#TheyAlso… Claire (1924), Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney

Lya De Putti

Good programming from the Bioscope tonight with two films variously entitled Passions of Men and The Woman Always Pays… even in the early years there were important social questions being raised especially in Europe, in this case Germany and Denmark.

What a year it’s been for Weimar Cinema and out of the blue comes a rarity to Kennington extracted by Bioscope stalwart Tony Fletcher from the BFI archives – not lost but certainly a film that hasn’t been seen for some time.

Directed by Robert Dinesen, Claire (aka Passions of Men), stars the incredibly watchable Lya de Putti, the sharpest profile in Berlin with pencil-thin eyebrows capping sublime arches over eyes flickering the deepest darkest black… There’s something about Lya and that’s exactly what this film is about as the plot is essentially a story of her efforts to evade unwanted male attention; that might be a proto-feminist theme and it’s certainly not the only film of this period dealing in man’s inhumanity to woman.

Frida Richard playing another mum in The Path of Grete Lessen (1919)

Claire lives with a rich older man (Eduard von Winterstein, Claudius in Asta’s Hamlet) who has taken her in along with her mother (Frida Richard, who played the manically possessive mother in Lupu Pick’s New Year’s Eve aka Sylvester (1924)) with the aim of marrying her – he’s over fifty and she’s just twenty which means she was about sixteen when he made an offer that couldn’t be refused. The film repeatedly has Claire “facing the World” – a woman with little power and reliant on the kindness of male strangers.

Claire is, however, made of stern stuff and refuses the old man’s take it or leave it offer, leading the old buzzard to turf both her and her mother out immediately. He soon relents and chases after them on horseback in terrific shots along a snowy lane lined as far as the eye can see by winter trees. He loses the women and falls off his horse, losing the use of his legs in the process.

Eduard von Winterstein - a face made for drama

Claire gets a job as a poorly paid administrator whilst her mother grows increasingly frail in their one-room apartment. They can’t afford to eat properly and the old woman collapses and is almost gassed for want of a decent meal. A kindly Doctor (Theodor Loos) helps and even waves his fee after Claire tells him they can’t afford him again. Claire attendance at work is affected by her mother’s plight and she is dismissed by her boss unless that is, she would like to make up for her tardiness in kind.

On her way home she catches the eye of a con artist (Erich Kaiser-Titz) who spies the chance to romance only to have his plans interrupted by the police. He makes a break for it and hides thousands of Marks worth of forged notes in Claire’s bag. Claire gets arrested trying to buy her mother a chicken for supper… but has a lucky break when the police commander believes her story even when she opens her purse to reveal the rotten notes.

By the time she gets home her mother has passed away and, alone in the world as the Doctor says, accepts his kind offer of work as his assistant. The two go close and she frets over the visits of a woman who turns out o be his sister. The film could end with their embrace and the Doctor’s highly prominent hair fetish – he just can’t stroke it enough – where it not for the surprisingly early release of the forger.

Theodor Loos in kindly Doctor mode

This is where the plot gets a little convoluted when he works out where Claire lives and – successfully - tries to drive a wedge between her and the Doctor. Claire’s options begin to narrow but, as she has done all along, she refuses to sacrifice her independence and morality and, after a chance encounter, meets her former master’s son (Eberhard Leithoff) who pleads with her to return and look after him as his mental and physical health declines.

Trouble is, the old fellow is still infatuated with Claire and he has the gun in his pocket to prove it! Will Claire’s luck finally run out – I know it doesn’t sound like she’s had much – or is there one more twist to prevent the woman from paying?

Claire is convoluted fun and John Sweeney enlightened the narrative with romantic flourishes and dramatic interventions that ensured we were firmly focused on the extraordinary expressiveness of Lya. Michell Facey introduced and told of the Hungarian actress’ success in Germany – including Variety and her off-screen/in-trailer relationship with Emil Jannings – before she tried her luck in Hollywood. She couldn’t sustain success there and died tragically young after surgery to remove a chicken bone led to infection. By coincidence tonight was the anniversary of her death in 1931.

Asta on the tram

Claire was a rather calming experience after the Bioscope audience was left shaken and rather stirred by young Asta Nielsen’s outrageously sexual dancing in Afgrunden (1910). Colin Sell ventured that the actress might have had control of her costume design because the fabric used could hardly have been more revealing as she writhed her way around circus cowboy (Poul Reumert) in a deliberate, distended demonstration of dominance over her bound “captive”. Syncopated BDSM with a beat and a swing... as it were.

The alternate title for this film is The Woman Always Pays and even as early as 1910, Asta was questioning why this should be with a character who is dependent on male patronage and who cannot be free of the “male passions” that plague Lya too. They were making sophisticated films for women as well as men and you can only wonder what Die Asta – the first true European film star along with Max Linder – did for her sisters over this time?

She is famously one of the inventors of screen acting and her ability to express cinematically – nuanced and naturalistic – is something to behold. On the big screen she’s stunning, using fine-motor physical control that, as Angela Dalle Vacche has said, seemed to anticipate the close-up's subliminal impact.

Colin Sell accompanied with remarkably steady hands despite the on-screen excitement and combined so well with this remarkably advanced film which, blemishes aside, stands as one of the pinnacles of early European cinema.

"And she can dance..."

Asta is born... The Black Dream (1911) and The Ballet Dancer (1911)

In 1911 Asta Nielsen was contracted to German producer Paul Davidson for a massive $80,000 a year, a stunning amount for the time (millions in modern terms) for an actress who had made just a few features.

