R.I.P. Henning Bendtsen
Henning Bendtsen obituary
Cinematographer with a cool, austere style who
linked the eras of Dreyer and Von Trier
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 17 February 2011 18.09 GMT
If the Danish cinematographer Henning Bendtsen,
who has died aged 85, had shot nothing else but
Carl Dreyer's final masterpieces, Ordet (The
Word, 1955) and Gertrud (1964), he would have
been entitled to a place in the pantheon of
cinema. Although he shot 57 features, it was his
collaboration with the saintly Dreyer on these
two films which conferred an enviable eminence on him.
"It turned out to be a very harmonious
collaboration between Dreyer and me, which always
will be the most valuable association I have
experienced within my profession," Bendtsen
recalled. "We quickly connected with each other,
both as professionals and as humans."
As can be seen in Ordet and Gertrud, it is clear
that Bendtsen understood what Dreyer meant by
"realised mysticism". The contrasting tonality of
lighting both reflects and creates the moods
within the same frame, resulting in an almost
hypnotic atmosphere of stillness so that each
image could continue to exist as an eye-catching still.
Born in Copenhagen, the son of a professor of
German, Bendtsen wanted to be a cinematographer
from childhood. As there were no schools of
cinematography in the early 1940s in
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/denmark>Denmark,
he studied to become a photographer. However, he
managed, aged 21, to get a job as camera operator
at the Minerva studios, for which he shot several
shorts and documentaries before moving on to
Palladium films, where he stayed until 1958.
By 1954 Bendtsen had progressed to director of
photography when it was announced that Dreyer was
going to make Ordet at Palladium. At the time,
Bendtsen was shooting Escape from Terror, an
American co-production in English, starring and
directed (with his brother George) by the former
child star Jackie Coogan. Disastrous as the red
scare spy thriller was, it still stands as the
first Danish feature film in colour.
Ordet, a tale of miraculous resurrection brought
about by love, is an extraordinary expression of
spiritual optimism. By then, Dreyer's cool,
austere style, with sharp matte blacks and
luminous whites, had begun to rely more on a
series of leisurely long takes and travelling shots.
A decade would pass before Dreyer made Gertrud,
but there was no doubt that Bendtsen would be his
DP again. Gertrud, the portrait of a woman who
aspires to an ideal and unattainable notion of
love, takes the form of a series of duologues
photographed with an almost immobile camera and
immensely long takes. "When we shot Ordet, Dreyer
was very impressed with my tracking shots, with
how long I could make them last," explained Bendtsen.
"I think for Dreyer it was a very interesting
technical development, so in Gertrud, we used a
lot of tracking shots. I remember very clearly
how I often had to politely make him aware that
we were running out of film, after shooting for
11 minutes, which was the maximum reel length.
There was another problem. Because the script
wasn't divided into scenes, but more like one
unbroken string of action, I couldn't put the
fill light anywhere. The fill light is your
secondary light, the light you use to soften up
the edges created by the key light. It was solved
by simply putting this 2kw light on top of the
camera. That was one hell of a job, because we
had to regulate the brightness of the light,
depending on how far from the lens the actors would be."
The film was ill-received at the Cannes festival
and on its release by those with a limited
definition of action. The action here was in the
stylised performances, the dialogue and the
harmony between image and sound, creating a film
of exceptional intensity, warmth and serenity,
achieved with the help of chamber music.
Between the two Dreyer films, Bendtsen was just a
cameraman for hire, shooting anything that came
his way, many being commercial comedies and soapy
dramas, strictly for local consumption. Among the
exceptions was Astrid Henning-Jensen's Paw
(1959), the adventures of a 12-year-old
mixed-race boy in Denmark, which was nominated
for the best foreign film Oscar, and for which
Bendtsen won the Bodil (the top Danish film award) for his colour photography.
After Dreyer, Bendtsen continued in the same way,
working for journeyman directors, apart from
Gabriel Axel and Lars von Trier. For the former,
Bendtsen shot The Red Mantle (1967), based on a
Scandinavian medieval legend, filmed entirely on
location in Iceland. According to the critic
Roger Ebert, "the photography places us so firmly
in the breathtaking lonely vastness of Iceland
that we can believe only heroes could inhabit
this land … From scenes of conflict, the camera
often looks up to unbroken panoramas of
mountains, ice, mist and tough green vegetation."
In contrast, for Von Trier, Bendtsen had to shoot
the experimental medical horror movie Epidemic
(1987) on a very tight budget (£100,000) in
grainy black and white in 16mm, and in colour,
enlarged to 35mm. Von Trier's Europa (1991),
Bendtsen's last picture, was set in 1945 Germany,
and filmed in black and white and muted colour,
using double-exposures, optical effects and trick
photography, placing the characters inside a
many-layered visual universe. One memorable scene
is a suicide in a bath, where the monochrome
background is suddenly flooded with blood. A
direct link between Dreyer and Von Trier was
forged with Bendtsen as the intermediary. In
addition, after the shooting of Gertrud, Dreyer
gave Bendtsen his tuxedo – the one he wore in
Venice when he received the Golden Lion for
Ordet. Bendtsen then passed it on to Von Trier.
"It fits me like a glove," said the director.
Bendtsen is survived by his wife, Inger, whom he married in 1981.
