 Dreyer returned to France to begin casting and location scouting . At the time in France , there was a small movement of artistic independently financed films , including Luis Buñuel 's L 'Âge d 'Or and Jean Cocteau 's The Blood of a Poet which were both released in 1930 . Through Valentine Hugo , Dreyer met Nicolas de Gunzburg , an aristocrat who agreed to finance Dreyer 's next film in return for playing the lead role in it . <unk> had arguments with his family about becoming an actor , so he created the pseudonym Julian West , a name that would be the same in all three languages that the film was going to be shot in . 