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 Afgrunden in 1910. This film caused a sensation with Nielsen's unabashed potrayal of a woman who follows her impulse to run off with a cowboy from a travelling circus. The film, discussed elsewhere on this blog, is striking when compared with most others I've seen from this period - naturalistic, quite daring and culminating in the famous eye-popping dance routine that wouldn't have made the cut even in pre-code Hollywood.

Nielsen's next two films, The Ballet Dancer (Balletdanserinden) and The Black Dream (Det sorte Drøm) both from 1911, followed similar themes of love, sex and retribution: in the end someone has to pay for passion miss-spent.

The Ballet Dancer was directed by August Blom and features Asta as Camille, a dancer who wins a role in a play after the lead actress is taken ill. The play is shot from the side of the stage and Asta is right at home in showing the closing scene and taking the applause from the unseen audience. After recently watching her in Hamlet and Joyless Street, Nielsen looks so young (not quite 30 at the time) and is full of energy - she knew the exhilaration of performance well and is out of time in her ability to act naturalistically on screen.

Then there is a scene in which Camille is at an outdoor cafe with the playwright, Jean (Johannes Poulsen) with whom she has begun an affair. She sits, wearing an outrageous butterfly hat and chats away exuberantly whilst swatting away the occasional fly; such a natural thing to do but neatly improvised by Nielsen. Whether flies there were or not this helps create the impression of reality.

As Paul Wegener later said, she was able to show "...the unforced quality of natural events", a rare ability in any age and genuinely amazing to find in a 100 year old film.

This is a rich little tale of complicated bohemian love... Camille agrees to be painted by Paul (Valdemar Psilander), who swiftly falls for her whilst Jean starts seeing Yvette the wife of the aristocratic Simon Pentier.

Blom's direction is as assured as Urban Gad's and again this film shows us an authentic slice of pre-war Danish life with some well-dressed scenary and a stunning range of costumery for Ms Nielsen - I'm no expert on fashion but the opulence of the dresses, hats and coats places this closer to the vibrant twenties than the dour noughties.

In spite of his betrayal, Camille tries to cover for Jean's indiscretions as Simon comes looking for satisfaction and revenge: not everyone can get out of this one alive!

Nielsen escalates the emotional intensity as things reach a climax. She goes into what she described as a kind of trance state as, overcome by the drama, her character's mind races into overdrive. This was her way of pulling the audience towards her and making us work out her thoughts in synchronised sympathy. "I realised that one had to detach oneself completely from one’s surroundings in order to be able to perform an important scene in a dramatic film...." she said later. It's more than a neat trick and it is still working a century later.

There's more forward-thinking acting in The Black Dream, her second film with husband-to-be Urban Gad. This film has an abundance of exterior shots (including some with a window-full of fascinated on-lookers!) that give a great view of contemporary Copenhagen.

There are very few intertitles in any of these films, but this one can have barely half a dozen. This puts the onus on director and actors to tell the story. That they manage this with such subtlety and impact is impressive especially given that this is 1910-11.

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... Die Asta!).

Story-wise, the The Black Dream is another tale of love, jealousy and, ultimately violence. Asta plays a circus performer, Stella, who rides horses acrobatically in front of her adoring public. She is pursued by the scheming Aldolf Hirsch (Gunnar Helsengreen) but her true love is Johann Graf von Waldberg (Valdemar Psilander).

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 deafeted and in debt. Unable to raise the money, Johann considers suicide only to be stopped by Stella who has a plan to save them. Will it work or will the evil Hirsch win out?

These are three strong and progressive films that show cinema finding its feet surprisingly early. They also show just why Asta Nielsen became a European phenomena so quickly.

From this point on most of her films were German and, the one remaining danish exception, Towards the Light (Mod Lyset) from 1919, is also included in the Danish Film Institute's DVD set that I watched. It's available from the DFI direct or from BFI and other good retailers.

For those of you who want a poorer quality freebie... Afgrunden is now available for download free from the Internet Archive. But, seriously, don't bother with that, get the best possible quality you can, it's worth it to view one of the greatest performers of the silent era.

Asta be the best actress... Afgrunden (1910)

Asta Nielsen was the amongst the first "theatricals" with the skill to moderate their expression for the confines of the new cinematic medium.

She was also one of the first truly international film stars and, as such, was voted the best female actress in a poll of Russian film fans in 1915. She later went on to play Hamlet in the 1920 film directed by Svend Gade and Heinz Schall and to feature in Pabst's 1925 classic "Die freudlose Gasse" ("The Joyless Street") in which she was cast way "over-age" but still managed to more than match the luminescent Garbo.

"Afgrunden", released in 1910 when she was in her late 20's, shows more clearly why european audiences loved her. Directed by future husand, Urban Gad, it tells the story of Magda, who is torn between her solid and reliable fiance and an exciting and distinctly un-reliable Cowboy from a travelling circus.

Passions run high and Magda just can't prevent her self from being stuck in the gap between her love for the two men. Things culminate in the infamous and saucy Gaga-esque dance performed by Magda in leather skirt, with her cowboy restrained by lassoo. It's eye-popping stuff for the period and gives a clear view of a world not unlike our own...

Another standout scene is at the films' start when Magda travels by tram and meets her fiance for the first time. Asta's realism and the clever camerawork show us another piercing glimpse of the world as it was and still is.

Afgrunden is viewable on youtube but there's also a DVD box set including three other films from this period from the Danish Film Institute which is recommended.