"If there is one film in the canon of Carl Theodor Dreyer that can be said to be, as Jacques Lacan might have put it, his most "painfully enjoyable," it is Gertrud. The film's Paris premier in 1964 was covered by the Danish press as a national scandal; it was lambasted on its release for its lugubrious pace, wooden acting, and old-fashioned, stuffy milieu. To make vivid just what was at stake for Dreyer, and still for us, in his final work, James Schamus follows a trail of references and allusions back through a number of thinkers and artists to reveal the richness and depth of Dreyer's work. Gertrud serves as a locus for Dreyer's twin fixations - on written texts, and on the heroines who both embody and free themselves from them. "--Jacket.