Viggo Mortensen, Dreyer fan.

 

From Sean Axmaker's What's In Your DVD Player column:

 

"MSN Movies: What's in your DVD player?

Viggo Mortensen: The last thing I saw was a movie I've seen many, many times: The Criterion version of 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' by Carl Dreyer. If you've ever seen that movie, it's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. That actress [Renée Maria Falconetti], it's the only movie she did, is in close-up so much. When you compare her performance to the performances of other movie stars of the silent era, it's just in another league; it's way out there in terms of believability.

 

"Do you have a favorite DVD?

I like a lot of movies; I like a lot of DVDs. I couldn't pick one. But 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' I had watched many times and I'm a big fan of Dreyer's work. There are very few directors that I would say I like everything he's done -- he's definitely at the top of the list. He was so ahead of his time in a way and he was so subtle in a lot of ways. He broke rules in obvious and not so obvious ways and he had such a searing realism to his work."

 

Read the entire interview with Mortensen here.