BLADE AF SATAN BOG

March 23, 1919
Monsieur le Directeur Staehr
A S Nordisk Films Kompagni
MosedaIsvej Valby

Dear Mr. Staehr,
As I have promised you, I am coming back to the same argument that has mutually occupied us over these last few days and in this letter I honestly want to let you know my point of view. I am convinced that Pages from the Book of Satan is the best script that Nordisk Film has ever had in its hands. I also have the sincere conviction that an extraordinary film can be obtained from this script, a film that would do honor to Nordisk Film and would give the company the renown that it has lost. But all this has one condition, that the film be shot paying the most scrupulous attention to all the exigencies of art…
Definitely, I dare to claim that no one has ever done so much preparation work for a film as I have, that there has never been a director so prepared to start a film as I am. And all of this is not enough to convince the General Director? Have you told him that the black pigs, the guinea fowls, and donkeys that I have to use in July were already found in January? Have you told the Director that I turned the whole city upside down to find true southern "types" to have them work as extras in my Spanish story? Have you told him that I made the maximum effort to find real Finns for the Finnish story, that I have already hired a large number of people for the episode of the Revolution, that there are people who on my orders are hiring people with Jewish features for my story of Christ? Have you told the General Director how I have been working for months in libraries to search out every detail for my screenplay? I did not leave anything for anyone else. I did everything myself. Doesn't all of this show that my aim is to do something that is something entirely different from a film for popular consumption. And shouldn't I find understanding and respect towards me not to mention esteem and recognition when I show how much seriousness and love I put into my work? And how is this "understanding" shown? The Direction has tried by all means to kill the film. "The film should cost 150,000 krone and nothing more than that," you say. "Cut 80,000 krone." Because this amputation was proceeding badly, the decorator was asked to find how 20,000 krone could be saved. And this man wrote a list of things, of sequences, and of scenes, that could be done without or cut in his opinion. At a certain point he wrote the word "gruppa," with two B's but that isn't important. He is competent enough to spend an entire afternoon at scissorcutting up a work to which someone else had consecrated a year of his life in the respectable hope of making a work of artistic quality…
But this film cannot be shot with 230,000 krone and it is useless that you, Mr. Staehr speculate on what savings to make, because I am the only one who can really judge, in so much as I have every image in my head in the way that I imagine it. Besides, as you should know, my scripts are refined to such a point that there is nothing extra, nothing useless, and nothing written by accident. The images create an organic whole. Therefore I know that if the film should be what I want, it should cost 230,000 krone. I will not accept "amputating a finger or cutting an Achilles' tendon" to allow the film to go ahead, because I would be an unscrupulous scoundrel if, in order to save my director's fees, I would consent to make a film which would, according to my profound conviction, be nothing more than a film of the third or fourth level.

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer.
Plot: dal romanzo Satans Sorger di Marie Corelli.
Screenplay: Edgar Hoyer (sul testo adattato da C. Th. Dreyer).
Director of photography: George Schnéevoigt.
Art director: C. Th. Dreyer con l'assistenza tecnica di Axel Bruun e Jens G. Lind.
Cast: [1° episodio: Palestina] Halvard Hoff (Gesù), Jacob Texiere (Giuda), Erling Hansen (Giovanni), Landskabsmaler Hermansen, Tomrer Weigel, Gogbinder Gylche, Wilhelm Jensen (apostoli), Helge Nissen (il fariseo, Satana); [2° episodio: L'inquisizione] Hallander Hellemann (don Gomez), Ebon Strandin (Isabella), Johannes Meyer (don Fernandez), Nalle Haldén (il maggiordomo), Helge Nissen (il grande inquisitore, Satana); [3° episodio: La Rivoluzione francese] Tenna Kraft (Maria Antonietta), Emma Wieth (la contessa di Chambord), Jeanne Tramcourt (Geneviève), Elith Pio (Joseph, il domestico), Viggo Wiehe, Emil Helsengreen, Helge Nissen (Ernest Durand, Satana); [4° episodio: La rosa rossa di Finlandia] Carlo Wieth (Paavo), Ciara Pontoppidan (Siri), Cari Hillebrandt (Rautaniemi), Karina Bell (Naima), Helge Nissen (Ivan, Satana).
Production company: Nordisk Film Kompagni

CONSERVAZIONE E RESTAURO / CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION

Copia conservata al Danske Filmmuseum, stampata nel 1958 direttamente dal negativo originale.