Gertrud Poster

Gertrud (1964)

Drama  
Rayting:   7.5/10 5.6K votes
Country: Denmark
Language: Danish
Release date: 1 January 1965

In the elegant world of artists and musicians, Gertrud ends her marriage to Gustav and takes a lover, the composer Erland Jansson.

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howard.schumann 9 September 2007

Werner Erhard says, "You don't have to go looking for love when it is where you are coming from". For the chilly, statuesque wife in Carl Dreyer's last film Gertrud, love is not a living, breathing reality, but an ideal to be sought in its purest form. Reviled in its day for its being an artistic anachronism, Gertrud is now recognized for the complex masterpiece it truly is. With its long takes and static camera, it seems at odds with the French New Wave jump cuts and innovative techniques, yet it has much in common with those films of the 60s that depict the soulless fragmentation and alienation of modern life even though Gertrud takes place at the turn of the century.

In Gertrud, love is something to strive for but is unattainable on Earth and each character (like perhaps Dreyer himself) is a figure living to one degree or another in loneliness. Shot with very few close-ups, the camera keeps us at a distance throughout, perhaps reminding us of the isolation of the human condition. Based on a 1906 play of the same name by Hjalmar Soderberg, Gertrud (Nina Pens Rode), a former professional singer, is an emotionally unfulfilled woman who finds something missing in the four primary relationships in her life. She is married to Gustav (Bendt Rothe), an ambitious politician, but sees him as being more interested in his career than in her.

She is in love with a young concert pianist, Erland Jannson (Baard Owe), but is repelled by his consorting with other women and using her name to brag to others about his conquests. She feels that another suitor, poet Gabriel Lidman (Ebbe Rode), cares more about fulfilling his own desires than nurturing hers, and that psychologist Axel (Axel Strobye) is more interested in an intellectual liaison than a physical one. Although her emotional expression never becomes very intense, Gertrud tells Gustav that she is leaving him on the very day that he is supposed to receive a promotion to cabinet rank. Deeply hurt by her suggestion that he didn't show her enough love, he pleads with her not to leave him but his pleas are met with coldness.

When she tells him that she is going to the opera that evening, he pursues her to the theater, only to discover that she did not tell him the truth about her whereabouts. In the drive to the opera, we are privy to Gustav's thoughts, the only time during the film that we are allowed entry into the character's mind. He is determined to win her back, only to discover later that she stayed at the home of Erland Jannson. In a subsequent meeting with Erland in the park, she asks him to go away with her so that they can live together by the sea but he rejects the idea, telling her that he has a relationship with Constance that he cannot break off. It is shortly thereafter that an old lover, poet Gabriel Lidman, reveals that he ran into Erland at a party, boasting of the fact that he had conquered the aloof Gertrud.

Gabriel has returned to Denmark to receive an award and has his heart set on reviving his amorous relationship with Gertrud. However, in one of the film's most telling moments, shown in flashback, she recalls finding a note on Gabriel's desk that says "A woman's love and a man's work are mortal enemies". She uses that note to not only rebuff Gabriel but to reject all suitors and decide that she can never find happiness with a man. Refusing to compromise and stuck in the notion that spiritual fulfillment must include emotional pain, Gertrud at long last finds her destiny but only at t

uaxuctum 7 August 2001

Fmovies: I was completely shocked when I first saw this masterpiece, and I still get shocked every time I see it again.

Dreyer's long and austere takes will not, of course, be liked by many, easy-goers, because he achieved by them to tell the unspeakable, he reached true Art. But to appreciate this means to have previously developed and refined one's taste, a tough effort which unfortunately not everybody is willing to make. And I say unfortunately because when eventually getting to understand Dreyer's idiom you'll find out that what it can tell you is much greater and soul-satisfying that anything you can get via other more readily-understandable ways.

Sergeant_Tibbs 5 October 2013

Carl Theodor Dreyer marked his place forever in the film canon for his terrific masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc. Back in film's most primitive stages, he managed to lift it out from its limitations and give us one of the greatest performances of all-time from Maria Falconetti. 36 years later with his final film, he again studies a single woman in an intimate minimal style. It tackles a complex issue, one of universal sensitivity, with the expectations of love. There's great subdued performances of characters who can hardly bear to look at each other. Based on a play built on a handful of sequences, it ends up inherently stage-like with its 3 walls and dialogue-driven narrative. While it may struggle with pacing with a few too many scenes that don't drive the story forward, its rich backstory is compelling and plays with the imagination. In that limitation, Dreyer makes elegant use of camera movements with long takes that are constantly changing frame size, it's really magnificent to watch. What makes the film hit hard is its sudden epilogue. The majority of the film takes place over a few days and we suddenly jump 30 years into the future to study the consequences. It's a profound, if incredibly dreary film. Many lessons to take from Gertrud, both in filmmaking and in life.

