ABSTRACT

Early Life Carl Theodor Dreyer was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on February 3, 1889. His biological mother, who was Swedish, died as the result of an attempted abortion while he was still an infant (he did not learn of her fate until he was eighteen years old). He was subsequently adopted by a Danish couple, who provided him with piano lessons in preparation for a career as a cafe pianist. That career was short: It lasted one day. Hoping to escape unhappiness at home, he worked in various offices, but he found the routine boring. From these formative years came two recurrent themes in his films: woman as victim and bourgeois society as pretentious and contemptible.