The Danish Girl (film)

The Danish Girl
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tom Hooper
Produced by	Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Anne Harrison Tom Hooper Gail Mutrux
Screenplay by	Lucinda Coxon
Based on	The Danish Girl  by David Ebershoff
Starring	Eddie Redmayne Alicia Vikander Matthias Schoenaerts Ben Whishaw Sebastian Koch Amber Heard
Music by	Alexandre Desplat
Cinematography	Danny Cohen
Edited by	Melanie Ann Oliver
Production companies	Working Title Pretty Pictures Artemis Productions[1] Revision Pictures Senator Global Productions
Distributed by	Focus Features Universal Pictures International
Release dates	5 September 2015 (2015-09-05) (Venice) 27 November 2015 (2015-11-27) (United States) 1 January 2016 (2016-01-01) (United Kingdom)
Running time	119 minutes[2]
Country	United Kingdom United States Belgium
Language	English
Budget	$15 million[3]
Box office	$44.1 million[4]

The Danish Girl is a 2015 British biographical drama film directed by Tom Hooper, based on the 2000 fictional novel of the same name by David Ebershoff and loosely inspired by the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener.^[5] The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener, Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil, and Ben Whishaw as Henrik.

The film was screened in the main competition section of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival,^[6][7] and it was shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.^[8] The film was released in a limited release on 27 November 2015 by Focus Features in the United States.^[9] The film was released on 1 January 2016, in the United Kingdom by Universal Pictures International.^[10]

The film received some criticism for its inaccurate portrayal of historical events.

Plot

In mid-1920s Copenhagen, portrait artist Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) asks her husband, popular landscape artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), to stand in for a female model who was late to come to their flat to pose for a painting she's working on.

The act of Einar posing as a female figure unmasks his lifelong identification as a woman, whom he has named Lili Elbe. This sets off a progression, first tentative and then irreversible, of leaving behind the identity as Einar, which Lili has struggled to maintain all her life. This takes place as both Lili and Gerda relocate to Paris; Gerda's portraits of Lili in her feminine state attract serious attention from art dealers in a way that her previous portraiture had not. It is there that Gerda tracks down art dealer Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), a childhood friend of Einar (Hans had been the first boy who had ever kissed Lili). Hans and Gerda's mutual attraction is a challenge, as she is navigating her changing relationship to Lili, but Hans' longtime friendship with and affection for Lili cause him to be supportive of both Lili and Gerda.

As her struggles with her identity and continued existence as Einar become too much for Lili, she starts to seek help from psychologists, but none yield any results (and, in one instance, almost leads her into getting sectioned). Eventually, at Hans's recommendation, Lili and Gerda meet Dr. Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch). Dr. Warnekros explains that he has met several men like Einar, who identify as female, and proposes a new, innovative and controversial solution: male to female sex reassignment surgery. This would entail a two-part procedure that involves first removing Lili's external genitalia and then, after a period of recovery, fashioning a vagina. He warns them that it is a very dangerous operation that has never been attempted before, and Lili would be one of the first to undergo it. Lili immediately agrees, and soon after travels to Germany to begin the surgery. Unfortunately, her eagerness to shed the vestiges of her male anatomy leads her to rush the sequence of procedures, and she eventually dies of complications from the surgery. The movie ends with Gerda and Hans on a hilltop back in Denmark; a scarf that Lili had originally given Gerda, and that had subsequently been given back and forth several times, is carried away on the wind, dancing.

Cast

• Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe / Einar Wegener
• Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener
• Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil
• Ben Whishaw as Henrik
• Amber Heard as Ulla
• Sebastian Koch as Dr. Warnekros
• Emerald Fennell as Elsa
• Adrian Schiller as Rasmussen
• Henry Pettigrew as Niels

Production

Development

Screenwriter Lucinda Coxon worked on the screenplay for a decade before it was produced. She told Creative Screenwriting, "I started in 2004 and within a couple of years we had a script we were happy to send out. We were terribly excited and I was fantastically naïve, because when you fall in love with a project, you assume that everyone else will be in love with it as well. The actors were very much in love with it. Several well-known actresses wanted to play Gerda, but the subject matter made it quite difficult to find someone to play Lili. We scheduled various directors and with each director came a new draft."^[11]

