Asta talks! Impossible Love (1932), BFI Asta Nielsen Season

Three women: Ery Bos, Asta Nielsen and Ellen Schwanneke

It looks good from far away, just like me…

 

It’s no coincidence that the very first thing we see Asta Nielsen do in her first and only talkie is to put her finger to her lips to shush the chatter as her daughter gives a music recital. Only Die Asta could be so knowing and post-modern. She was fifty when she made this film and she looks great, lovely big smiles and gorgeous fashions, nothing like the rags of Joyless Street and, as with that film and so many others, she unrolls as stunning closing section… watching all of these films that’s one thing that stands out, the actress always left plenty in the tank for a sprint finish of audacious expression.

 

So many lines ring beyond the film, not least the one above and other’s relating to her age that she may well have improvised given their added poignance. The male characters in the film are mostly boorish and one constantly complains that a woman of her age with two grown daughters should simply resign which I took to be a mistranslation of retire but which the Kennington Bioscope’s Michelle Facey suggested was meant literally, Asta’s character being viewed by a conservative German man as wrong to still have personal ambition given her womanly responsibilities.

 

Maybe it was Asta’s age and her feeling that the parts were just drying up as younger actors swarmed. She made silent five films released in 1927 and headed off to the theatre before being lured back for Unmögliche Liebe (1932) and clearly decided that artistically that was enough and the stage would be where she would carry on before the changes in Germany forced her back to Copenhagen in 1936.

Asta Nielsen, Julius Falkenstein and Hilde Hildebrand

Directed by Erich Waschneck, Impossible Love is a little deliberate but also a very interesting film that is firmly centred on three women, sculptor and studio manager Vera Holgk (Asta), her eldest daughter Nora (Ery Bos) and youngest Toni (Ellen Schwanneke, who’d featured in the previous year’s Mädchen in Uniform). These three are the centre of the action and are largely surrounded by odd men.

 

Nora is, for some reason, in a relationship with the moneyed but foolish Leopold von Möllendorf (Anton Pointner) who, once engaged to his much younger partner, calls Vera Mutter like the man child he is, whilst also attempting to get Nora to give up the cello on the grounds that it is a most unfeminine instrument to play. He also thinks Vera should “resign” and surrender her selfish ambitions, declaring his family as “conservative” but not backward… Toni meanwhile has a relationship with a young man nearer her age, Erwin (Carl Balhaus) who works with her in a photographic studio and how is less intelligent and less realistic than she. Toni may be the youngest but she has insight and some of the film’s best lines.

 

Daftest of all is the Professor’s man servant Zimmermann (Julius Falkenstein, who, as Michelle reminded me, was so good in The Oyster Princess with Ossi Oswalda) but he’s meant to provide comedic relief and does so with practiced ease, some physical comedy, inappropriate napping and lots of outspoken lines that still cause a titter.

 

Asta still works hard on the casual details of real character

Tell me you still believe I can create great work? 

The exception to all this appears to be Professor Steinkampp (Hans Rehmann), a sculptor of repute and, even though younger, a suitor for Vera’s affections. Steinkampp pursues her with some style and then invites her to his studio to work on her own sculpture for a competition. At first, Vera, who has been running a commercial art studio, is doubtful she can still compete but with the Professor’s encouragement she is soon back in the groove, as it were. It’s a joy to watch Asta, fag in mouth and singing to herself as her character works… that’s how to use talkies for narrative continuity, her old tricks of seemingly casual distractions are accompanied by sound in this new environment. You can also see/hear the stage experience at play.

 

Vera has doubts and guilt about her growing feelings for Steinkampp and starts withholding some information from her daughters, the beginnings of a distance between them as she, for the first time in a long time, starts to put herself first. She wins the art competition and has to confess some of her new relationship but then things take a dramatic turn for the worst as Steinkampp’s old girlfriend, Martini (Hilde Hildebrand) sells her salacious story to the newspapers and all Himmel breaks loose…

 

Amidst the moral outrage, that Vera was seeing and staying with Steinkampp is the assertion that he helped her win the sculpture prize. Stuck up Möllendorf insists she responds publicly but Vera has nothing to say to the stuffed shirt and will deal with this in her manner. Nora is conflicted and leaves to stay with her man whilst Toni takes matters into her own hands to visit the newspaper and ask them to retract… she learns far more than she wants to hear.

