Hedda

Director Nia DaCosta

actress Tessa Thompson

DaCosta and Thompson on the set

DaCosta and her lead cast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HEDDA          B                                                                                                                       USA  (107 mi)  2025  ‘Scope  d: Nia DaCosta

A little chaos is good for the gathering.                                                                                       —film tagline

A queer re-imagining of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play Hedda Gabler, which deals with the suffocating circumstances that women faced at the time, a woman trapped within a loveless marriage whose scheming has disastrous consequences, delving into the 19th century limitations, the search for meaning, and the destructive nature of boredom and unfulfilled desires.  One of the fathers of modern theater alongside Anton Chekhov and August Strindberg, introducing theatrical realism, Ibsen was profoundly influenced by Freudian psychology, delving into the exploration of human motivations and desires, creating complex, character-driven dramas that outside of Shakespeare make him the second-most frequently performed playwright in the world.  Confounding audiences for well over 100 years with the inscrutability of the character, wanting to be in control of her own destiny, but access is denied at every turn, posing the question, what is freedom, where there’s no real consensus whether she’s a liberated force or a monster.  In recent years, Hedda Gabler has been one of Ibsen’s most frequently produced plays, a deliciously showy role played by a variety of actresses that include Ingrid Bergman in a 1962 British television production, Maggie Smith in London in 1970 (directed by Ingmar Bergman), Claire Bloom in New York in 1971, Glenda Jackson winning an Oscar nomination in Trevor Nunn’s HEDDA (1975), Annette Bening in Los Angeles in 1999, Cate Blanchett in a widely acclaimed 2004 Sydney Theatre Company production, Isabelle Huppert in Paris in 2005, and earlier this year Katie Holmes at The Old Globe in San Diego.  Similar to the caged-bird feeling of Nora in A Doll’s House, this play also deals with a woman trapped by the conventions of marriage, as social constraints prevented women from having the right to make their own choices in life, as that was the exclusive right and privilege of the husband, leaving her having to awkwardly and sometime humiliatingly accept the consequences.  Described by the director as Ibsen’s “complicated women who make choices you don’t agree with,” the play was considered shocking and immoral when it premiered, a daring exploration of power, desire, and a woman’s refusal to be confined, as Hedda defied 19th century gender roles and societal expectations for women, so adding a queer and black element for the character may seem equally as subversive and provocative today.  In a desperate attempt to control her own destiny, Hedda becomes a master manipulator, which is her tragic flaw, much like Shakespeare’s Iago in Othello, discovering the capacity to get what she wants by manipulating others, like a puppetmaster controlling the strings, able to elicit change through illicit means, literally for her own amusement, where a daring lack of subtlety becomes her strong suit.  Rather than confine the setting to a single parlor like the stage play, the film expands the action to a massively sprawling country estate, complete with a lake and labyrinthian garden hedge to heighten the feeling of claustrophobia, where the costume and production design is stellar.  Told in five chapters, while the play has four acts, the film is set in the lush decadence of 1950’s England at the massive, recently purchased home of this newly married couple, Hedda (the unbelievably charismatic Tessa Thompson) and George Tesman (Tom Bateman), which they obviously cannot afford, as it’s well beyond their means, but George is an academic classics scholar with an all but certain university professorship awaiting him, yet he doesn’t exactly send his closeted queer wife’s heart aflutter, as he’s a white, mild-mannered, scholarly, and somewhat dull husband, revealing Hedda’s dissatisfaction with her life, including her disdain for George’s scholarly pursuits and the societal expectations placed upon her.  Thinking a safe, conventional marriage will bring her closer to privilege and respectability, it comes at the expense of her true feelings.  But the heavily mortgaged house that leaves them drowning in debt is for Hedda in an attempt to win her favor, giving her something that he thinks she wants, coming from an aristocratic background, where it’s more of a status symbol, even though they haven’t yet reached any degree of affluence, revealing the conflict between romantic ideals and bourgeois reality.  In the 1950’s, it was exclusively queer men who were routinely rounded up and arrested in England, as being gay was considered a crime until 1967, yet women were completely bypassed and ignored, as if they were invisible, where their sexual preferences simply didn’t exist.

Nia DaCosta worked with Tessa Thompson before in Little Woods (2018), a small independent gem, a story of women navigating life in poor rural America to confront the opioid crisis and pressing issues in women’s health care, while the actress has gone on to star in several commercial blockbusters, breaking ground as cinema’s first openly LGBTQ+ superhero in the Marvel universe, though she also starred in several smaller independent films, like Eugene Ash’s Sylvie's Love (2020) and Rebecca Hall’s 2021 #8 Film of the Year Passing, which are more searingly realistic, while this is a showcase role with a feverishly exaggerated theatricality to it, presenting a protagonist who defies the traditional heroic mold.  Having worked as a production assistant for Steven Soderbergh, Steve McQueen, and Martin Scorsese, DaCosta studied in London for her master’s degree in drama, which is where the idea of making Hedda biracial originated, as she believes it’s important to see “black women behaving badly” onscreen.  Essentially a British costume drama that was actually filmed at Flintham Hall, all taking place in a single evening leading into the dawn, with a vibrant jazz score composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir that does wonders with the flashy style of the opening credits, with its emphasis on drums and percussion, Hildur Guðnadóttir - Stolen Tale - Prepping the Party | Hedda ... YouTube (2:19), where the first thing we notice is Thompson speaking with a British accent, Hedda (2025) 'Where Should I Start' clip |Tessa Thompson ... YouTube (39 seconds), which is a bit startling at first, but it’s also given a classical Mildred Pierce (1945) structure, one of the first important “women’s pictures,” where the entire film is told in a flashback, yet what it really explores is the idea of a woman’s long sought-after independence.  This does the same through Hedda’s stifled character, a sensual free spirit who yearns for freedom but isn’t given the opportunity, so instead she exudes in her status as a sophisticated party girl, someone who is the life of a party, capricious, elegantly dressed, beautiful, and quick on her feet, where she’s the equal of any man, but they have income opportunities that she doesn’t, which leaves her seething in bitterness and scorn, even contempt, where her changing moods reflect the dizzying thought process that can be overwhelming to viewers, using a chameleon-like ability to adapt to the moment, where she’s every emotional state imaginable.  She grew up as the young and beautiful illegitimate daughter of the important General Gabler, where she was paraded around proudly on horseback, now lovingly preserving his collection of guns in a small box that opens only through a small golden key that she always wears around her neck, having a special fondness for shooting them.  Her yearning for beauty is synonymous with freedom, a concept that is at once existential and aesthetic, as the film concerns itself with female aspiration, yet her character is positively infuriating, completely cut off from a life she values, so instead she toys with the lives of others.  None of her friends thought she’d ever get married, as she flirtatiously broadcasts her role as young and unattached, beholden to no one, free from all societal conventions, thoroughly capable of holding her own with anyone, though now it’s clear she’s using her husband’s position to display unimaginable wealth and prestige, throwing a lavish dinner party for the social elite to help secure his position that will be one for the ages.  While George thinks this is all for him, Hedda has other ideas, as we discover that she’s something of an instigator who loves playing cat and mouse games, as we see her move from ecstatic, to sad, to bored, or in the next moment her inquisitiveness suddenly takes shape, as she plots just exactly what she wants to do, underscored by an inventive musical choice, percussion on wood, Vivace – Wood YouTube (1:53), a clever device that reflects the mechanism of her plotting.  Throwing such a lavish and luxurious party is a bit of a fairy tale, especially when the couple was so devastatingly strapped for cash, as the country was still living under post-war food rations (Rationing in the United Kingdom), which remained in effect until 1954, an element of the story that is completely ignored, though it does represent a time when women were being pushed out of the workforce for returning servicemen, a period obsessed with appearances, which is part of the suffocating reality of the times. 