8/10

Quinoa1984 6 July 2015

Gertrud fmovies. When Gertrud was first released in 1964, the critics weren't kind to it (one can still see on Rotten Tomatoes the Time magazine review, who said "more museum piece than masterpiece"). Seeing Gertrud some fifty years after its initial release - Carl Dreyer's last film by the way, and one wonders if he knew it would be the last - I can understand why: this is very, very understated filmmaking and acting. It's a romance film but much more about loss than about real love... or, I should amend that, it IS about love, and really how impossible it is to hold on to, or to find in the first place, as Gertrud is married to one man (soon to be a Cabinet Minister, oh boy) who she may have never loved in the first place, pines after a younger man who sees it as a fling and is startled to hear there is more on her mind, and one more man, an old friend and respected artist, who has been affectionate to her for years and... then what happened?

Why I understand is this: at the time this was made, and even more-so today, people want to see some PASSION (in capital letters) when it comes to their stories of love, or at least some sense of energy to the filmmaking - Truffaut and Godard exemplified these two sensibilities in their stories of love and loss in the Nouvelle Vague. Dreyer is much more experimental; characters only every once in a while will even *look* at one another in a scene as they talk - and you'll find out if you watch, there is a lot of talking, it's based on a play and it feels every moment of it. This is highly unusual just from an acting standpoint, as in acting the performers will most often look at each other and so that you can't see any of the fakery of their acting or see the "acting" in quotes - when they're looking one another in the eye, it's harder to deceive.

So why watch it? It's certainly not exactly a "fun" time at the movies, but that doesn't mean anything - so many movies out there bring with it the expectation that you'll get some kind of emotional or intellectual catharsis or consciousness-expansion out of it (Dreyer's previous Passion of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath are hard to watch at times, but the thrill of filmmaking is there in spades). Getrud asks for your patience and asks you to meet it halfway; if you do, you'll discover a world of hurt that these actors are conveying in their characters. This is, after all, the world of the upper class that we're seeing as Gertrud is in this loveless marriage, and yet even leaving is such a difficult task - women so rarely left their husbands then that's how you got plays that were so groundbreaking as A Doll;s House - so you have to look deeper to see what's there.

The takes on these actors last quite a while as well; why have unnecessary cuts when a long take will do just fine? It's easy to see people feeling antsy watching it, and it's a difficult film to defend in the sense of 'Well, the movie's really entertaining, it is!' It's not an easy sit. But, this was something that, frankly, I started to watch late at night thinking that it might actually help me go to sleep - not that I was out against the film already, but I could watch a little, fall asleep, and watch it again the next day.

It actually kept my attention and I fought against nodding off. It is about something and people who are pining for something that either was long ago there and no longer is, or was never there to begin with and memories have been cr

angel-113 26 March 1999

Dreyer's final film views as a testament to idealism, the desire to put love above everything else in life and the cruel reality which thwarts this. Gertrud is married to a wealthy lawyer, about to become a minister. However material wealth is all he can offer and spiritually she is starved. >

With a theatrical set-piece style characterized by long takes, Dreyer creates an intense and involving atmosphere. Passions are seen as the formative experiences in life in a society stifled by convention. Gertrud prefers nothing to having second best, she refuses to compromise her ideals. She resigns herself to a single life but retains in her mind the vibrancy of her chain of lost loves. A moving portrait of a strong woman. Scandinavian sombreness has rarely been so devastatingly effective.

rony-conceicao 17 September 2006

The Carl Dreyer's film, Gertrud, is the last masterpiece of the great director. The history treat of the woman in isolation. Adapted from a 1920s play by Hjalmar Soberberg, Gertrud plays out in long takes, with few close-ups and exterior scenes.The pace and rhythm of the actions and interactions are retarded to the point that many of the conversations take on an almost incantatory quality. A small gesture and sound effect at the very end of the coda epitomize the complexity of feeling that Dreyer creates about the worldly renunciations and imaginative substitutions in Gertrud. Though initial critical reaction to the film was largely unfavorable. The picture is deliberate and reflective but not boring. I recommend.

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