HAMLET

"Dip the flags before her, dip the flags before her, for she is unique." - Bela Balazs, after seeing Nielsen play the death of Hamlet.

"In 1920 Nielsen formed her own production company, Art Films, and chose as its first venture a version of Hamlet with herself in the title role. The idea had come from the hook The Mystery of Hamlet by Edward Vinning, who suggested that Hamlet had actually been a woman forcibly raised as a man so that a male should succeed the throne in time of war... The challenge in Hamlet was to play a sexually ambivalent role for its tragedy... We are never allowed to forget that Hamlet not only is a woman but has the feelings and desires of a woman - desires which can never be fulfilled... Despite some unfavourable opinions - some critics could not bear to think of Hamlet without Shakespeare... the film was a great success. Both The New York Times and the National Board of Review selected it as one of the best films of the year." - Robert C Allen, Sight & Sound, Autumn 1973

"The contribution of Asta Nielsen to the art of acting was profound and lasting; she was the first great actress of the screen whose work commanded the same respect accorded to talented performers of the theatre... In many ways Asta Nielsen's performance as Hamlet is far more moving than that of Sir Laurence Olivier. Even with the advantages of Shakespeare's verse, Olivier was far less a haunted and melancholy Dane than was Asta Nielsen in 1920." - James Card, The Screen's First Tragedienne Asta Nielsen

(Other sources used to inspire Gepard's remarkable screenplay include the Historicae Danicae by Saxo Grammaticus and the German play Fratricide Punished)