Listen to a rare English language interview with the great filmmaker here (speaking about The Passion of Joan of Arc as well as his career), from the Masters of Cinema website.

The Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer is regarded as one of the greatest directors of European cinema. Although his career spanned the 1910s through the 1960s, his meticulousness, dictatorial methods, idiosyncractic shooting style, and stubborn devotion to his art ensured that his output remained low. In spite of this, he has produced some of the most enduring classics of international cinema.

Dreyer was born in 1889, an illegitimate child in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was soon orphaned. His adoptive parents were strict Lutherans, and 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. It was there, in 1928, that he made his first classic, The Passion of Joan of Arc. Working from actual transcripts of Joan's trial, he created a masterpiece of emotion that drew equally from realism and expressionism.

His next film was Vampyr (1932), a surreal meditation on fear. Logic gave way to mood and atmosphere in this story of a man protecting two sisters from a vampire. The movie contains many indelible images, such as the hero dreaming of his own burial and the animal bloodlust on the face of one of the sisters as she suffers under the vampire's spell. The film was shot as a silent but had dialogue added later through dubbing. Both films were box office failures, and Dreyer did not make another movie until 1943. At that time he made Day of Wrath, a film about the hypocrisy of those who engaged in witchhunts. With this film, Dreyer established the style that would mark his sound films: careful compositions, stark black and white cinematography, and very long takes.

In 1955, he shot Ordet (The Word). The film combines a Romeo and Juliet-style love story with an examination of faith. Dreyer's last film was 1965's Gertrud . Although seen by some as a lesser film than the ones preceding it, it is a fitting close to Dreyer's career, as it deals with a woman who, through the ups and downs of her life, never expresses regret for her choices. Dreyer died in Copenhagen at age 79.