In September 2009, Tomas Alfredson revealed to Variety that production on the project would precede that of his upcoming Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy adaptation. He added, "We have been in talks for close to a year, and we are soon going into production".^[12] In December 2009, Swedish newspapers reported that Alfredson was no longer attached to direct The Danish Girl and would begin work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy next. Alfredson said he regretted that reports of him working on The Danish Girl spread before the deal was finalised. He also said that he still wanted to make the film and might return to the project.^[13][14]

On 12 January 2010, Swedish director Lasse Hallström told Swedish media that he had been assigned to replace Alfredson as director.^[15]

Casting

Charlize Theron was originally slated to play the role of Gerda Wegener but, after leaving the project, was replaced by Gwyneth Paltrow.^[16] Paltrow then left the project due to location changes.^[17] Uma Thurman was also a rumoured replacement. In September 2010, Marion Cotillard was rumored to be the lead candidate for the role of Gerda Wegener.^[18]

On 11 June 2010, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the film had received €1.2 million ($1.5 million) in subsidy financing from Germany's NRW Film Board. The conditions of the deal include the planned 19-day shoot in Germany.^[19] In February 2011, Screen Daily reported that the film would begin shooting in July of the same year and that Rachel Weisz would play Wegener.^[20] In May it was revealed that both Weisz and Hallström had left the project.^[21]

On 28 April 2014, it was announced that Tom Hooper would direct the film with Eddie Redmayne as the lead.^[22] On 19 June 2014, Alicia Vikander was announced in the cast.^[23] On 8 January 2015, Matthias Schoenaerts joined the cast.^[24]

Filming

Filming was projected to commence in spring 2010 in Berlin.^[25][26] Coxon revealed to Creative Screenwriting that when filming finally begun with Tom Hooper he actually filmed an older version of the script. "We had probably gone through twenty drafts before landing Tom Hooper. In fact, the one we shot was actually an early revised draft that Tom had read back in 2008. I did a fairly large rewrite for Tom, but in the end, we used a version with little revision from the original."^[11]

Filming began in February 2015, where Redmayne was spotted on set.^[27] Filming also took place at Nyhavn, where the iconic waterfront was transformed to look like Copenhagen in the 1930s.^[28][29] On 31 March 2015, Redmayne was spotted filming a fight scene.^[30] Sets for the Danish and Paris flats were built in the Elstree Studios in London and additional shooting took place in Copenhagen and Brussels.^[31] Production on the film concluded on 12 April 2015. Filming took place for a total of 44 days for the 186 scenes in six countries.^[31]

Post-production

Post-production ended in September 2015.^[32] Post-production according to composer, Alexandre Desplat was very fast, with the film being cut as Desplat was writing the score, which was recorded only a week prior to the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival.^[33]

Tom Hooper revealed to Indiewire and After Ellen that the film's ending is different from the novel (in which Lili and Gerda don't stay together) and he de-emphasized the importance of the Hans storyline because he didn't want to feel that there was a love possibility with Hans that could in any way rival Lili. He wanted it to even be ambiguous if it even would turn into a love affair (between Gerda and Hans), rather than a friendship. Because to him, the love of each other's lives was Lili and Gerda. He took the script in that direction to protect the importance of their relationship.^[34][35]

In an interview with MTV International, Alicia Vikander revealed that two scenes featuring Amber Heard dancing were cut from the film, as well as stating the first cut for the film was over 2 hours.^[36]

Release

On 4 March 2015, Focus Features set the film for a limited release on 27 November 2015.^[37] The film had its world premiere at the 72nd Venice Film Festival on 5 September 2015.^[38][39] The film was released on 1 January 2016, in the United Kingdom.^[10]

Marketing

The first image of Redmayne as Lili Elbe was revealed on 26 February 2015.^[40] A pair of posters of Redmayne and Vikander were then released in August,^[41] On 1 September 2015, the first trailer was released.^[42] on 19 November 2015, The first clip from the film was released.^[43]

