The suffragette

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Movie
Original title The suffragette
Ernst Deutsch-Dryden - The Suffragette.jpg
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1913
length Fragment: 61 minutes
Rod
Director Urban Gad
script Urban Gad
production Paul Davidson
for projection group "Union"
music Maud Nelissen (2009)
camera Emil Schünemann
occupation

The Suffragette , subtitled Mimisches Schauspiel , is a German silent film in five acts by Urban Gad from 1913. It is one of the director's fragmentary films.

action

1st act

Nelly Panburne returns to London after years in boarding school. The child has become a clever young woman who is greeted by her father and older sister, who already has a husband and children. However, Nelly's mother is missing and the father initially refuses to give any indication of her whereabouts. It turns out that Mrs. Panburne has joined the suffragette movement and rarely stays with her family. Father and daughter accept an invitation from Nelly's sister and travel to their country estate. Here Nelly enjoys the area, plays golf and is soon swarmed by three young men, whom she turns away. Her father introduces her to young Levy, whom he has chosen as his future son-in-law, but Nelly is cool to him. She saw a man in the forest who fascinated her. However, her three suitors do not tell her who it is, and neither is the man told who Nelly is. Nelly later sees the man again when she is boating on the Thames . Although she succeeds in throwing one of her pillows into the water and thus drawing attention to herself, neither of them introduce themselves again.

2nd act

The gentleman is Lord William Ascue, a politician in the British House of Commons . He is a staunch opponent of the suffragettes and is currently preparing a bill to allow mass arrests of suffragettes. His job prevents him and Nelly from getting to know each other at a garden party. Although he has announced himself and the three suitors want to introduce each other, he will be called to a meeting in the House of Commons at short notice. Nelly rejects Levy's marriage proposal and travels back to town. Here she meets her mother, whom she is slowly winning over to the suffragette movement. She reports to the daughter of the father's attacks and shows her the misery of simple women who, even with the highest intelligence, are legally inferior to the stupidest man. In the circle of suffragettes, Nelly is convinced and receives the "baptism of fire of the suffragettes".

3rd act

Nelly becomes active in movement. She does not shy away from violence and is arrested after breaking a shop window during a demonstration. She goes on a hunger strike in prison and is released after even attempted force-feeding fails. When she comes home, the father realizes that he has lost his daughter to the suffragettes: Given the choice between father and mother, Nelly decides for the mother and a little later appears with her as a speaker at a suffragette meeting. When the police attempt to storm the gathering, the men are attacked by the women. The suffragettes are now making more and more radical plans.

Meanwhile, Lord Ascue is visited by his lover Lola Rodrigues. She complains that he doesn't take care of her anymore, but Ascue ends the relationship. Lola Rodrigues swears revenge and turns to the suffragettes, knowing of his hatred of the women's movement. She hands Nelly and her mother love letters to Lord Ascues. They are intended to blackmail the politician, especially since the suffragettes have learned that his law on the mass persecution of suffragettes is about to be passed. Nelly is sent with the letters to Lord Ascue and also receives a "hell machine" with a time fuse from her mother, which she is supposed to install in the house of Lord Ascues. It is supposed to explode at midnight and kill Lord Ascue.

4th act

On the basis of the letters, Nelly gains access to Lord Ascue's house and places the bomb unnoticed in the politician's study. When Lord Ascue appears, they both recognize each other and Nelly is as self-conscious as she is shocked. Nevertheless, she shows him the letters and threatens to make them public if Lord Ascue does not withdraw the planned law. However, the politician refuses to be blackmailed and says that the suffragette movement is now even more hateful to him because of the means it uses. Nelly is devastated and refuses to return the letters to her mother. Her father cannot comfort her either.

Nelly decides to save Lord Ascue. She anonymously invites him to a midnight rendezvous, but Lord Ascue cancels. He had a political meeting at the time. Nelly is relieved, but learns in the evening that the meeting will take place in the politician's house.

5th act

Nelly tries to convince her mother to save Lord Ascue, but the women remain adamant. Shortly before midnight, Nelly rushes to Lord Ascue's house and has him taken out of the study under a pretext. The bomb explodes shortly afterwards and destroys the room. A banner of the suffragettes has also detached itself from the machine, on which the right to vote for women is demanded. Nelly is held as a perpetrator by several men, but released when Lord Ascue appears and pretends to be his bride. Shortly afterwards, both admit their love in conversation and kiss. A few years later, Nelly and Lord Ascue can be seen happily with their four children.

production

Christabel Pankhurst (right), role model for Asta Nielsen's Nelly Panburne

The suffragette was created in the Union studio in Berlin-Tempelhof. The film was banned by the Berlin censors on September 2, 1913 and had its premiere on September 12, 1913 in Berlin. It was the first film in the Asta Nilsen / Urban Gad series in 1913/1914. While the film was shown uncut in Berlin cinemas, the Munich police only allowed it to be shown shortened by 136 meters. Among other things, the scene in which Nelly smashes a window into a shop window was censored because the censors suspected that the wax figure in the shop window wearing a hussar uniform was an image of the German emperor. In addition, the scene in which Nelly puts the bomb in the politician's study has been removed. In addition to film scenes, various photos of scenes that were intended to be displayed in the cinema were also banned. Urban Gad therefore withdrew the film from gaming traffic in Bavaria by wire, as it had been mutilated and parts of it could no longer appear logical to the viewer.

The suffragette was shown under the title Suffragette in Italy in 1913 and as La Suffragette in France, and was shown in New York in 1914 under the title The Militant Suffragette .

