Asta Nielsen as Hamlet / Hamlet (1920) / P. 2/11 Video

Hamlet is a 1920 film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play of the same name starring Danish silent film actor Asta Nielsen, one of the most important persons of the silent era and the significance of the German film industry in those times. It was directed by Svend Gade and Heinz Schall.

In this interpretation, inspired by Dr. Edward P. Vining's book The Mystery of Hamlet, Hamlet is born female and disguised as a male to preserve the lineage.

Danish silent movie-star Asta Nielsen formed her own production company to make this film, in which new elements are combined with features (and a few lines) familiar from Shakespeare's version of the legend. The most important of these changes sees Hamlet made into a female character - a princess forced to masquerade as a man by her scheming mother; from this follows Hamlet's secret passion for Horatio and rivalry with Ophelia for his love. Queen Gertrude is here presented as conspiring in her first husband's murder, and the old king's ghost does not appear - young Hamlet merely hears a voice from the tomb and (apparently) dreams of him. In addition, Hamlet now kills Claudius (in a fire) immediately upon returning from Norway with an army led by old school- friend Fortinbras, and it falls to Gertrude to engineer Hamlet's death in the fencing match as well as kill herself by accidentally drinking the poisoned wine.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012249/

The film was restored by the Deutsches Filminstitut (a complete and tinted nitrate) for the 57th International Berlin Film Festival and broadcast by the German-French TV-channel ARTE . Before restoration the film was long available only in black and white.

Music by TCHAIKOVSKY:
Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathetique III. Allegro molt
artist: Philharmonia Cassovia
album: TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 6, Pathetique / Hamlet - Fantasy Overt

More info:
Tony Howard, Women as Hamlet: performance and interpretation in theatre, film and fiction. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
http://books.google.com/books?id=MKp9Vm-XygUC&pg=PA158&lpg=PA158&dq=Asta+Nielsen+as+Hamlet+/+Hamlet+%281920%29+/+P.&source=bl&ots=7pDyJGVrHh&sig=o8Z2vIdhJvUOvLJoRgQ1kyOrIfo&hl=ru&ei=HLfuSun2Jcjj-QbYgpH4Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Asta%20Nielsen%20as%20Hamlet%20%2F%20Hamlet%20%281920%29%20%2F%20P.&f=false

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