It is generally agreed amongst German historians and critics that Elisabeth Bergner was the greatest German language theatre actress of this century. Fräulein Else is a veritable anthology of the actress’ expressive abilities. There are a series of passages in which the camera seems to subjectify itself in her gaze when, after receiving her mother’s letter asking for help, she stands up from the table reading, goes down the corridor, enters her room, finishes reading, looks at herself in the mirror, puts on a fur coat and starts franticly looking for the man who as so often revealed his lubricious desires. She looks first in his room, then in the hall of the hotel and finally in the gaming room where she drops her fur coat and remains naked. A sequence completely dedicated to Elsa, her sacrifice, disgust and final humiliation. An excerpt worthy of any acting curriculum.

Vittorio Martinelli, Le dive del silenzio, Bologna/Recco 2001

The score

 At the centre of this plot is Else, a lively girl who finds her free existence suddenly crushed by the unexpected bankruptcy of her father. The atmosphere of gloom that accompanies her father’s collapse finally results in Else’s complete humiliation when she has to strip in front of one of her father’s creditors to save the family. Elisabeth Bergner succeeds in capturing the steady deterioration of Else’s position and her insecurity perfectly. The main difficulty that had to be overcome in the score was that of establishing two main themes that return several times during the film, even if they are not real leitmotifs. The idea was to accompany the various changes in tone in the plot and to follow the emotional progress of the heroine. These two worlds are not entirely antithetical, as there is a continuous series of metamorphoses from one to the other. Subtle slides, tiny variations and theme progressions open, fade and then return, binding the two themes together. The remainder of the score is more straightforward and springs directly from the images. Life in a luxury hotel, for example, living it up in Saint-Tropez, with the gambling, dancing, orchestras and fancy-free binges, all this requires entertainment music, so I used waltzes, fox-trots, jazz and hints of tango.

Marco Dalpane