Hamlet (1921)
Hamlet (Asta Nielsen) is a woman pretending to be a man in the 1921 German silent classic HAMLET, which results in some very queer situations.
HAMLET
1921. Germany.
Directors: Svend Gade & Heinz Schall
Screenplay: Erwin Gepard & E. Vining
Starring: Asta Nielsen, Heinz Stieda, and Lilly Jacobson
This 1921 German silent film features Danish actress Asta Nielsen in the title role as Hamlet. Nielsen was one of the first international film stars, and is also credited as popularizing “hosenrolle” (women dressed as men) characters on the silver screen. Quite the trailblazer, Nielsen is also known for adapting a new type of acting for the screen that was less theatrical – Greta Garbo would later credit the actress for inspiring her own style of acting.
Nielsen had been working for about a decade, and was featured in around 49 silent films, when she established her own production company ‘Art-Film’ and produced “Hamlet.”
This adaptation strays quite a bit from the original Shakespeare play and is actually based on a book published in 1881, “The Mystery of Hamlet: An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem” - It was written by an American writer named Edward P. Vining. Vining thought the male character of Hamlet was too feminine, so the story would work better if the prince were instead a woman masquerading as a man.
In this filmic version of Vining’s interpretation, Prince Hamlet is born a girl. When the queen receives word her husband, the King, is killed in battle she announces she has given birth to a boy (as only a male can inherit the throne). She soon discovers her husband is still alive and the two royals are forced to keep up the charade and raise Hamlet as a boy.
Cue the queer-coding:
- Hamlet is forced to live life as a gender she doesn’t identify with.
- There are numerous subtextually sapphic moments between Hamlet and Ophelia.
- Horatio falls for Hamlet, despite the fact he believes him to be male – though, this of course is not revealed until he knows Hamlet is a woman (a common trope in stories like this – Disney’s animated version of Mulan, for example).
You can find HAMLET streaming for free on YouTube:
