Master Of The House

Synopsis

In Master Of The House, the failure of his small business turns Victor (Johannes Meyer) into a household tyrant, constantly complaining and criticising his long-suffering family and eventually driving out his saintly wife Ida (Astrid Holm) to stay with relatives. His elderly Nanny Mads (Mathilde Nielsen) assumes control and, under her firm tutelage, he comes to fully appreciate the value of his wife. This is a charming, richly detailed tragi-comedy of domestic manners. By turns funny, intensely emotional and deeply affecting it clearly still enjoys considerable contemporary relevance. Dreyer compressed and clarified the stage play by Svend Rindom on which he based his film, making it a definitively cinematic rather than theatrical work. Master Of The House was particularly successful in France where it was widely admired. It resulted in Dreyer being invited to work there and in the eventual commission of his first large budget film, The Passion Of Joan of Arc (1928). As well as directing feature films, Dreyer was involved in 13 state-commissioned documentaries and short films up to 1956, on subjects ranging from art and architecture to road-safety.

Special Features

- My Métier (1995, 94 mins).
- Good Mothers (1942, 12 mins).
- They Caught The Ferry (1948, 11 mins).
- Booklet including an essay by Dreyer scholar Casper Tybjerg (University of Copenhagen); an extract from a feature on Dreyer by film historian Tom Milne from Sight & Sound; an extract from an essay by James Leahy on They Caught the Ferry.