“Asta Nielsen is well known as an autonomous actress of the early years of cinema, who exercised a decisive influence on the making of her films. Her sovereignty, however, that unfolding of an exorbitant acting ability in connection with the film, was only possible on the basis of the general structure of the cinema drama, in particular the social drama. The Danish actress was familiar with this before she played for the German PAGU. What Nielsen is generally acknowledged with, namely, the invention of her own cinema language, is evident at least in nuce in many other actresses at that time. Their acting too is both a presentation and a communication of self, so that it is possible to speak of a female narrative perspective in the history of early cinema. This is absent in melodrama; there, the film transports the image of the woman as prescribed by the drama; acting cannot develop a dynamic of its own”. (Heide Schlüpmann, Unheimlichkeit des Blicks. Das Drama des frühen deutschen Kinos, 1990)