Die Börsenkönigin

Edmund Edel

Scen.: Edmund Edel; Int.: Asta Nielsen (Helene Netzler/Helena Neiber), Willi Kaiser-Heyl (capo-ispettore Müller), Aruth Wartan (Bruno Lindholm/Landmann, direttore della miniera); Prod.: Neutral-Film GmbH; Pri. pro.: 23 maggio 1918. 35mm. L. or.: 1200 m. L.: 1090 m. D.: 52’ a 18 f/s. Tinted.

info_outline
T. it.: Italian title. T. int.: International title. T. alt.: Alternative title. Sog.: Story. Scen.: Screenplay. F.: Cinematography. M.: Editing. Scgf.: Set Design. Mus.: Music. Int.: Cast. Prod.: Production Company. L.: Length. D.: Running Time. f/s: Frames per second. Bn.: Black e White. Col.: Color. Da: Print source

Film Notes

… Or how recent events make the past come back to life. More specifically: how certain movies from the first decades of filmmaking take on a different dimension today. Here are four films chosen randomly – one British, one French, one American and one German – and belonging to different genres: a farcical comedy, an adventure movie, a social commentary film and a melodrama. Two are from 1909 and could be included in the program put together by my friend Mariann Lewinsky. What they all have in common is the setting where the film’s action takes place: the world of banking and finance. A few years ago the plot of An Attempt to Smash a Bank (Theo Frenkel, 1909) would have seemed unintelligible; now it is clear as day. We know enough now about the risks and consequences of a financial crisis to “fill” in the gaps (a hint for understanding the plot: don’t mistake the female character for the banker’s wife, she is actually his daughter!!!). All of a sudden these films seem relevant today.
In Le Trust (Louis Feuillade, 1911) – sub-genre “Life as It Is” – the financial setting is just a pretext for a story that foreshadows the Feuillade of Fantômas and co. Griffith has a totally different take in his 1909 film A Corner in Wheat, in which “to corner” means “speculating in order to obtain a monopoly”. The monopoly of wheat. A movie title could not be more explicit. The visual simplicity of the film created by an exemplary use of tableaux makes A Corner in Wheat a moving ballad with a social message, a masterful equivalent of songs sung in the streets of poor neighborhoods.
Last Die Börsenkönigin (Edmund Edel, 1916). It should be considered one of Asta Nielsen’s great classics. Nielsen portrays a business woman with a severity that suits her. But she is also a woman in love and… with a few wrinkles lining her face, also a mature woman. The combination of different emotional registers is held together by effective directing; in a splendid scene with Nielsen running in a long gown and fur cape in an industrial landscape the directing takes the film to the melodramatic heights of, yes… Douglas Sirk.

Eric De Kuyper

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