eMoviePoster.comAuction History Result 2d0003 CARL THEODOR DREYER TWO signed letters + Day of Wrath Danish stills '44 & '49 great content! Date Sold 10/25/2015Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. TWO Carl Theodor Dreyer Autographed Letters (measures 8 1/4" x 10"). Also included are two deluxe 8" x 10" Danish stills and two letters from Joseph-Marie Lo Duca, as well as his business card (see below). (Learn More) Carl Theodor Dryer was a legendary Danish director from the 1910s to the 1960s. His masterpieces were The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, and Day of Wrath, all three of which are considered among the finest movies ever made! He passed away in 1968 at the age of 79. Important Added Info: Note that in 1944, Joseph-Marie Lo Duca (who, later, in 1951, was one of the co-founders, along with Andre Bazin and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze of Cahiers du Cinema, the legendary French film magazine) wrote to legendary Danish director, Carl Theodor Dreyer about the possibility of creating a "sound" version of Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (by adding music and removing the intertitles from the original silent film). He wrote to Dreyer in French, and Dreyer wrote back to him in English (even though Dreyer was Danish, but maybe English was a shared language for them). Offered here are two letters that Lo Duca wrote to Dreyer in 1944 and 1946, one of which is hand signed, and also two signed replies from Dreyer to Lo Duca, dated 1946 and 1949. In Dreyer's letters (both in English), he first talks about his film "Day of Wrath", which had been made in 1943, three years earlier, telling Lo Duca that he would send him the materials he asked for from "Day of Wrath". He then goes on to talk about the idea of creating a new sound version of "Joan of Arc", saying he thinks it would be a "great, great mistake to try to transform it into a talkie". He says it was created as a silent film and should be kept as a silent film. He further says that he purposely did not show Falconetti's moving lips because of the intertitles, so there would be "terrible gaps" if the footage before and after the intertitles were joined. He then asks Lo Duca to help him on getting "Day of Wrath" a showing in New York, saying that having good reviews from French papers would help and asking if Lo Duca has any. In the second letter from 1949, Dreyer lists the documentaries he made and says that he gives Lo Duca "the authorization you were asking for". He also says that he would like a print of Lo Duca's version of Joan of Arc, which would have J.S. Bach music added to it, but he adds "provided you do not introduce other sounds"! Also included with the four letters are two first release deluxe Danish 8" x 10" photos from Dreyer's "Day of Wrath". Our consignor purchased the four letters and the two photos directly from the estate of Joseph-Marie Lo Duca (he also received one of Lo Duca's business cards), and we are 100% certain the items are authentic. Note that there is a very interesting footnote to this. The only version of "The Passion of Joan of Arc" that had survived in 1944 (when this correspondence started) was a 61-minute "cut" version, and that is the version that Lo Duca and Dreyer were talking about. In 1951, Lo Duca discovered a more complete print in the Gaumont Studios film archives. He then proceeded to pretty much do as he had talked to Dreyer about in 1944, adding a Baroque score and removing many intertitles and replacing them with subtitles. Dreyer did not like this version! In the 1970s, an employee of the Danish Film Institute brought together sections of all the known examples of the film, trying to make a new version as true to Dreyer's original as possible. In 1981, an employee of a mental institution in Norway found Dreyer's original cut! As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. Condition: good to very good. There is yellow staining in the right edge of the 1946 Dreyer letter. The 1949 Dreyer letter was a fold-up post letter, and other than the folds, it is in pretty nice condition. One of the two stills have many creases in the top right corner. The other has a few faint creases scattered throughout (see our images of all items). Learn More about condition grades
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