Portal:Denmark/Selected biography/2008/9

Carl Theodor Dreyer (February 3, 1889 - March 20, 1968) was a Danish film director. He is regarded as one of the greatest directors in cinema. Although his career spanned the 1910s through the 1960s, his meticulousness, dictatorial methods, idiosyncratic shooting style, and stubborn devotion to his art ensured that his output remained low. In spite of this, he produced some of the most enduring classics of international cinema.

Dreyer was born an illegitimate child in Copenhagen, Denmark. His birth mother was an unmarried Swedish maid named Josefine Bernhardine Nilsson, and he was put up for adoption by his birth father, Jens Christian Torp, a farmer who was his mother's employer. He spent the first two years of his life in orphanages until his adoption. His adoptive parents were typographer named Carl Theodor Dreyer, Sr., and his wife, Inger Marie. His parents were strict Lutherans and his childhood wasn't particularly happy. He was a highly intelligent student in school, and after finishing, he left home at the age of 16. He dissociated himself from his adoptive family, but their teachings were to influence the themes of many of his films.

As a young man, Dreyer worked as a journalist, eventually finding his way into jobs writing title cards for silent films and then writing screenplays. His first forays into directing were met with limited success, and he eventually left Denmark to try his hand in the film industry of France.

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