A Danish critic said to me one day, “I have the impression that there are at least six of your films that are stylistically completely different, one from the other.” That moved me, for that is something I really tried to do: to find a style that has value for only a single film.

Imagine that we are sitting in an ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind the door. In an instant, the room we are sitting in is completely altered: everything in it has taken on another look. The light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because we have changed and the objects are as we conceive them. That is the effect I want to get in my film.

—Carl Theodor Dreyer