Fame is just a word written in sand…
Thus, Asta Nielsen begins her final monologue in the
documentary she directed aged 86 about her life and work. It’s fascinating,
that smile still youthful and her huge eyes still twinkling as she dispassionately
skips through the years ending with that emotional paragraph and tears of sadness,
pride or, just on cue. She still had it, even having not performed in years,
content with her daughter and sister in Copenhagen before outlasting both,
marrying Danish art collector, 77-year-old Christian Theede in 1970, and passing
away aged 90 in 1972. A long life well lived.
The piece de resistance is her dinner with Afgrunden
co-star, Poul Reumert, still handsome and recognisably the cowboy she tied up
on stage and danced around in her leather skirt. The two toast each other and
talk about the film and her early years in Denmark and Germany. As a plan to
get her taken more seriously by the theatrical world it failed utterly but she
was able to take on the new challenge of film and trying to make “spirit
visible”.
She downplayed the difficulties of film but enjoyed its new challenges every one of which she met in comedies, dramas and every point in between. She skirts over the war years during which she remained working in Germany but still popular on both sides – Denmark was neutral – and talks about the formation of her own film company and its first production, Hamlet followed up by a film version of Strindberg’s Miss Julie (1922) and being the first Lulu in an adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s Earth Spirit (1923) – showing at the BFI in March, and not to be missed.
Asta at sea in Mod lyset
Asked by actor Axel Strøbye if she was ever satisfied with her roles she smiles and twinkles the answer no, there was always something that could be improved. So speaks a perfectionist with an uncanny level of skill. It was so good to finally meet Asta as we celebrate this season of some of her most vital films. Sadly, Intoxication the film she made with Ernst Lubitsch in 1919, and including one Pola Negri, is considered lost but at least we have just over half of her 74 films extant; she’s done a lot better than some.
Talking of spirit, Mod lyset (Towards the Light)
was Asta Nielsen’s last film in her Danish homeland and gave her the task of
playing a high-society atheist forced into confronting her spirituality by events
and the love of a good man. A tough pitch for worldly-wise 2022 but this was a
film made for a largely Christian audience and at a time of continent-wide
grieving both for soldiers lost as well as flu pandemic victims. The
socio-theological context is perhaps baffling for a world now fuelled by
cultural disconnection and pure dislike even as we exit a similar pandemic and
the World gets madder.
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| The frivolous countess, who toys with men and their feelings the same way she played with dolls as a child… |
You can keep faith in Asta though as even with this
melodramatic and largely predictable script, Asta injects so much passionate
febrility that you identify with even the shallowest of her emotions. Acting
has never been a competition – despite all those awards – but in Asta we can
see the impenetrable security of someone who feels their way through any role
and who never gives you doubt in her performance. She is always very much in
the present on screen and engaging with her imagined surroundings as much as the
direct narrative and other characters. At one moment, devastated by twists of
fate, in floods of tears, she pulls her handkerchief to her mouth, biting into
it in a way Greta Garbo might ten years later…
The film starts as Asta’s character, Ysabel, hosts a
charity bazaar with her mother Countess Prosca (Augusta Blad) and very quickly
we see the runners and riders in the race for her heart or, more practically,
just her head? There’s Baron Sandro Grec – a rich adventurer with a “heart of
lead” – who’s her current beau and then, his “competition” the younger noble,
Felix (Harry Komdrup). Felix is the nephew of Professor Manini (Nicolai
Neiiendam) whose daughter Inga (Lilly Jacobson) longs for her cousin but he
wants the one he can’t have and Ysabel is not one to let affectionate attention
go to waste…
Asked by one guest whether she would put her talents to
the service of religion, Ysabel is dismissive: I never insult religion or
its practitioners, however, I will not adorn myself with a belief I do not hold
in my heart! For the first, and not last time, director Holger-Madsen cuts
for contrast, to a different party, one being hosted by the “poverty preacher”
Elias Renato (Alf Blütecher), who is helping his poor flock snatch some
enjoyment just as Ysabel pours drink from an amusing porcelain figurine for her
well-heeled guests.
Astrid Holm and Alf Blütecher
Later that day as the rich men smoke cigars and play
cards, Elias rescues a desperate young woman, Wenka (Astrid Holm) from throwing
herself into the river. Her miserable story of domestic abuse is conveyed with
Holger-Madsen cutting across to those who can afford to gamble their riches… as
the day closes Elias prays and thanks God for his blessings in saving the girl.
The next scene jars for being alongside this moment as Felix arrives at
Ysabel’s front gate the following morning, just as she’s about to drive out in
her limousine. He joins her and they come across a small crowd listening to
Elias preaching. As Felix looks on with alarm, the Countess is moved by the hot
priest’s presence if not necessarily his message.
He was so beautiful when he spoke! … it is the first
time a preacher’s words have touched my heart!
But poor Felix can’t compete with the preacher’s allure
and nor has he a chance against Sandro Grec’s wealth and masculine power. He
announces that Ysabel has agreed to marry him even though we can see the doubt
in her and her mother’s minds. But worse is to come as Felix, hopelessly in
love, is devastated reading the announcement of their union in the paper, and,
as his cousin looks on, he heads out to drown himself.
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| Lilly Jacobson and Harry Komdrup |
When Felix does not return, Professor Manini and Inga go
to Ysabel’s palace in the hope he might be there but not only has she not seen him,
she has no desire to accept responsibility. When Elias arrives with the young
man’s body and his note, she seems to privately revel in the dramatic testament
of his fatuous longing. The Professor reminds her that whilst he does not judge
her, what you sow you will reap… (especially in melodramas of this period).
Then, from the selfish to the sublime, we cut to the community for orphans
Elias has established on an island outside the city with charitable donations.
Karma comes quickly though when Sandro is implicated by a former partner in crime on the day of his wedding. He’s not a fine rich baron at all but Loen Spontazzi a master criminal who the police rush to arrest, wedding night or not. Just as “Sandro” reassures his new wife their carriage is stopped by the police and he is arrested. Ysabel’s new life is snatched away and after she burns her bridal veil, she stares at herself in the mirror only to imagine the Professor there remining her of his prophetic statement. Six months later she is at her lowest ebb with her mother physically and emotionally broken yet pride still comes before her fall/possible redemption.
Sandro tricks Ysabel into marriage, Mother suspects he's a wrong 'un...
I did not acknowledge religion when life was fair, and
I am now too proud to do it now that my happiness has been cast aside!
The kitchen sink is thrown at the closing segment of the film and whilst you might be able to guess some of what happens it’s still worthwhile watching our heroine “live” through it. Even given the broader strokes of religious passion, Asta is still so measured in her expression, micro-managing her emotions in ways that are seemingly intuitive and which, even now, have you watching in vain for any sense that she’s consciously “acting”.
Miss Nielsen could also not have wished for a more
sympathetic and dedicated accompanist as Neil Brand became the latest of the
BFI’s finest to match musical wits with the Dane. As we have come to expect,
Neil provided an emotionally informed musical narrative with some gorgeous emotional
fills and dramatic lines, channelling the most fitting moods from a century of
film score appreciation – by which I mean the form and not the player!
There’s a lot more to come, many of which, like Mod lyset, just hasn’t been screened here for many decades. You know the drill, go straight to the BFI website and book as many as you can!
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