Carl Dreyer

The man who told me that he never read today's newspaper, that he got more information by reading old newspapers, that by then he knew what was important to read and what wasn't, was born in 1956.

By 1956 it was too late to believe it was all a big mistake, but too early to know it wasn't meant to be understood.

The Danes had taken Christianity as far north as it could go, intellectualized it to the place where it could be embodied in a man like Soren Kierkegaard, exposing its major flaw--that only one person could ever become Christ. This thinking about man's place in the world and his relationship with God set up a dramatic situation in which only a single narrator is possible.

By 1956 we were all ready for something new to happen, the man who never-reads-today's-newspaper said. We were so drawn to the forces beyond us that they would attract us the rest of our lives.

It's rumored he kept a video library of over 3,000 films, with a whole wing devoted to the films of Carl Dreyer, insisting that there was a real difference between a movie and a film.