 

A woman with agency, managing her life and business

Spoiler zone: Steinkampp is revealed to be married but his wife Katharina (Elisabeth Wendt) has lost her mind and is permanently residing in an asylum. Fair dos to the Professor, he makes sure that she is looked after and he wants a divorce but he hasn’t told Vera any of this and she is naturally devastated and, as he talks calmly with Toni about his plans to divorce and marry Vera, she is visiting Katharina… Wendt is made up like a supernatural Miss Haversham, golden hair floating around her head, a child’s mind but with enough left to know that her husband’s love is all the world to her.

 

Nieslen finally let’s rip in these circumstances and they are very powerful moments, it’s an over-egged scenario but she makes it work through all the years of skilled control and tears flow between the two. Even if Steinkampp had been completely open with Vera, how can he be forgiven this abandonment… Later, we see Asta sitting on a bench for a moment, she stands and walks into the darkness of the forest… out of life perhaps, but certainly out of film.

It's a perfect ending to her cinematic career and not dissimilar to that she confected at the end of the documentary she would direct about herself in 1968.

 

In this film, the family’s friends suggest she should just marry Steinkampp, “after all you can get married at 90 these days…” and, almost forty years later, that’s what Asta did, marrying a 70-year-old art dealer aged 88*. She didn’t let age deny her, just like Vera perhaps.

 

So, the end of a stunning season of films covering 22 years when Die Asta was the biggest movie star most people hadn’t heard of… not anymore! Thank you, BFI, programmer Pamela Hutchinson, the accompanists, archivists and all who made this happen. There’s still enough films left for a part two… just saying.

 

Julius Falkenstein and Ossi Oswalda in The Oyster Princes

*Julie K Allen of Brigham Young University, quotes the 18-year age gap in a review of Lotte Thrane's book, Maske og menneske: Asta Nielsen og hendes tid. (Copenhagen: Gads forlag 2019) in Scandinavian Studies, Volume 93, Issue 1.

She also quotes Thrane on her examination of Asta's the public and private persona: "...her mask and her private self. . . . From time to time the mask can even triumph over the physical face upon which the mask is based, so that it alone is visible - and is therefore mistaken for the person..."

Looking froward to an english translation of this book... 

Jenny from the dock... Docks of Hamburg (1928), with Stephen Horne, Cambridge Film Festival 2019

"I love you. For the first time, I love someone. And I do not care about everything else…"

Emmanuel College was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I and as you walk past the dining hall, originally the chapel of a Dominican Friary, (replaced by a building commissioned from some bloke called Sir Christopher Wren), you’re so immersed in the atmosphere that a late twenties silent film feels positively futuristic.

The silent film experience is that magical mix of venue, audience, music and film and all are inter-active and malleable even the feeling on screen. Emmanuel’s theatre is a modern building tucked to one side of the graceful old quads and it provides a perfect place to focus the mind, comfortable seats, warm wooden finish and a Steinway grand for Stephen Horne to play with.

Ace Weimar programmer, Margaret Deriaz, introduced with a natural warmth and enthusiasm few lecturers present; silent film is like a continuing educational programme for the historically-fascinated and these films are unique primary sources that we not only read but experience in places like this and with accompanists offering emotionally rich audio commentary.

As Margaret said, Stephen Horne has an affinity with Weimar film and that can only come from decades of accompaniment and research into the area. Margaret herself is one of the leading experts on this period of cinema and earlier this year programmed a superb series of Weimar films at the BFI: one of the best I can remember.  

Stellen Sie sich in einem Boot auf einem Fluss vor...

Directed by Erich Waschneck with much excellent cinematography from Friedl Behn-Grund, Docks of Hamburg is rich with location shots of the docks and the St Pauli district, providing a view of Germany’s most vibrant port before the War re-arranged things and the Beatles arrived 30 years later. There’s also an audacious travelling shot of Willy Fritsch’s character as he walks through the docks in search of his Jenny… it prefigures neorealism and so much film of the early Beatle era.

The interiors and sleaze of St Paulis were also, as Margaret pointed out, the result of Alfred Junge’s production design. He had also worked for Ewald André Dupont on Moulin Rouge and Piccadilly and was to enjoy a long career including working in Britain with Powell and Pressburger as production designer on Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I’m Going, A Matter of Life and Death and Black Narcissus. Well, he started here.

The film is a loose reworking of Carmen with boats, not bulls, and smugglers replacing toreadors. Willy Fritsch plays Klaus Brandt, a naval seaman who has just been promoted to night watchman for his ship, just as he has become engaged to his social climber girlfriend (Betty Astor).

One night Klaus catches someone trying to break onto the ship and, having caught the intruder, makes the classic error of assuming a hat and trousers indicate a boy when really it’s a girl called Jenny (Jenny Jugo) who, soaked to the skin, strips in front of his saucered eyes to dry off. After the initial shock, Klaus is so won over by Jenny’s carefree, well, everything, that he forgets fiancée and work, covering for her as the port authorities pass by.

Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand: Herr Rasp und Jenny

Jenny’s associated with a colourful gang of ne’er-do-wells including Tonio Gennaro as Gentle Heinrich (definitely harder than he looks ), Wolfgang Zilzer as The nipper (he’s young) and Fritz Rasp as The Doctor (probably not medically trained) all of whom are looking for an opportunity to get rich quick through smuggling, living off immoral earnings and extortion.

Jenny works in a nightclub as a hostess, dancer and cyclist… racing other girls in a competition to show off their thighs in skimpy bathing costumers with the winners of their sexy spin being pre-arranged. It’s all part of a whir of activities to relieve distracted punters from their hard-earned pfennigs either through drinking, gambling or the oldest transaction in the world. Jenny is in the midst of this world but seems happy enough – this is not the usual fallen woman, she’s more like Marlene’s Lola Lola.

By chance, Klaus bumps into Jenny outside of the club and she explains what she does and invites him to see for himself… he’s smitten and, for the first time in her life, Jenny is smitten too. This is Carmen but not quite as we know it. Klaus sneaks off from his ship-mining to see Jenny only to find that the Rats have broken onboard and stolen not only cash and goods but also his chance of a career.

Sie hat eine Fahrkarte, um Fahrrad zu fahren - Jenny's in it to win it

He tries again, this time getting a lowly job as a stoker on a ship bound for Australia only to be drawn away again by Jenny’s charms… All the while she keeps on working and, like Klaus, we aren’t sure if her feeling for him are as deep as his for her. She meets with a couple of rich handsome men, one an actual racing cyclist (Friedrich Benfer), and she’s whisked away to posher nightclubs where they ply her with new clothes and champagne… Is this what she really wants or is Klaus her heart’s desire?

Do they want to save each other or will this end as all Carmen tales with the ultimate punishment for Jenny and Klaus on the rocks? I couldn’t possibly comment.

Willy and Jenny make for charming leads and Jugo is indeed another “Earth Spirit” with a relaxed intensity and free expression which raises her above the dirty doings all around. We can fully see why Klaus would be drawn to this erotic firefly – throwing away his future and his fiancée, in an effort to not only win Jenny’s heart but to save her from the life she’s in.

"Sie liebt dich, ja, ja, ja!"

Stephen Horne responded to this complex Kabarett with clubby accordion, lilting flute and sentimentally intelligent piano – he has such a feel for every movement of Waschneck’s visual Bizet including one of those gorgeous themes he has which not only encapsulates the longing and fear of desire but sticks in your head for days. Klaus is drawn to Jenny… they’re on a collision course which will either work for them or kill them and, thanks to Mr Horne, we fall a little more emphatically ourselves.

Docks of Hamburg is a good Weimar film but Stephen’s playing lifted it higher as his well-informed melodies captured and expanded on the mood created by Waschneck and his players. It doesn’t exist on home media or even YouTube so I’m especially grateful for the opportunity to see it projected.

Another smashing show in Emmanuel and the Cambridge Film Festival remains one of the UK’s strongest for silent films and accompanists.

Jenny Hasselqvist on the edge - Brennende Grenze (1927)

This is a long film – 146 minutes – and one that gives ample time for its leading players to express themselves in lengthy close-up. There are none more expressive-impressive than Jenny Hasselqvist who has the highest level of physical and emotional control along with the grace and force of being also one of the leading prima ballerinas of the age.

Director Erich Waschneck made the most of this beguiling asset and in one sublime sequence the whole effort of the film is made worthwhile… with her character’s son having just killed the leader of the occupying soldiers, she turns from the door after waving him away and agonises for long moments – hands clasped in flickering resolution and arms dropped in despair: how can they escape from retribution, how can she save him?

Jenny H

I’ve compared Jenny H to Isabelle Huppert before and I think that is more valid than ever after watching this film. Two actors who can pack more emotional signalling into their deeply-generous features and never overplay; always holding something back of their truth… leaving that ultimate connection to the watcher.

There are numerous moments in which Waschneck lets his actors’ reactions tell the story – the action is mostly implied off-screen – and this is a psychologically-driven drama with relatively few title cards.

Farmer and fist

A German farmer is confronted by the Captain of the occupying Polish forces; he stares in resistance at the platoon on horseback in front of him, clenching his fists with his granite features frozen in preparation, the camera switches from face to fist, face to gun until the spell is broken as the Captain shoots his hand… Waschneck does not need to show us a battle to reveal the tensions of occupation.

