Die Asta Blues... Dora Brandes (1916)/Poor Jenny (1912) with Stephen Horne, BFI Asta Nielsen Season

She acts, that’s the thing… she does not just pose before the camera… She impersonates a character, she makes it live and have meaning, a hundred meanings…

 

Once more unto the BFI to take my place in seat A11 and marvel at the depth of talent possessed by Asta Nielsen. I’ve seen Asta before but mostly in her greatest hits, Hamlet (thrice), Joyless Street (twice), Afgrunden (so many times…) but it’s a real connoisseur’s delight to be able to dig deep into a body of work that is very rarely screened in this breadth and depth. Tonight, there we four different films showcasing her dramatic skills as well as the more madcap, melodramatic moral tales and Asta as a businesswoman, entirely summarising the future in both subject and performance.

 

As you watch you can begin to fully understand just why she was so popular and it’s that rare occurrence when star quality is fully deserving of the adoration because Asta was, as has been noted so many times, developing the art of screen acting as she went. In her programme notes, season curator Pamela Hutchinson notes how Asta was the pin up for both sides in the Great War and even in the USA, where her films often fell foul of censorship, the New York Times critic gave the rave review quoted at the top in 1921.

 

Asta the clothes horse in one of Dora's posh frocks

Whilst, if she had socks, they’d be strewn all over the floor by the end of each film, Asta has something deeper and her ability to connect is almost unparalleled in this era. So often at the start of her films, she’s seen smiling straight to the audience before the action begins, melting hearts and renewing her intimacy with the watchers and unflinching honest look, the only time she’s out of character, or at least the character she’s about to play. As a person she’s a mystery and her pre-show smiles just hint at the complexity to come whilst showing how easily she can draw us in… it only takes a few seconds looking at those huge dark eyes.

 

So, it proved with some of the scenarios she worked with and as Hutchinson recounts, Asta made a joke of the minimalistic scripts she was given and was then able to expand with her uncanny expressiveness. No were else in London can you find anything like what we’re now seeing… nothing as pure as the crafting of some of the first interior monologues on screen. Asta has the blues but no one's ever expressed them in such a physical way... she draws you in and leaves you drained.

 

Directed by Magnus Stifter, following her break with husband/director/writer Urban Gad, Dora Brandes is a melodrama that plays with the already well-worn Star is Born tropes. Asta plays the titular Dora, a successful actress who finds herself having to chose between an older man, politician Grev d'Albert (Max Laurance) and a much younger journalist, Gustav Calvia (Ludwig Trautmann).

 

Asta with Ludwig Trautmann

d’Albert is to be sorely disappointed as she choses the man at the start of his career and the two live in bliss albeit in an increasingly hard to fund happy home, with Dora having retired from the stage. Gustav has political ambition of his own though but lacks the funds to make a go of it, he asks d’Albert for financial help but is refused. Dora makes the fateful decision to ask the old man herself, knowing that he still holds a candle and thinking only of her love’s future. She tells Gustav she got the money by selling jewellery and, none the wiser, he proceeds to get elected as an MP.

 

Only a chance encounter with d’Albert in a club as he celebrates his win, reveals the truth to Gustav - d’Albert has a signed letter from Dora to prove she accepted the money. This is too much for the young man and he returns home and kicks Dora out…

 

So, high on pride and ambition, Gustav continues to make his way as Dora drifts down into an alcoholic underworld. It is only years later when he and d’Albert end up on opposing sides and the old man threatens to expose his secret that Dora reaches out to her old friends… it’s not too late to save honour, love and career is it?

Asta and Leo Peukert in Poor Jenny

Poor Jenny (1912) was from the early days of the Asta series written and directed with Urban Gad who the actress insisted at the time came with her to Germany to carry on the work begun with Afgrunden. It’s a more typical rags to riches and rags again narrative but, as she joked, this was more than enough to feed her dramatic energy.

 

Another striking point is how different the actress looks in these productions, here she starts off with a centre parting and simple plaits and looks so different from Dora. Her protean qualities were reinforced by her slim figure and atypicality… she was a clothes horse, physically expressive with long fingers and a dancer’s grace whilst her strong, largely regular features could be varied so much by make-up and, her look.

 

Asta Nielsen is Jenny Schmidt, a poor cleaner who meets a wealthy man Eduard Reinhold (Leo Peukert) returning home after a long night out as she scrubs his stairs. Eduard impulsively kisses her and agrees to meet her the next day. The date goes well, too well, and despite resistance, Jenny is led inside Eduard’s flat only to return home the next day with explaining to do. She’s thrown out by her father (Emil Albes) and, ends up being a kept woman.

 

Pride coming before the fall

Falling out with Eduard, she finds another lover Kellner Fritz Hellmann (Hans Staufen) and there’s a superb sequence for city spotters, on the top of a double decker bus/tram, driving down a main street in Berlin as the two talk. It’s a stunning sight and the actors’ naturalism reinforces the window on this long-lost reality… time travel via silent film. Such happiness cannot last though, Jenny is outside of accepted society and she will not be able to rely on the good faith of such men for ever.

 

Stephen Horne accompanied with subtlety and variety using piano and flute. With an actor who absorbs more concentrated attention than most the music follows Asta’s lead and there were many poignant lines along with a thunderous run of repeated scales that would have done Philip Glass proud as the climax was reached for Dora.

There was also an excellent recorded introduction from Julie Allen, Professor of Comparative Arts and Letters at Brigham Young University in Utah. Nielsen is a performer of world historic importance and we should count ourselves so lucky at this moment: do not miss her!

The Asta Nielsen season continues apace through to March, full details are on the BFI site. 

Jenny in the bar about to hear very bad news...

Asta also chomps a mean cigar!

Only Gish comes close in terms of the physical demonstration of emotional trauma.