THE DANISH GIRL

UK, 2015, 120 minutes, Colour.
Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ben Whishaw, Sebastian Koch, Amber Heard.
Directed by Tom Hooper.

An emotional and challenging film.

The screenplay is based on actual characters and events, with a setting in Copenhagen in 1926. It is the story of Einar and Gerda Wegener and issues of gender and transgender surgery. This was rare in the 1920s as well as in succeeding decades but the issues are relevant today.

This is a very handsome film to look at, beautiful photography recreating the period, using Norwegian locations for coastal sequences, views of Copenhagen at the time, some time spent in Paris, Dresden as the scene for the surgery.

The Danish Girl has been directed by Tom Hooper, who made a television impact with his series on Elisabeth I, who won an Oscar for directing The King’s Speech and was also nominated for Les Miserables.

The successful impact of the film depends on the central performance by Eddie Redmayne. Tom Hooper had directed him as Marius in Les Miserables. And then, surprisingly, Redmayne won the Oscar for best actor, 2014, for his portrayal of scientist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. His performance here has Oscar and other awards potential.

Not every actor could be cast as Einar Wegener. Redmayne has a slight build and so makes the gender issues credible, observing his body, speculating on what it would like to be female. But, with the first part of the film, he has to play the Danish artist, Einar Wegener, and establish that he was male. However, because the film is not a documentary but a drama, the screenplay has to make suggestions that Einar is not comfortable in his body, that he has had some female feelings, posing for his wife, Gerda, wearing stockings and a dress, feeling the texture of the materials, becoming more and more comfortable as female, appearing as female, dressing as female. This is tested out, Gerda doing the dressing and the make up, when he goes to a party and is taken for a woman. Lili is the name that he chooses for this inner self.

While Gerda, a beautiful performance by Alicia Vikander (her films of 2015 include The Testament of Youth, Ex Machina, Burnt), is supportive of her husband, his withdrawing from being Einar and allowing his inner Lili to emerge, finds it difficult, has a need for her husband. She paints and sketches him as Lili and her agent arranges for her to go to paint and exhibit in Paris. Lili is very comfortable in Paris, not painting, working as a shop girl in a store.

Childhood friend, Hans (Matthias Schoenaerts, Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd) comes to visit and offers his help. Doctors examining the case offer frightening solutions including electric shock, holes in the head, straitjacket internment in an institution… However, a German doctor in Dresden has developed procedures for transgender surgery and Lili agrees to undergo the changes.

Statistics indicate that there are many transgender people in society but most people do not encounter them, learning about the situation principally from the media. The film offers a significant opportunity for reflecting on this gender situation, its consequences on the psyche of a person, on their social place in the world, on the desire for some kind of solving of the personal dilemmas. With its setting of the 1920s, audiences will find the film easier to look at and reflect on, a touch more detachment because of the past – but still the challenge is in the present.

Over the decades, there have been a number of films about transgender surgery including: The Christine Jorgensen Story, 1970, based on a real life situation in Denmark in the 1950s; I Want what I Want, 1972, with Anne Heywood; Second Serve, 1986, with Vanessa Redgrave as Dr Renée Richards, the tennis champion and surgeon, and Carlotta, with Jessica Marais, about the entertainer from King’s Cross, screened on ABC television in 2014. Unlike The Danish Girl, the last three films featured an actress portraying a man becoming a woman.

1. The impact of the film? Theme, production, photography, performances?

2. A true story, the 1920s, gender issues at the time, since, now? The development of treatments?

3. Copenhagen, views of the city, from the 1920s, buildings, streets, apartments, interiors, studios, galleries? Paris and the exteriors, apartments, galleries? Dresden, the city, the hospitals? Views of Norway, the coast, mountains? The musical score?

4. The title, as mentioned in relation to Gerda? In relation to Lili?

5. Audience interest in the situation, in characters, the personal and moral issues, medical, psychological? Response? Contemporary issues of the public, legal ramifications? The story set in the past and consequently more detached for a contemporary audience, easier to watch and interpret? Applications to the present?

6. The opening settings, the mountains, lakes, Einar’s painting, continually being viewed, his continuous working on it, nature, its relationship to his past, to Hans, the end and Gerda’s insistence on visiting the scene with Hans?

7. The reproduction of the paintings from both of the artists? Adapting Gerda’s paintings with Eddie Redmayne’s face, Alicia Vikander’s face?

8. The introduction to Einar and Gerda, six years married, the life together, their love, comfortable with each other, their work, his nature painting, her portraits, the dog in the studio – and being told to sit (and the reaction of the pompous man posing)? Acclaim for Einar? Gerda going to visit the agent, his comments, rejection? Einar and his interventions for her, her tension? But love overcoming the tension, peace at home?

9. Einar as a character, his build, slight, his being introverted, the story about Hans and the past, their friendship, the dress, Einar’s father and his berating Hans? Art studies, his story about being attracted by Gerda’s ankle, going out together, marrying, their life, love, no children?

10. Their friends, Gerda and Ulla, the chats, going to the social, dancing, flirting?

11. The portrait of the couple, issues of gender, the initial part of the film contriving to indicate Einar’s sexuality and gender issues? As distinct from a documentary?

12. The performance of Eddie Redmayne, building of his character, manner, slight build, marriage, putting on the stocking with the dress for posing for Gerda? Ulla coming in, responding? His response to the clothes, the texture, wearing, the change of image, make up, movement, Lili emerging? Gerda and her sketches, paintings – and his discovering his inner Lili? His looking in the mirror, posing and shaping his body as female?

13. The decision to go to the function, the preparation, make up, the wig and buying the clothes? Going, giggly, girly? The encounter with Eric, talking with him, whether he knew or not, his comments about Einar’s paintings? The attempt to kiss? Men looking at Lili, nervousness? Lili liking this response, Gerda reacting to the kiss? Einar and his continuing to visit Eric as Lili?

14. Allowing Lili to come out, Einar withdrawing, Lili taking over, Gerda and her requests for him to stay sometimes?

15. Lili staying, his not painting, the need for help, the range of doctors and their opinions, his behaviour, dreams? The collage of medical opinions, shock treatment, holes in head, straitjacket – and his escape?

16. Gerda showing her paintings to the agent, the invitation to go to Paris, Lili going as well, the quiet life, painting, the promotion of the show, work and the apartment? Lili working in the store, with the other shopgirls, perfumes, feminine behaviour?

17. Gerda visiting Hans, his remembering the story, their outings together, at the restaurant, Lili not coming? Hans coming to the apartment, discovering Lili, his offering to help? Gerda sending him away? The opening, Gerda in the rain, needing Einar and his inability to respond?

18. The doctor, interest in the case, his skills and procedures, the information, the interview, the possibilities, Lili and hope, the decision to go, the nature of the operation, his wanting Gerda to be there, the effect, going to the hospital, the interviews, giving the name Lili Elbe? The recuperation and its effect? Wanting to go back to Denmark?

19. Eric, the meeting with Lili, Gerda asking about it, Lili saying it was not sexually emotional, the effect on Gerda?

20. Time passing, wanting to go back to Dresden for the second operation, Gerda not wanting to collaborate in any harm to him? His plea, her going, Hans going? Their support?

21. The operation, its effect, the words of the doctor, the treatment, the fever?

22. Lili’s dream, mother holding the baby and calling her Lili? Death?

23. Lili, the journals, turning them into a book that 1930s, offering insight into the gender issues?

24. The aftermath, Hans and Gerda going to the countryside, seeing Einar’s landscape? Gerda continuing to paint?

25. The effectiveness of this kind of drama, dramatising complex issues, offering insight and emotional response to the audience?