• Henning Bendtsen, cinematographer, born 6 March 1925; died 8 February 2011
Cinematographer with a cool, austere style who
linked the eras of Dreyer and Von Trier
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 17 February 2011 18.09 GMT
If the Danish cinematographer Henning Bendtsen,
who has died aged 85, had shot nothing else but
Carl Dreyer's final masterpieces, Ordet (The
Word, 1955) and Gertrud (1964), he would have
been entitled to a place in the pantheon of
cinema. Although he shot 57 features, it was his
collaboration with the saintly Dreyer on these
two films which conferred an enviable eminence on him.
"It turned out to be a very harmonious
collaboration between Dreyer and me, which always
will be the most valuable association I have
experienced within my profession," Bendtsen
recalled. "We quickly connected with each other,
both as professionals and as humans."
As can be seen in Ordet and Gertrud, it is clear
that Bendtsen understood what Dreyer meant by
"realised mysticism". The contrasting tonality of
lighting both reflects and creates the moods
within the same frame, resulting in an almost
hypnotic atmosphere of stillness so that each
image could continue to exist as an eye-catching still.
Born in Copenhagen, the son of a professor of
German, Bendtsen wanted to be a cinematographer
from childhood. As there were no schools of
cinematography in the early 1940s in
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/denmark>Denmark,
he studied to become a photographer. However, he
managed, aged 21, to get a job as camera operator
at the Minerva studios, for which he shot several
shorts and documentaries before moving on to
Palladium films, where he stayed until 1958.
By 1954 Bendtsen had progressed to director of
photography when it was announced that Dreyer was
going to make Ordet at Palladium. At the time,
Bendtsen was shooting Escape from Terror, an
American co-production in English, starring and
directed (with his brother George) by the former
child star Jackie Coogan. Disastrous as the red
scare spy thriller was, it still stands as the
first Danish feature film in colour.
Ordet, a tale of miraculous resurrection brought
about by love, is an extraordinary expression of
spiritual optimism. By then, Dreyer's cool,
austere style, with sharp matte blacks and
luminous whites, had begun to rely more on a
series of leisurely long takes and travelling shots.
A decade would pass before Dreyer made Gertrud,
but there was no doubt that Bendtsen would be his
DP again. Gertrud, the portrait of a woman who
aspires to an ideal and unattainable notion of
love, takes the form of a series of duologues
photographed with an almost immobile camera and
immensely long takes. "When we shot Ordet, Dreyer
was very impressed with my tracking shots, with
how long I could make them last," explained Bendtsen.
"I think for Dreyer it was a very interesting
technical development, so in Gertrud, we used a
lot of tracking shots. I remember very clearly
how I often had to politely make him aware that
we were running out of film, after shooting for
11 minutes, which was the maximum reel length.
There was another problem. Because the script
wasn't divided into scenes, but more like one
unbroken string of action, I couldn't put the
fill light anywhere. The fill light is your
secondary light, the light you use to soften up
the edges created by the key light. It was solved
by simply putting this 2kw light on top of the
camera. That was one hell of a job, because we
had to regulate the brightness of the light,
depending on how far from the lens the actors would be."
The film was ill-received at the Cannes festival
and on its release by those with a limited
definition of action. The action here was in the
stylised performances, the dialogue and the
harmony between image and sound, creating a film
of exceptional intensity, warmth and serenity,
achieved with the help of chamber music.
Between the two Dreyer films, Bendtsen was just a
cameraman for hire, shooting anything that came
his way, many being commercial comedies and soapy
dramas, strictly for local consumption. Among the
exceptions was Astrid Henning-Jensen's Paw
(1959), the adventures of a 12-year-old
mixed-race boy in Denmark, which was nominated
for the best foreign film Oscar, and for which
Bendtsen won the Bodil (the top Danish film award) for his colour photography.
After Dreyer, Bendtsen continued in the same way,
working for journeyman directors, apart from
Gabriel Axel and Lars von Trier. For the former,
Bendtsen shot The Red Mantle (1967), based on a
Scandinavian medieval legend, filmed entirely on
location in Iceland. According to the critic
Roger Ebert, "the photography places us so firmly
in the breathtaking lonely vastness of Iceland
that we can believe only heroes could inhabit
this land … From scenes of conflict, the camera
often looks up to unbroken panoramas of
mountains, ice, mist and tough green vegetation."
In contrast, for Von Trier, Bendtsen had to shoot
the experimental medical horror movie Epidemic
(1987) on a very tight budget (£100,000) in
grainy black and white in 16mm, and in colour,
enlarged to 35mm. Von Trier's Europa (1991),
Bendtsen's last picture, was set in 1945 Germany,
and filmed in black and white and muted colour,
using double-exposures, optical effects and trick
photography, placing the characters inside a
many-layered visual universe. One memorable scene
is a suicide in a bath, where the monochrome
background is suddenly flooded with blood. A
direct link between Dreyer and Von Trier was
forged with Bendtsen as the intermediary. In
addition, after the shooting of Gertrud, Dreyer
gave Bendtsen his tuxedo – the one he wore in
Venice when he received the Golden Lion for
Ordet. Bendtsen then passed it on to Von Trier.
"It fits me like a glove," said the director.
Bendtsen is survived by his wife, Inger, whom he married in 1981.
• Henning Bendtsen, cinematographer, born 6 March 1925; died 8 February 2011