Having been educated in many predominantly white institutions, DaCosta learned fairly quickly how black women are diminished in the eyes of others, understanding that she needed to be uncompromising in her vision.  The work of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen has transcended time thanks to his realistic approach to morality.  Of all Ibsen’s works, Hedda Gabler is the most detached, the most objective, a character-study through and through, where one cannot even call it a satire, exploring themes of power, freedom, and the societal constraints on women during the 19th century, illustrating Hedda’s struggle against her oppressive circumstances, where the tension escalates as she faces the repercussions of her actions, leading to a dramatic conclusion that reflects her desperate need for recognition in a world that limits her choices.  A lush portrait of a modern woman who is perfectly capable of compartmentalizing her internal thoughts, keeping them both evasive and elusive, belonging only to her and no one else, continually moving from room to room, from one moment to the next, making quick adjustments, finding new angles, new targets, where she’s an absolute delight in being such an unimaginably detestable character, yet she relishes the role, like something out of MEAN GIRLS (2004), continually confounding, sociopathic even, designed to repel audiences, and not easily understood by viewers, wondering why she does the cruel things she does, but it’s all about the power of manipulation.  Her malignant, self-serving egoism rises up uncontrolled, exposing her quick and subtle intellect, where the lavish spectacle is brilliant in coloring and rich in detail, beautifully shot in ‘Scope by Sean Bobbit (Steve McQueen’s cinematographer), as the entire party becomes a series of incidents which can best be described as accidents waiting to happen.  She hasn’t a single intellectual interest or moral limit, instead she languidly cherishes a petty social ambition that she immediately finds obstructed, as that academic position awaiting her husband suddenly finds a rival in successful author Dr. Eileen Lövborg (Nina Hoss, a gender switch from a male character in the play, who curiously played Hedda in a 2013 stage production), an outwardly lesbian former lover of Hedda’s who has just written a book revealing the hidden truths of human sexuality, with the assistance of her current lover Thea (Imogen Poots), that is expected to be revelatory and resurrect her career trajectory, which hit rock bottom during her time with Hedda, as she was an out-of-control alcoholic.  Hoss also displays an enormous range of emotions, from restraint and passion to sheer desperation.  To the complete dismay of her husband, Hedda has invited Eileen to the party, which is sure to prove interesting, just like her arrival, eyes fixated on Hedda across a ballroom, filmed as if both are floating on air, like co-mingling spirits.  The three of them, Thea, Eileen, and Hedda, are like the Three Witches from Macbeth, only queer, each having to fight to be able to decide what kind of life they want to live.  Accordingly, Eileen likes her chances of obtaining that coveted position, as it would give her prominence and stature, as well as economic freedom.  The film centers around Hedda’s desperate attempts to exert control over her destiny and the lives of her husband and his competitive rival, where it may be more about exacting revenge on the circumstances of a life that has made her a prisoner than it is about protecting her husband’s professional prospects.  Hedda can only think of manipulating Eileen, largely for having economic opportunities that are denied to her, so she wants to balance the playing field and take out her competition, using Thea, who she detests, as her foil for manipulating Eileen into doing what she wants her to do, which is create a scandal that will thoroughly diminish her stature.  To that end she devises a rather Machievellian plot to bring about her ultimate downfall, pressuring her, a disgraced yet recovering alcoholic, to get drunk, hoping to loosen her inhibitions and thoroughly embarrass herself in front of her prospective peer group, Hedda (2025) 'I Don't Drink' clip |Tessa Thompson, Imogen ... YouTube (1:42).  DaCosta invents a library scene that is not in the original play where Eileen cavorts with a room full of men, making them drinks and lighting their cigarettes with theatrical flair as she describes her sexual tales, but what was initially academically titillating suddenly takes a dour turn, leaving her defenses exposed, with the men leering at her like a thoroughly depraved whore.

All of these characters are grasping for power because they want to be in a better place, but suffocating social restrictions prevent that from happening.  Enraged at the box society puts her in, and at herself for being unable to pull her way out, Hedda thrives on impulse control, which gets her into a lot of trouble, always acting on a whim, yet never satisfied with where she finds herself.  The uncomfortable factor recalls Thomas Vinterberg’s THE CELEBRATION (1998), another film depicting an emotional all-consuming party over the course of a weekend.  Throughout the party, Hedda seems to cause mini-scandals by preying on the weakness of others, embellished in a crazy world of hedonism and gossip that borders on the ridiculous at times, Hedda (2025) I'm In Competition With That Woman Clip ... YouTube (56 seconds), while also, at least for brief moments, turning despairingly sexual.  Much like the over-the-top spectacle of the seemingly neverending Hollywood party in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (2022), or the infamous 45-minute ballroom dance sequence in Luchino Visconti’s THE LEOPARD (1963), part of the visual appeal is creating this gorgeously brash spectacle, accentuated by an impressively grandiose all-glass chandelier in an all-glass interior space, so that when it falls, it makes the most dramatic impact, just part of the house of cards that Hedda constructs that will eventually fall, where the chandelier is the perfect embodiment of that.  What was originally intended to be a gloomily realistic, thought-provoking drama has been converted into a self-conscious piece of Sirkian melodrama.  As Hedda becomes more and more out of control, still hung up on her ex-lover, who may be the one true love of her life, bothered that she’s not more attentive to her coy flirtations, flittering here and there, making dangerous choices, moment to moment, never really thinking about the consequences, she strikes up the band to play, using anachronistic selections, creating this melodramatic emotional hysteria that is like a bubble that needs to burst.  When an important guest discovers his wife secretly having sex with another man in the supposed privacy of the outdoor gardens, all he can think about is exacting revenge, pulling out a gun, causing a commotion, but rather than shoot the man, he shoots upward, causing the chandelier to come crashing to the ground, creating pandemonium and pure panic.  The Chekhovian gun is an interesting device, because as soon as it’s introduced, viewers know nothing good can come out of it, so audiences simply wait for a developing catastrophe to happen, where full-blown tragedies happen fast and furiously at the end, delving into overwrought melodrama, with little context or explanation, relying upon visual elegance and symbolism, which ends up diluting the corrosive power and shock value of the play.  The men in the film are not developed, but feel like shadows of themselves, where their invisibility mirrors how women were viewed when the play was written.  Hedda is one of Ibsen’s most enigmatic and controversial female protagonists, as she embodies a profound conflict between societal expectations and personal desires, exploring her motivations, psychological depth, and the constraints imposed on her by a patriarchal society that limits her freedom and self-expression.  Through her actions and interactions with other characters, Hedda reveals a desperate attempt to assert power and autonomy in a world where she feels trapped by convention and devoid of purpose, challenging traditional gender roles by critiquing the norms of the surrounding world, while also shedding light on broader themes of freedom, manipulation, and existential despair, revealing symptoms of a postmodern anxiety.  Ultimately a complex character who defies easy categorization, exuding despair, a yearning for beauty, and a depth of soul that gives the character complexity and grandeur, Hedda’s tragic fate is a result of her internal conflict and her inability to reconcile her desire for control with the endless limitations imposed on her by society.  Unlike most other nineteenth-century writers, for whom the female characters could never be more than a foil for the male hero’s existential crisis, Ibsen dared to make a woman the bearer of his play’s most fundamental philosophical preoccupations, to turn this specific woman’s crisis into a scorching critique of the stifling repressive conditions of their times.  Like Hamlet, who is deeply challenging to understand, Hedda embodies humanity, tapping into the universality of women and what really constitutes freedom, which is a profoundly feminist move.

Nia DaCosta's Closet Picks  Criterion Closet on YouTube (4:56)

Blind Husbands

 

Writer/director Erich von Stroheim

BLIND HUSBANDS            B                                                                                               USA  (92 mi)  1919  d: Erich von Stroheim                      Austrian version 99 mi

In the Alps there is no sin.                                                                                                               —embroidered sign hanging on the wall of one of the hotel rooms

When von Stroheim arrived in America from Austria at the age of 24 in 1909, he claimed to be the son of a German Baroness and an Austrian Count, and a decorated graduate from the Austrian Military Academy at Wiener Neustadt.  In reality, he was the son of Johanna and Benno Stroheim, a middle class Jewish hat maker and manufacturer.  So right from the start, he existed in a fictitiously created alternate reality, so he seemed destined to work in the world of cinema, claiming in his early biographies that his family had a long history in the Austrian cavalry, entering the Hollywood film industry in 1914 as an extra and horse handler, working in blackface for D.W. Griffith’s BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) as a recently freed slave, eventually working as an uncredited assistant director on the film, and a production assistant on INTOLERANCE (1916).  It was there that he became impressed by Griffith’s attention to detail, his insistence on character development, and his sense of realism, the same things that would eventually make von Stroheim legendary in his own quest for a place in filmmaking history, far ahead of his time in terms of his modernity, and his refusal to compromise his artistic vision.  In his early roles, he developed a reputation for playing the well-mannered, sophisticated European that American audiences loved to hate, but with the outbreak of WWI, with America fighting against Germany, Hollywood was anxious about anyone that might resemble the enemy on the battlefield, so his named was dropped from the credits and he was blacklisted by the industry.  However, after the war, the studios turned to pro-American and anti-German propaganda films, where they needed actors who could convincingly portray Prussian military officers, and von Stroheim fit the bill, becoming an expert in German military uniforms and paraphernalia.  Comfortably back in the business, he took the opportunity to write his own screenplay for his script-in-progress entitled The Pinnacle, going so far as to camp out on the grounds of the home of Universal studio head Carl Laemmle, a fellow German-Jewish émigré who was known for producing low-budget movies, as opposed to the big budget, star-driven Paramount pictures.  The ploy apparently worked as he was given the opportunity to direct his own script about adultery lurking in a mountain setting, but Laemmle changed the title to BLIND HUSBANDS.  As a child, his family often vacationed in the Tyrolean Alps, drawing on personal experience when he envisioned the story.  Essentially a mountain film, featuring daring climbing scenes, it presents protagonists who flee the hustle and bustle of their daily lives seeking solitude or a higher purpose in the mountains, which represent a sacred place.  Using a color scheme where sepia was used for the evening scenes, blue for the night scenes, and black and white for the day scenes, what stands out in his debut feature at the age of 33 is the director’s willingness to explore human frailty, romantic intrigue, and the darker aspects of human nature, contrasting the majesty of the natural world and the perversity of toxic desire.  Of interest, in 1982 a version was discovered by the Austrian Film Archives that was seven minutes longer than existing Hollywood prints.

Biographer Richard Koszarski called BLIND HUSBANDS “the most impressive and significant debut film in Hollywood history” before the coming of Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE (1941), with both von Stroheim and Orson Welles, dominant personalities, sharing remarkably similar career paths, as each made a name for themselves as a performer before making their first films, receiving success and adulation before the studios would turn against them, basically exiling them from Hollywood.  While this is simpler and less elaborate than his later films, von Stroheim developed a reputation for perfectionism and overspending, abandoning all shooting schedules, leading to legendary conflicts with producers, which is the primary reason why all his films after this one were drastically cut by his producers, yet his films caused both outrage and admiration.  He blended the working methods of Griffith with the literary influences of European modernism, becoming the prime creator in Hollywood of witty, risqué, European-like sex-triangle comedy-dramas, where his initial successes in the early 1920’s were characterized by subtle acting touches and complex sophistication in visual storytelling that impressed American audiences as essentially European and fascinatingly decadent.  While it’s one of the earliest films to realistically portray female desire, the unmistakable eroticism is quite contained, featuring the fetishistic framing of a woman’s legs and ankles.  The maker of Greed (1924) and The Great Gabbo (1929), yet perhaps best known for his onscreen portrayal of Captain Von Rauffenstein in Jean Renoir’s THE GRAND ILLUSION (1937), he was a cynical romantic, concerned with destroying an idealized romanticism that promoted righteousness and redemption, where the upper classes were no more models of perfection than the lower classes beacons of hardworking respectability.  His worldview was decidedly darker, filled with exploiters and exploited of all classes, with a devotion to grim realism.  Beneath the veneer of pre-World War I, imperial Europe was a void of immorality as ugly as the surface was pretty.  In von Stroheim’s eye, no one was exempt from the depravity, as it was all-consuming.  Even in a somewhat imperfect film, where none of the characters (outside of the director) are particularly interesting, the director’s remarkable flair for visual drama is already evident, though the story lags in parts, seemingly conventional by today’s standards, lacking the tragic scale of his later films, though the point of view is extremely unconventional, as von Stroheim uses dreams and omens to reveal the most intimate feelings of the characters.  Avoiding wordy intertitles, the title card near the beginning informs us that a husband who neglects his wife is more deserving of our contempt than “the other man” who steps in, though society is quick to condemn the intruder, failing to examine the husband’s culpability.  The film explores an overarching, symbolic message, but rather than celebrate traditional human values like loyalty and sacrifice, the emphasis lies in ambiguity and ambivalence, casting himself as an aberrant male seducer, embodying von Stroheim’s perverse masculinity, the prototype of a character who would appear again in subsequent von Stroheim films such as FOOLISH WIVES (1922) and THE WEDDING MARCH (1928).  After the German defeat in the war, the outcome affected the director, making films that tackled issues of male virility, where a mountain climber is viewed as the pinnacle of rugged strength.

