Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Asta Nielsen

Asta Nielsen

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Asta Nielsen

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the Danish star of androgynous early romcoms and Hamlet.

Asta Nielsen, the Danish silent film star whose dark eyes and androgynous look propelled her career. She had her own Berlin studios before returning to Denmark after Nazism rose.

Censored by the US, Europe's greatest early film star played leading roles in love triangle melodramas, comedies, stories of women trapped by tragic circumstances, and she took the role of Hamlet: Asta Nielsen (11 September 1881 – 24 May 1972) is the focus of a BFI season in February and March. To discuss the life and work of the silent movie pioneer, Matthew Sweet is joined by:

Historian and film critic Pamela Hutchinson, curator of the BFI season; Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford; Dr Erica Carter, Professor of German and Film at King's College London, who looks at Nielsen’s time in Germany in the 20s and 30s; and Lone Britt Christensen, Denmark’s Cultural Attaché.

In the Eyes of a Silent Star: The Films of Asta Nielsen runs at the BFI Southbank, London from 03 February to 15 March 2022: www.bfi.org.uk/whatson

Emma Smith is the author of This is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright

Erica Carter is co-editor of The German Cinema Book

In the Free Thinking archives you can find a series of programmes exploring silent film, star actors including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde, and classics of cinema around the world.

Producer: Tim Bano

Image: Asta Nielsen in Black Dreams.  Image credit: BFI Southbank.

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