Jorgen Leth Collection 22-29: Portraetfilmene / Film Portraits, download for free

Jun07

Jorgen Leth Collection 22-29: Portraetfilmene / Film Portraits

by movieworld on June 7th, 2016 at 02:14

The fifth DVD box set in the Jorgen Leth Collection comprises the Portraits, a collective term that, with a bit of goodwill, can be stretched to cover all eight films in the set. They range far – from ballet to Danish literature and sports. In this box set, we find Leth’s ballet films about the dancer Peter Martins and the Bournonville steps and tradition alongside literary portraits of the Danish authors Klaus Rifbjerg and Soren Ulrik Thomsen, plus a many-headed portrait of illustrious Danish writers from H.A. Brorson to Michael Strunge, and, finally, his films about sports icons, the footballer Michael Laudrup and the boxer Ayub Kalule.

In all three areas, the filmmaker strives to portray people and situations by zeroing in on the creative process itself. In fact, this could be a header for Jorgen Leth’s entire work. His fascination with the creative process and an individual’s work with his material, the will to transcend one’s limitations to achieve the sublime, is a clear and recurrent theme. It’s evident in Laudrup’s virtuosic ball-handling, in Thomsen reading his poetry and elaborating on the nature of poetry and the form of poems, and in Martin using his body and intellect to translate the language of choreography into movement through space, giving shape to the sublime by putting in the hours in the rehearsal studio.

The filmmaker’s fascination reins him in. In the way he shapes his fascination through objective detachment and a formalist approach, we recognise the method of anthropological observation that is such a strong thread in Leth’s works.

2 x DVD9 + DVD5 | PAL | 389 min. | 7.33 Gb + 4.27 Gb + 7.62 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Dansk
Subtitles: English, Dansk
Genre: Documentary

DVD 1
22. Peter Daniels - en danser / Peter Martins: A Dancer (1978), 54'
23. At danse Bournonville / Dancing Bournonville (1979), 52'
24. Step on Silence (1981), 58'

DVD 2
25. Klaus Rifbjerg (1974), 22'
26. Dansk litteratur / Danish Literature (1989), 44'
27. Jeg er levende - Soren Ulrik Thomsen, digter / I'm Alive. Soren Ulrik Thomsen: A Danish Poet (1999), 40'

DVD 3
28. Kalule (1979), 57'
29. Michael Laudrup - en fodboldspiller / Michael Laudrup: A Football Player (1993), 74'
--. Leth om Laudrup / Leth on Laudrup (2008), 40'