident
in the film's period authenticity. The minimalist set design is
strongly influenced by familiar paintings of well-known artists, most
noticeably Da Vinci, Velásquez and Rembrandt. What most
distinguishes the film is Dreyer's bold and startlingly effective use
of the close-up, a technique he would perfect in his silent films but
would avoid in his later work. In each of the four acts, Satan
(marvellously portrayed by Helge Nissen) is favoured with the biggest
close-ups, which reveal his malevolent intent with chilling
directness. The film's most powerful close-up is the one in the
final act which fixes our attention on the face of a young woman named
Siri (Clara Pontoppidan) as she plunges a knife into her heart in
defiance of Satan's vile chicanery. In the woman's face we
discern a myriad of emotions - fear, uncertainty, resignation and
finally a blaze of triumph - before she succumbs to her fatal
blow. This astonishing sequence prefigures the close-ups that
Dreyer would use to even greater effect on his masterpiece
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
(1928).
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Carl Theodor Dreyer film:
The Parson's Widow (1920)
Film Synopsis
Satan is expelled from Heaven and sent to Earth. For every mortal
he succeeds in tempting, his sentence is extended by a hundred years;
for every mortal who resists his temptation, his sentence is reduced by
a thousand years. Disguised as a Pharisee in Jerusalem of 30 AD,
Satan easily coerces Judas into betraying Jesus to the Romans. In
16th century Seville, a young priest named Don Fernandez is racked by
desire for Isabel, the attractive daughter of the astronomer Don Gomez
de Castro. How easily he is tricked by Satan into betraying
Isabel and her father to the inquisition. By the autumn of 1793,
the French Revolution has entered its bloodiest phase. Before he
is arrested, the Count de Chambord places his wife and daughter
Geneviève into the care of his trusty servant Joseph.
Dressed as a revolutionary, Satan offers Joseph social advancement if
he betrays the women in his charge. In the spring of 1918, the
Russian Revolution has reached Finland, with Red and White Russians
waging a fierce battle. Satan appears before a married woman
named Siri in the guise of a monk and offers to spare the life of her
husband if she betrays her motherland...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.