Reception

Box office

As of 27 January 2016, The Danish Girl has grossed $9.97 million in North America and $20.94 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $30.92 million, against a budget of $15 million.^[4]

The film had a limited release in the United States and Canada across four cinemas in New York and Los Angeles on November 27, 2015 before expanding cinemas in December.^[44] The film earned $185,000 in its opening weekend, averaging $46,250, which is the sixth-best opening weekend per cinema average of 2015.^[44] The opening weekend’s audience was 58% female, and 67% were over 40.^[44]

Critical response

The Danish Girl has received generally positive reviews from critics, particularly for its acting and sensitive handling of a difficult subject matter. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 70%, based on 181 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The consensus reads "The Danish Girl serves as another showcase for Eddie Redmayne's talent – and poignantly explores thought-provoking themes with a beautifully filmed biopic drama".^[45] On Metacritic the film has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[46]

The film's acting, particularly that of Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander in the lead roles, received considerable acclaim, with Marie Asner of Phantom Tollbooth stating that 'the acting is what makes this film'.^[47] and Damien Straker of Impulse Gamer describing 'two commanding performances give it a gripping emotional weight that is very affecting'.^[48] Redmayne's performance was described as 'another sterling example of just how deeply he can immerse himself into a role' by Jim Schembri of 3AW, 'revealing, heartbreaking and believable' by Linda Cook of Quad City Times,.^[49]

Kyle Buchanan, writing for Vulture, complained that it was part of a trend of “queer and trans films that are actually about straight people,”^[50] while Paul Byrnes for The Sydney Morning Herald said it was "a lost opportunity" in which "the frocks are more convincing than the emotions."^[51]

Controversy

The film received some criticism for the casting of a cisgender man to play a trans woman.^[52] It has also been criticised for being written similarly to forced feminization erotica, obscuring the actual story of a historical trans person^[53][54] and for being based on a fictional book that doesn't tell the true story of Einar and Gerda Wegener.^[55][56][57]

