Dreyer’s Silences

Stylistic, formal, and intermedial perspectives

Authors

  • Luca Marangolo Pegaso Open University

Keywords:

Carl Theodor Dreyer, narratology, intermediality, silent film, performance studies

Abstract

This essay investigates Carl Theodor Dreyer’s intermedial poetics by analyzing the ‘theatricalization of cinema’ in Ordet beyond David Bordwell’s classical reading. Drawing on Sternberg’s narratology, it demonstrates how, in continuity with his previous works (from silent to sound film), the silences and long takes are not mere ‘catalyses’ between events, but synergistic enunciative strategies in which theater and cinema collaborate. It is proposed that Dreyer sabotages theatrical conventions to convey a sense of spiritual dejection and redemption, distinguishing Ordet from his other sound films due to its innovative performative immediacy.

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Author Biography

Luca Marangolo, Pegaso Open University

Luca Marangolo is associate professor of History of literary criticism and Comparative literature at Pegaso Open University (effective February 2026) and adjunct professor of Comparative literature and inter-artes studies at the Federico II University of Naples. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and a chercheur invité at Université  Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III). He is the author of the monograph La nascita del dramma moderno in Shakespeare, Calderón, Racine, Lessing, as well as numerous essays on modern and contemporary literature, media studies, and narrative theory.

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Published

2025-12-15

How to Cite

Marangolo, L. (2025). Dreyer’s Silences: Stylistic, formal, and intermedial perspectives. SigMa - Rivista Di Letterature Comparate, Teatro E Arti Dello Spettacolo, (9), 127–158. Retrieved from https://serena.sharepress.it/index.php/sigma/article/view/13022

Issue

No. 9 (2025): The emotions of silence from silent films to sound films ‘sans paroles’

Section

Sezione monografica

License

Creative Commons License

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