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Identification poster for Gertrud
IMDb identification poster · for film identification only

Carl Theodor Dreyer / 卡尔·西奥多·德莱叶 · 1964

Gertrud

Gertrud

Choice exceeds calculable consequences and becomes a mode of existence. Bodily attitudes and disconnected planar relations let belief replace knowledge.

Film details

Original title
Gertrud
Director
Carl Theodor Dreyer / 卡尔·西奥多·德莱叶
Year
1964
Region
Denmark

Film analysis: how shots organize concepts

ATLAS MECHANISM BREAKDOWN

Gertrud detaches choice from calculable consequences: posture and silence make relation a visible problem before belief occurs in a present without guarantees.

  1. 01
    Social space becomes a diagram of attitudes

    Tables, sofas, and doorframes place Gertrud with husband, poet, and musician in one room while their gazes and bodies turn away from one another.

    Action-information recedes and bodily attitude gains its own duration; Cinema 2, ch. 7, pp. 176 and 181–82 provide the primary locator.
  2. 02
    Choice refuses exchange

    Gertrud insists on an 'absolute love' and refuses to exchange feeling for marital security, career advantage, or social recognition.

    Her choice is not a more efficient action but a failure of the evaluative standard of action itself; the body–thought relation becomes visible.
  3. 03
    Stillness leaves belief

    After the farewell, room, piano, and solitary posture provide no reconciliatory result, only a sustained attitude and a space one can return to.

    Read beside Ordet's miracle, Gertrud shows belief without miracle: the world is not repaired, yet the figure persists through an attitude in this world.
Atlas analysis · evidence classification unrecorded.
Reading attribution: Atlas editorial synthesis · Sources and locators

Close-reading questions

  1. 01
    At which moments does choice exceed calculable consequences of action?
  2. 02
    How do bodily attitudes and spatial discontinuities between shots move the film from knowledge toward belief?
  3. 03
    How do the room and piano after the farewell let belief appear as an attitude that remains in this world without a repaired outcome?

Analysis and scene sources

Shots and scenes

Read the complete film analysis: shot relations, temporal structure, and concepts

Primary texts, scholarship, and locators

Theory coordinate: Cinema 2, ch. 2, p. 41; ch. 7, pp. 176, 181–82

  1. 01
    Cinema 2: The Time-Image

    Authoritative source for the standard translation, translators, ISBN, and publication date.

    Open the atlas source record →
Consult the primary-text locator above.
Douban film searchsearch.douban.comBilibili film searchsearch.bilibili.com

Viewing gateways and editions

  1. Verified complete Bilibili carrier: 高分冷门电影【葛楚 (1964)】1080p中文字幕bilibili.comOpen film page ↗
    Page access
    Accessible when checked
    Version extent
    Recorded as a complete version
    Source type
    User-uploaded page

    Edition note: Chinese subtitles · complete single-part film · 1:56:22.

    Link checked: 2026-08-13

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Concepts, terms, and further reading

Concept and term tests

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