The main characters of mother and daughter Panburne are modeled on the British suffragettes Emmeline Pankhurst and daughter Christabel Pankhurst , some of whom campaigned radically for women's suffrage and in this context quarreled with Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith , in the film Lord Ascue. Malwine Rennert wrote in a 1913 review that the film was unsuccessful in the provinces: “The German bourgeoisie don't read enough to be interested in the suffragette movement; the people were quite incomprehensible to him. ”The viewers showed the greatest interest in the nature shots of the film and the scenes on the Thames. Among the actors, the audience sometimes preferred the minor character of the servant in Lord Ascue's house: “Only very old historical families have such splendid specimens of servants; they go around like embodied family tradition. "

At least six copies of the film have survived, but none has been completely preserved. Originally the film was 1,878 meters long; the longest reconstructable version reaches a length of 1311 meters. The film was reconstructed until 2009 by the Deutsche Kinemathek in cooperation with Det Danske Filminstitut . The basis of the reconstruction were preserved film fragments in the Deutsche Kinemathek, in the Federal Film Archive and in the Národni filmový archive in Prague . Missing scenes were replaced by still photos and scene descriptions and missing subtitles were added. The reconstructed film with a new score by Maud Nelissen was released on DVD in 2012 with three other Asta Nielsen films as part of the Filmmuseum edition of the Munich Film Museum .

criticism

The cinematographer called The Suffragette an "epoch-making ... creation that breathes through and through a modern spirit and a thoroughly impeccable tendency and of which even the bitterest enemies could not claim that a contemporary question was treated in a repulsive or even childish manner".

In 1913, Malwine Rennert described The Suffragette in Bild und Film as a cinema drama, “which is a real mirror of time, and if the film is preserved it can later be considered a cultural document by the sexes.” She called the suffragette movement itself “of the latest date; apart from the grotesque, it is a historical blunder ", so that the film itself suffers from it:" Since the suffragette movement does not necessarily arise from human nature, the conflict could not rise to tragic heights, nor did it provide material for a pure comedy . ”Rennert criticized the too long and“ splintered ”beginning and the dress of Asta Nielsen in the last scenes, which would be impossible in society, was ugly and“ from a distance resembled a hastily tied bath towel ”. She again praised the play of the leading actors Asta Nielsen, Max Landa and Mary Scheller, but named some supporting roles poorly.

In 1913, Christian Arp wrote in the Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung that Urban Gad had “tackled and skilfully dealt with a current topic” with the film. The film shows "Asta Nielsen's facial expressions in perfect art". The other leading actors also received praise and even the supporting role of Lola Rodrigues was "a remarkable achievement", while the actors of Nelly's admirers lacked skill. Arp also emphasized the technical achievements of the film, praising the sharpness and plasticity of the images, the careful decoration of the scenes and the spaciousness of the rooms.

The end of the film was mentioned by many critics for a variety of reasons. Malwine Rennert noted that the ending with a married couple and four children seemed exaggerated - “One would have been enough.” Christian Arp called the ending an apotheosis that you could give yourself: “Asta Nielsen as a mother with four children! - no, we want to know how to keep her young. ”“ She becomes a woman and a mother - far from all suffragetteism, she fulfills the only mission of women, ”said other critics. The more recent criticism also sees the final picture as a pose “which shows nothing but stillness.” Asta Nielsen's Nelly appears “completely arrested” among the children. It is the silence itself, the being silenced, that she demonstrates in this still position. The acoustic meta-level, which in Asta Nielsen's work is firmly linked with body motor skills, gives her the opportunity to make a sarcastic comment across the paralyzing iconic of the conciliatory final image. "

literature

  • The suffragette . In: Karola Gramann, Heide Schlüpmann (ed.): Nachtfalter. Asta Nielsen, her films . Volume 2 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria publishing house, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902531-83-4 , pp. 125-130.
  • The suffragette . In: Renate Seydel (Ed.): Asta Nielsen. Your life in photo documents, self-testimonies and contemporary reflections . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1981, pp. 90-91.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heide Schlüpmann: Play history . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria publishing house, Vienna 2010, p. 36.
  2. ↑ a b c Josef Aubinger: Munich Censorship Kuddelmudel . In: Der Kinematograph - Düsseldorf , No. 354, October 8, 1913, p. 35.
  3. ↑ A Militant Suffragette . In: The New York Dramatic Mirror , April 1, 1914. See illustration in: Jennifer M. Bean: “Brought over the sea” In America, 1912–1914 . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2010, p. 347.
  4. ↑ Frank Brenner, Annette Groschke: Between Backfisch and Börsenkönigin - Asta Nielsen in 4 films . Booklet for the DVD Four Films with Asta Nielsen , Edition Filmmuseum, No. 67, 2012.
  5. ↑ a b c d e Malwine Rennert: Critique . In: Bild und Film , III, 6, 1913/1914, p. 137.
  6. ↑ Thomas C. Christensen: The lost shadow. Copying situation of the long feature films Asta Nielsen . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria Publishing House, Vienna 2010, p. 465.
  7. ^ Christian Arp: The première of the season . In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung , No. 39, September 27, 1913, p. 87.
  8. ^ A b Christian Arp: The première of the season . In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung , No. 39, September 27, 1913, p. 88.
  9. ^ A b c Christian Arp: The première of the season . In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung , No. 39, September 27, 1913, p. 89.
  10. ↑ What the film tells. The new Asta Nielsen film "The Suffragette". In: Union-Theater-Zeitung , No. 37, 12. – 18. September 1913, p. 5.
  11. ↑ Katharina Sykora : Bang Effects . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria Publishing House, Vienna 2010, p. 151.