Gertrud (1964) on Netflix
In early 20th-century Stockholm, Gertrud, a former opera singer, tells her husband, the lawyer Gustav Kanning, that she wants a divorce. She has fallen for the pianist Erland Jansson.
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- Rotten Tomatoes71%
Trailer
Plot summary
Gertrud, a former opera singer in early 20th-century Stockholm, is married to Gustav Kanning, a lawyer and politician. She tells him that his career and status matter more to him than she does, and that another man loves her more, so she wants a divorce. That man is Erland Jansson, a young pianist. Gertrud meets Jansson in a park and goes with him to his house, where she speaks of her devotion. One evening Gustav goes to the opera to collect her, but cannot find her. The following evening, the Kannings are guests at a dinner party given by the poet Gabriel Lidman, with whom Gertrud had a past relationship, and she says hello to her friend Axel Nygren. Gustav challenges her about the opera and asks to spend one final night with her before they part.
Cast
- Anna Malbergas Kanning's mother
- William Knoblauch
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Gertrud (1964)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dreyer revived the Gertrud project after reading a 1962 monograph by Sten Rein, Hjalmar Söderbergs Gertrud, which pointed out how the play's story is driven by trivial conversations and failures to communicate. It inspired him to make a film where speech is more important than images.
- Gertrud's Paris premiere at Le Studio Médicis on 18 December 1964 went badly: the cinema equipment failed several times, the subtitles were of low quality and the reels were shown in the wrong order, prompting extremely negative reactions from the audience.
- Gertrud is built around long takes, including one lasting nearly ten minutes in which Gertrud and her former lover Gabriel talk about their pasts.
- Gertrud was Dreyer's last film and his first since Ordet in 1955. In the nine-year gap he tried to make films of Euripides' Medea and William Faulkner's Light in August, wrote treatments of Henrik Ibsen's Brand, August Strindberg's To Damascus and Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, and worked on a life of Christ he never realized.
- Adapting the play into a screenplay, Dreyer abridged the third act and added an epilogue inspired by the life of Maria von Platen, the woman who was Söderberg's original inspiration for the Gertrud character.
- Gertrud was filmed at Nordisk Film's studios in Valby rather than Palladium's own studios, because Palladium's studios were being used by Danmarks Radio for a television production.