Brennende Grenze (Burning Border) is based in the aftermath of the Great War when an independent Polish state was established after a century of partitions from Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. A series of border wars lasted until 1922 when national boundaries were finally settled.

Here come the Poles

During this border struggle – Grenzkampf – there were many injustices on both sides and this film, being German, focuses on the incursions into previously-German territory years before Poland was re-invaded.

Jenny Hasselqvist plays Luise von Will Bold, a widower left with a grand house defended only by the old-guard of the German army and her loyal staff. Her 18 year-old son, Heino (Hubert von Meyerinck) is a new recruit in the army and is shown writing to his mother (Hasselqvist was only 33 when the film was made) from the front lines. He hands his letter to a cavalryman and we see it wend its way through montage of rail and road to his mother, who is busily engaged in entertaining local notables all with a keen eye on this noble widow.

The commander and his gal...

Reading the letter Luise realises how much danger her son is in and the mood of the evening changes. The next morning Polish riders appear at the house for that well-wrought confrontation between the fist of the land manager and the commander of the Polish troops, Ladislaus von Zeremski (Hans Adalbert Schlettow).

At the house, Luis smiles at the pigs running through the hall, only to be greeted by the farmer; his bandaged hand economically explaining the outcome of the confrontation… another transition from happy to sad: her face literally says it all.

Oskar Homolka: what shall they do with the drunken sailor?

Meanwhile the invaders have quickly made themselves at home and are drinking the house dry led by a drunken sailor played by Oskar Homolka, an Austrian actor who enjoyed a huge career and was the star of many a sixties spy romp as a Russian or generic Euro-baddy for hire – he’s  great fun here as an emblem of the ill-disciplined occupiers.

Zeremski frolics with his moll, Nadja (Olga Chekhova) as baddies do but even these two have a human side, she treading on his toe as she rides their unwilling host and even showing vulnerability – this war has made them all a little mad and fear runs the day.

A soldier but still a son

An uneasy peace reigns and then Luis’ son returns home, found by his would-be sweetheart, Marlene (Camilla Spira), Luise’s housekeeper who  tells  her mistress and helps the soldier disguise himself as a waiter. The boy seems just that, gladly being cradled in his mother’s arms in a counter point to nasty Nadja’s moment of angst. But Heino is on the cusp of manhood and it takes all of his strength to resist knocking Zeremski to the ground after he starts dancing with Luise… this conflict throws the natural order up in the air and the commander is keen to taste the high life.

Fritz Alberti

But emotions really start to churn as one of Luis’ old loves, the traitor Tobias Raschoff (Fritz Alberti) re-appears as the Polish government’s nominated Commissioner… there’s a great reaction shot from Hasselqvist as she turns from playing the piano in her drawing room to face this man she loved so much but who now seems destined to be her oppressor.

And we’re hardly half-way through…

Martial law and the invaders out of control...

Martial law is declared and the Polish troops rampage through the town, taking their Kontribution – as they please. Tobias Raschoff takes a long walk in the country – his home soil - and we see from his pain that he is not as clear cut a collaborator as he seems. He has already sent his chauffeur off with a message trying to hold back the incursion but he is intercepted and Zeremski confronts him with his note… Nothing can now stop his troop from marching further.

One  man walks alone with his guilt?

Some spoilers…

But Raschoff is canny and takes the bull by the horns as the officers celebrate, ensuring they all get as drunk as possible, including the spiteful Nadja… a riot breaks out as the foot soldiers crowd at windows faces pressed against windows. Despite the party play – Waschneck builds a magnificent tension throughout – and scores will be settled.

Nadja runs riot on the table top dancing the full length before collapsing… she’s carried up to her room by  Zeremski’s Adjutant (Hugo Werner) who he orders to despatch Tobias: we see him enter and the door closes… one on one.

Heino bides his time waiting on Zeremski

Zeremski then heads up to have his evil way with Luise only to find his way blocked by the mysterious young waiter who has been an irritant all along… he raises his knife to strike and… Waschneck cuts once again, but we’d already seen the axe in Heino’s hand.

There’s so much to resolve in these final moments and the strands are brought together in dramatic fashion: love of mother for son, for country and each other triumphing against anarchy and opportunism – a message as welcome in Weimar Germany as any time since.

I watched the copy on the European Film Gateway which is as you can see low-resolution but watchable enough to show the performance skill and the cinematography of Friedl Behn-Grund. There’s no score so you just have to imagine and the German intertitles are a good excuse to brush up your translating skills but, in truth, they’re hardly needed such is the excellence of the performance.

Maybe one day Die Edition Filmmuseum may digitise for DVD or some kind souls will project on the big screen where it belongs.

The border