Bodil Ipsen

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Bodil Ipsen (born August 30, 1889 in Copenhagen ; † November 26, 1964 there ; actually Bodil Louise Jensen Ipsen ) was a Danish actress and film director. She is considered one of the most outstanding personalities in Danish film history. Her acting career, which she began at the theater and in silent films , was characterized by leading roles in great folk comedies and melodramas. She exerted a great influence as a film director by directing the first Danish film noir ; this was followed by directorial work on some dark psychological thrillers of the 1940s and 1950s. Together with actress Bodil Kjer , she is the namesake for Denmark's oldest film award, the Bodil .

Life

Bodil Ipsen was born in Copenhagen in 1889 as Bodil Louise Jensen Ipsen . She was the daughter of Kancelliråd LJ Ipsen († 1913) and his wife Laura Holst († 1918). After finishing school in 1908, she began studying at the Royal Theater , where she made her stage debut a year later, on October 10, 1909, as Helene in Bjørnstjerne Bjørnsens Når den ny vin blomstrer . She then performed successfully on Dagmarteatret in the pieces Fru Brandels smukke døtre (1910), Den ukloge jomfru (1911) and Zaza (1913). From 1914 she returned to the Royal Theater and in 1915 she appeared on stage for the first time with Poul Reumert . With Reumert as a stage partner, she successfully appeared in plays by Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg , which then experienced a renaissance in Denmark. She proved her versatility with both comic roles, like that of Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It , as well as serious parts like that of Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House . In her later theater career she took on dramatic roles and appeared at all important theaters such as the Folketeatret , Betty Nansen Teatret , Frederiksberg Teater , Det Ny Teater , Århus Teater and Odense Teater . Guest performances have taken her to Sweden and Norway, among others. Her repertoire included around 200 theater roles as well as 150 appearances in radio plays and four television roles. Among other things, she interpreted Ophelia in Hamlet , the title roles in Maria Stuart and Miss Julie , the role of Helene Alving in Ghosts , Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Claire Zachanassian in The Visit of the Old Lady .

In 1920 Ipsen made her feature film debut in Lavinen , directed by her husband Emanuel Gregers . Further joint work with Gregers followed in 1922 and 1923. Sporadically she continued to appear as a film actress, but made only twelve films in her career. She made her notable early film appearances in angry comedies, including the title role as a quarrelsome maid in Gregers Bolettes brudefærd (1938) or the part of Grevinde Danner in Sørensen og Rasmussen (1940).

In 1942 Ipsen switched to directing and directed ten feature films in ten years. Although her acting talent found use in romantic comedies, she contributed as a film director to the development of classic, sinister dramas and detective films. Her directorial debut in 1942 was the dark psychological thriller Derailed People , which is considered the first film noir in Danish film history. In this one, Ilona Wieselman slipped into the role of a memory loss doctor's daughter who found herself among prostitutes as the mistress of a gangster and ended tragically. Two years later, in 1944, Ipsen directed two more thrillers. In Mordets Melodi , a singer is suspected of being a serial killer, while Besættelse is about a man who grows into an erotic obsession with a younger woman.

After derailed people , Ipsen worked with the director Lau Lauritzen junior , son of the well-known filmmaker Lau Lauritzen senior . Together they made four other films. Their second collaboration, Rote Wiesen , was a success and received an invitation to compete at the Cannes International Film Festival , which was held for the first time in 1946 . The film, which is set in Nazi- occupied Denmark during the Second World War , shared the Grand Prix with ten other feature film productions. Together with the New Zealander Jane Campion ( Das Piano ), Ipsen is still one of the only female film directors to win the main prize in Cannes. In 1950 Ipsen and Lauritzen received recognition for their joint film Café Paradis . The drama, in which the directors took on the subject of alcoholism , was awarded the Danish Film Critics Association's prize a year later. The Bodil , which was named in honor of Ipsen and the actress Bodil Kjer , had already won the danske sømand with Støt står in 1949 . Poul Reichhardt plays the leading role in both films . For the crime film Det sande ansigt (1951), both were again awarded the Bodil for the best Danish film , while Ipsen accepted the award for best actress for Erik Balling's drama Faith, Hope and Magic (1960) at the age of 71 . In the "rough, folkloric type comedy" that is set on the Faroe Islands , she was seen as a clever grandmother who accompanies her inexperienced, limping nephew on the bridal show. After working with Balling, Ipsen retired from acting. She ended her theater career on April 2, 1960 on the stage of the Royal Theater of Copenhagen.

The actress and film director was married four times. After a brief marriage to the actor Jacob Texière (1879–1944) in 1910, she was married to Helmuth Heinrich Otto Moltke (1882–1930) from 1914. The connection with the civil engineer broke three years later. From 1919 followed the four-year marriage with the actor and film director Emanuel Gregers (1881–1957), who used them in some of his works. Ipsen's fourth marriage was in 1932 with Ejnar Black, who was ten years her junior, and lasted until the journalist's death in 1949. After Black's death, Ipsen largely withdrew into private life, where she preferred the company of her assistant and housekeeper, Stella Jensen. “While living together for the last ten years of their (Bodil Ipsens) life, I discovered a person of limitless talent. A generosity that really knew no boundaries, as well as a clear and strange distrust of the people to whom it would otherwise have been close ... ”, said Jensen after Ipsen's death. She died in Copenhagen in November 1964 at the age of 75. In 2006 the documentary Bodil Ipsen og filmen by directors Majken S. Eliasen, Claus Kjær and Brian Petersen was made, which premiered in Copenhagen in November of the same year and traces Ipsen's career.

Filmography

actress

  • 1913: Scenens børn
  • 1920: lavins
  • 1922: Frie fugle
  • 1923: Madsalune
  • 1932: Paustian's watch
  • 1935: Det gyldne smil
  • 1938: Bolettes brudefærd
  • 1940: Sørensen and Rasmussen
  • 1941: Gå med mig hjem
  • 1942: trout
  • 1957: Ingen tid til kærtegn
  • 1960: Faith, Hope and Magic ( Tro, håb og trolddom )

Director

  • 1942: Derailed people ( Afsporet )
  • 1942: En herre i kjole og hvidt
  • 1943: Drama på slottet
  • 1944: Mordets melodi
  • 1944: Besættelse
  • 1945: Red Meadows ( De røde haben )
  • 1947: Bröllopsnatten
  • 1948: Støt står den danske sømand
  • 1950: Café Paradis
  • 1951: Det sande ansigt

Awards

literature

  • Søren Kragh-Jacobsen : Bodil Ipsen, 1889-1909-1959 . Copenhagen: Nyt nordisk forlag, 1959.
  • Hans Bendix, Svend Erichsen: Bodil Ipsen: en mindebog . Copenhagen: Fremad, 1965.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b cf. Piil, Morten: Danske Filmskuespillere: 525 portrætter . Copenhagen: Gyldendal , 2001. - ISBN 9788700465763 . Pp. 197-199
  2. ↑ a b c cf. Jørholt, Eva; Schepelern, Peter: 100 Års Dansk Film . Copenhagen: Rosinante, 2001. - ISBN 9788773579480 . Pp. 130-131
  3. ↑ a b c d e cf. Profile in the Dansk film database (Danish; accessed May 9, 2009)
  4. ↑ cf. Ipsen, Bodil . In: Encyclopaedia Britannica 2008 Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008
  5. ↑ cf. Derailed people . In: film-dienst 10/1952
  6. ↑ cf. Faith, Hope and Sorcery . In: film-dienst 13/1961
personal data
SURNAME Ipsen, Bodil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish actress and film director
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 1964
Place of death Copenhagen