The story of an inattentive husband, Dr. Robert Armstrong (Sam De Grasse, from D.W. Griffith’s INTOLERANCE), an overly intrusive Austrian cavalry officer, Lieutenant Eric Von Steuben (Erich von Stroheim), and the neglected wife, Margaret Armstrong (Francelia Billington) who finds herself in between.  Curiously dedicated to Sepp Innerkofler, world-famous mountain guide (Gibson Gowland, who would later play McTeague in Greed), we find ourselves in a small yet forbidding Alpine village on the Austro-Italian frontier free of cars or any signs of modernity, known today as the Italian Dolomites (the director avoids national affiliation).  Meticulously reconstructing a European setting within a U.S. film studio, an American couple spend their holiday in the Alps in what is ostensibly a love triangle, as the film goes to great lengths to show an aloof Dr. Armstrong reading a newspaper, talking to other people, not responding to her questions, or just generally disregarding his wife, who appears bored, which the constantly smoking Lieutenant, well-groomed and perfectly dressed in full military attire, notices.  By ascertaining that there’s a certain emotional distance between them, the Lieutenant thinks that he can exploit the situation to his own ends, so he fills the void by offering compliments and gifts, as well as attentiveness and affection, which she initially appreciates, expressing a desire for any kind of attention, producing a mixture of thrill and terror.  Seriously contemplating an extramarital affair until he forces himself in her room and basically manhandles her, so much of this film takes place in her imagination, producing a nightmare in which von Steuben’s face, with a demonic smirk, hovers as if suspended in air, like a disembodied object of German Expressionist horror, so she is quick to keep him at arm’s length afterwards, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to seduce her.  The embodiment of a sexual predator, he takes great pleasure in romancing the waitress (Fay Holderness), who has an erotic fascination with his uniform, and a local woman he meets (A Village Blossom, Ruby Kendrick), though the real object of his desire is Margaret, using the exact same poetic lines with each one of them, “This wonderful night is ours - - yours and mine - - and even the good old moon seems to give us her blessing,” suggesting he’s a bit of a Don Juan character, with an appreciation for “wine, women, and song.”  All this takes place under the observant eyes of Sepp, the morally upright mountain guide (and his everpresent St. Bernard dog), who is a friend of Dr. Armstrong, repeatedly getting in the way of von Steuben’s intentions, with Margaret renouncing the Lieutenant’s erotic advances, though her husband aptly remains clueless.  A missing scene found in the Austrian print has von Steuben and Margaret visiting a local chapel, leading her to the top of the bell tower where he then kisses her.  A dramatic showdown ensues between the rival men on a dangerous mountain ascent, intercut with scenes of a distraught Margaret waiting in a state of guilt-ridden panic in an enclosed interior space, while outdoors there’s a struggle for dominance, which exposes each of them for their own shortcomings, ending in disaster.  The characters are never identified by name, listing them instead as the Husband, the Wife, and the Other Man, essentially stripping them of any individualization.  While it plays out like a morality play, they are reduced to base instincts, morally corrupt, and driven by desire.  Dr. Armstrong represents the Puritanical American dedicated to his work, which causes him to overlook his wife, while the Lieutenant is a caricature of a superficially polite and educated European aristocrat and officer, ultimately exposed as a braggart and womanizer.  While there are elements of a traditional melodrama, von Stroheim avoids exaggeration, preferring to use wit and irony and easily recognizable characters, while encouraging naturalistic acting instead of the broad gestures of silent film, though his obsession with realism caused him to reshoot scenes over and over again in a mad attempt to get it right, searching for a perfect ideal, frustrating both the cast and the crew, which then required laborious sifting through the extensive footage shot to mold a completed film. While it’s nowhere near his best, this is the only film von Stroheim made as he intended, without producer interference, making it unique in that regard, as he was never again able to maintain artistic control of his films, so it holds a special significance.       

Note

The mountain inn features a happy honeymooning couple, offering a sharp contrast to the more complacent protagonists.  Of interest, the woman, Valerie Germonprez, married the director a year after the film was released.  

Blind Husbands | Full Classic Silent Film | Restored HD ... YouTube (1:32:19)