Queen Christina / Mata Hari

The Meeting of Two Queens

U.S., 1991

Chilean filmmaker Cecilia Barriga recuts scenes from the movies of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich to construct an imagined romantic encounter between the two icons of on-screen androgyny.

DCP, b&w, 14 min. Director: Cecilia Barriga.

Queen Christina

U.S., 1933

Queen Christina, the iconoclastic, gender-fluid regent of Sweden, was 28 years old when she shocked Europe by abdicating her throne in 1654 rather than submitting to marriage. Greta Garbo was the same age when she portrayed Christina in a role that had long fascinated her and which would become one of the most celebrated of her career. Co-written by friend and frequent collaborator Salka Viertel, the script invents a male love interest for the queen, played by John Gilbert, and nods toward a rumored one (with real noblewoman Ebba Sparre). For all the film’s historical liberties, though, Garbo delivers an authentically fierce performance as a woman who charted her own course, tradition and history be damned.

35mm, b&w, 101 min. Director: Rouben Mamoulian. Screenwriters: H.M. Harwood, Salka Viertel, S.N. Behrman. With: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith. From the collection of the George Eastman Museum.

Mata Hari

U.S., 1931

This fanciful espionage melodrama was inspired by the life of the eponymous WWI dancer-cum-double-agent. Set in Paris circa 1917, Mata Hari features Garbo as a glamorous German spy who beds Russian military officers to steal state secrets while they sleep. Trouble starts when she spurns a jealous general (Lionel Barrymore) after falling hard for a handsome aviator (Ramon Novarro). Directed by George Fitzmaurice in an exotic Sternbergian vein, the film was hailed as a sexy romance that the New York Times declared “an entertainment of no mean value in which that mysterious actress, Greta Garbo, gives another flawless portrayal.”

35mm, b&w, 91 min. Director: George Fitzmaurice. Screenwriters: Benjamin Glazer, Leo Birinski. With: Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone. From the collection of the George Eastman Museum.