Historical inaccuracies

• The film is based on the novel The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff. The novel, as Ebershoff stated, does not try to tell a true story. He not only imagined most of what he wrote about Elbe's inner life, but also created all of the other characters in the book, such as Hans and Henrik, both characters present in the film.^[5] Despite many inaccuracies,^[58][59] the film has been marketed as a "true story" and "a true love story".^{[35][60][60][61][62]}
• Gerda Wegener was a natural blonde and blue-eyed woman (as she used to be portrayed in her self-portraits)^[63][64] with pale skin, while Alicia Vikander is a natural brunette with brown eyes and natural olive skin. Vikander had to wear blonde wigs while filming the movie, and she also revealed to The New York Times that the filmmakers paled her skin, to make her lighter.^[65]
• The film begins in 1926, when Einar/Lili was 44 years old and Gerda was 40. Their marriage lasted 26 years (1904-1930); they were respectively 22 and 18 years old when they got married. The film only mentions that Einar and Gerda had been married for 6 years.^[66]
• Gerda Wegener was 43–44 years old during the events portrayed in the film. Lili was 47 years old when she underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1930, and died the following year, at 48. Eddie Redmayne was 33 years old during filming, while Alicia Vikander was 26.
• Lili and Gerda moved to Paris in 1912, when they were 30 and 26 years old, respectively. But the film makes it look like they moved to Paris in late 20s. Paris was remarkably liberal in the 1910s and 1920s, the reason why Gerda and Lili settled there and Gerda lived openly as a lesbian in the city.^[63][67] The scene in which Einar, dressed in men's clothes, is beaten by two men in Paris after being mistaken for a lesbian is fictional.^[66]
• Lili's post-transition name was Lili Ilse Elvenes. The name "Lili Elbe," the only name used in the film, was made up by Copenhagen journalist Louise "Loulou" Lassen.^[68]
• Topics including Gerda's sexuality,^[69] which is evidenced by the subjects in her erotic drawings,^[70][71] and the disintegration of Gerda and Lili's relationship after having their marriage annulled in 1930, are omitted in both the novel^[72] and the film.^[66]
• Gerda Wegener's famous Lesbian Erotica paintings are never mentioned in the film, nor the fact that she wasn't around during Lili's last operation and death, but was living in Italy with her second husband, Italian officer Fernando Porta. Gerda divorced from Porta in 1936, didn't have children and never married again. She returned to Denmark, took to drinking and died penniless in 1940. The character Hans Axgil (played by Matthias Schoenaerts) didn't exist in her life.^[73]
• Lili's boyfriend at the time of her last surgery and death was French art dealer Claude Lejeune, whom she hoped to marry and have a child with. There is a photo of Lili and Lejeune together dating from 1928, when Lili was still legally married to Gerda.^[55] Lejeune is not mentioned in the film. The character Henrik (played by Ben Whishaw) is, as previously stated, a fictional creation.^{[55][74][75][76]}
• An important factor surrounding Lili's death was omitted from the film; she died from organ rejection due to a uterus transplant (her fifth operation) in 1931, at the age of 48, but in the film she dies after the second sex reassignment surgery.^[74]
• Lili was not the first transgender woman nor the first to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Rudolph Richter (born in 1891 - sometimes referred to as Rudolph R.), who even early on in childhood - displayed a "tendency to act and carry on in a feminine way", was castrated at his own request in 1922, when Magnus Hirschfeld arranged for a bilateral orchidectomy (castration) for him and began investigating the impact that reduced testerone had on his anatomy. He worked as a domestic at the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute for Sexual Research, dressed as a woman. Hirschfeld affectionately called her Dörchen (little Dora) and published her transformation process as a transvestite in his work on gender studies "Geschlechtskunde". Institute physician Felix Abraham published Dorchen's gender transformation as case-study: "Her castration had the effect - albeit not very extensive - of making her body became fuller, restricting her beard growth, making visible the first signs of breast development, and giving the pelvic fat pad... a more feminine shape." In June 1931, when Dora Richter/Dörchen R., is about 40 years old, her penis was amputated by the Institute physician Dr. Levy-Lenz, and then an artificial vagina was surgically grafted by the Berlin surgeon Prof. Dr. Gohrbandt.^[77] Dora becomes the first trans woman of whom records remain to undergo vaginoplasty. According to Dr Felix Abraham, a psychiatrist working at the Institute for Sexual Science, her "first step to feminization was made by means of castration" in 1922. "After this there was a long pause, until the beginning of the year 1931, when the penis amputation was done and in June, the here described surgery" - a highly experimental vaginoplasty performed by Dr Erwin Gohrbandt, (1890-1965).^[68] The highly experimental operation (which included the first attempt at vaginoplasty) was a remarkable success and the resulting publicity was enough to lure Lili to the Institute. Lili`s case was far more high-profile that Dorchen's.^[78] Lili became the second trans woman to benefit from Gohrbandt's vaginoplasty technique in 1931. Her castration and penectomy had been performed by Dr Ludwig Levy-Lenz (1889-1966) the previous year. These preliminaries have sometimes caused confusion over the date of Lili's reassignment surgery.^[68] Gohrbandt's surgery deliberately leaves remnants of the scrotum intact, with a view to modifying these into labia at a later date, but for reasons that are unclear, he does not perform this further procedure himself. Instead, Elvenes' case is taken over by the media-friendly Nazi party member Dr. Kurt Warnekros (1882-1949) at the Dresden Women's Clinic. Here, the labiaplasty and a subsequent surgical revision leads, in that pre-antibiotic age, to Lili's death from infection in September 1931.^[68] The ritual book-burning at the Institute for Sexual Science by Nazi students in May 1933, the obliteration of the Dresden Women's Clinic and its records in the Allied bombing raids of February 1945, and the myth-making process itself, has left gaps and inconsistencies in the Lili Elbe narrative that may never be resolved.^[68]

Ban

The film has been banned in Qatar on grounds of moral depravity,^[79] and also in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.^[80]

Accolades

See also

• List of transgender characters in film and television
• List of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films of 2015

References

External links

• The Danish Girl at the Internet Movie Database
• The Danish Girl at Box Office Mojo
• The Danish Girl at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Danish Girl at Metacritic
• The Danish Girl at History vs. Hollywood