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| Asta and Valdemar - great Danes |
I realised that this woman was the first artist in the medium of film. *
Seasons like this only come round once in a blue moon, at
least for the silent cineaste. Not since the Weimar season have so many silent
treats been gathered together in the UK and here, we have dozens of films
featuring Asta Nielsen mostly made before 1920 and pre-dating living memory.
For this we have the BFI and programmer/historian/Astavangelist Pamela Hutchinson
to thank and, if you see this woman, please buy her a drink and a vegan cupcake!
Nielsen too cannot be lauded enough, being one of the
major players who developed the nascent art of screen playacting, but also one
of the first genuine stars, acting and producing with a global appeal albeit
with a bigger impact in Europe than across the Atlantic. Before Asta, few took
the time to casually swat flies away sat in a sunny café or otherwise relished
the miniature pleasures of the moments between “lines”, whether flies there
were or not this helps create the impression of reality. She presents drama in
as natural and relatable way as any modern performer and her pact between
character and audience remains as unbreakable as when she first swivelled her
hips in leather skirt.
A graduate of the Royal Danish Theatre who had spent most
of her twenties in rep with various companies, Nielsen made her screen debut
with Urban Gad's sensational Afgrunden in 1910. The Black Dream (Det
sorte Drøm) was her second film with husband-to-be Urban and followed
similar themes of love, sex and retribution: in the end lives must be at stake
for miss-spent passion... we’re years away from the culture of getting away
with it all.
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| Asta arrives on horseback |
Asta plays a circus performer, Stella, who rides horses
acrobatically in front of her adoring public and Gad shows this is very
economical ways with Asta riding her horse into a foreshortened area set,
rising to acclaim in a single take with no camera movement… bigger budgets were
soon to come you two! Nielsen’s leggy costume is a world away from Griffiths’ Victorian
waifs and this is a real woman (on a very real horse) willowy and probably taller
than average? There’s no tale of the tape on Wikipedia but we want to know, don’t
we?
Stella is being pursued by the scheming toff Aldolf Hirsch
(Gunnar Helsengreen) but her true love is Johann Graf von Waldberg (Valdemar
Psilander, the other great Dane of early cinema who died tragically young). Hirsch
forces himself on Stella and is knocked to the ground by Johann. Hirsch
challenges him to a card duel and, presumably cheating, leaves him defeated and
in debt. Unable to raise the money, Johann considers suicide only to be stopped
by Stella who has a plan to save them if she can steal pearls from Hirsch for
Johann to sell and clear his debt.
It's a long shot but it just might work…
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| This scene alone is worth studying for the amount of expression Asta puts in... |
There are very few intertitles here, barely half a dozen and this puts the onus on director and actors to tell the story. That they manage this with such subtlety and impact is impressive given the vintage. Asta Nielsen plays a large part in this but Gad was also a ground breaker in his own right with his well-paced narratives, surprising range of shots and compositional sense (...around the streets, the actors, the horse... Die Asta!). This film also has an abundance of exterior shots (including some with a window-full of fascinated on-lookers!) that give a great view of contemporary Copenhagen not to mention curious locals who pop up around the edges of the action.
Asta is also featured in an array of beautiful costumes,
she was a clothes horse and whilst not being a conventional beauty, is positively
protean acting sexy in such a relaxed way breaking ground and the fourth wall
whilst still in character, luring the viewer in without the need for a nod or
wink. Her looks were a debating point at the time, certainly in Denmark where
her dark colouring and slenderness did not conform to some standards. Indeed,
one Carl Theodor Dreyer was particularly cruel writing that she “… truly has
some terribly unfortunate features. She is lanky and overgrown, flat like an
ironing board in back, flat-chested and with no calves to speak of…” **
Luckily for Asta the rest of Europe begged to differ and
she was – literally - the shape of things to come. Besides, even if some male
gazes were less impressed, Asta loved the camera and the optical device loved
her back… sincerity is the sexiest look of all.
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| THAT foot up on the bed... nothing happens without consideration |
By the time of The Film Primadonna (1913), Asta was
established as a superstar and this film, directed and written again by Mr
Nielsen, sees her playing a huge film star, Ruth Breton, a post-modern, meta
move with modern equivalents abounding from A Hard Day’s Night to Spice
World. It’s great to see the studios and the set up as sequences are filmed
and Asta part directs and walks confidently across stage preparing for her
exit. Then we see the reddened dark room and the production lab with Ruth
studies the rushes and calls out bad lighting.
Sadly, only less than a quarter of the film survives but
we have most of the first reel that shows Stella as a slightly controlling and
flighty woman, encouraging the endeavours of screenwriter and actor Walter Heim
(Fritz Weidemann) for her own ends. Walter is useful as far as he goes but Ruth
starts to become attracted to a Count von Zornhorst (Paul Otto) and… the film
ends with the restoration pleading for further information should anyone know
where to find the film.
Here's hoping as it’s a good-looking film and we get to
see Asta acting as Ruth but also as Ruth acting as a blonde woman made good
judging from the rags in the early scenes.
Costas Fotopoulos accompanied both films with assured and lovely lines, in touch with tone and narrative pace. I wonder what affect Asta has on the players improvising for these films... there's surely some unique alchemy at play in following her lead and we love to hear it.
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| Asta's Ruth paying attention to every detail |
We may be short on the ending here but there’s PLENTY
more to come and the Asta Nielsen season continues through February and March
and full details are available on the BFI site where you can, and must, reserve
your tickets!
*German producer Paul Davidson who signed contracted
Asta for a massive $80,000 a year in 1911, a stunning amount for the time
(millions in modern terms) for an actress who had made just a few films. He was
spot on.
** Julie K Allen in Importing Asta Nielsen: The
International Film Star in the Making 1910-1914 (Kintop Studies in Early
Cinema) who also confirms that the actress got just $200 for Afgrunden… a
film she made only hoping to enhance her profile for theatrical roles.
PS Also worth checking out The Black Dream on the
Danish Film Institute site which looks in much better quality than my old DVD.
Bonus screen shots!!
The Film Primadonna
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