NYTimes - Anatomy of a Scene and TDG Review

The New York Times: Tom Hooper Narrates a Scene From 'The Danish Girl'

This scene shows Lili, living as Einar, at a pivotal moment leading up to that transition. In an interview, 
the director Tom Hooper discussed the scene and some of his ideas for the movie.
(Excerpts from the Tom Hooper interview)

Tom Hooper on the paintings in the film: "At first, I was very purist and said we have to use the real Lili paintings and I won’t accept creating our own. And my production designer Eve Stewart said, fairly close to the shooting, “Tom, you do know that the Lili in the paintings is not Eddie Redmayne and doesn’t look exactly like him.” So there was a moment of going, yes, however pure I am, we are going to need to adapt these paintings so it does reflect Eddie Redmayne’s Lili. So we started to create very faithful versions of the paintings. The only way of really getting it right was by asking Eddie to sit for the painter as Lili Elbe. We recreated all the famous poses of the Lili paintings and Eddie would sit and the painter would work for many hours."

Tom Hooper on Eddie's casting: "Eddie has been drawn to the feminine. He played girl’s parts in school plays. He played Viola in Mark Rylance’s celebrated production of “Twelfth Night.” So he had a body of work of playing women before I approached him to play Lili. He has a quality of emotional transparency, which led me to think about him for Lili. I wanted the audience to go on a journey where step-for-step, beat-for-beat, you’re with Lili and you understand what she’s feeling. One of the things I think he achieves in the film is, with Eddie, Lili’s emergence becomes inevitable, becomes necessary. And that’s because of his extraordinary empathic ability to connect with audiences." 

The New York Times: 

Review: ‘The Danish Girl,’ About a Transgender Pioneer

“The Danish Girl,” Tom Hooper’s new film, is a story of individual struggle that is also a portrait of a marriage. In this respect and others it resembles “The King’s Speech,” Mr. Hooper’s earlier historical drama, a multiple Oscar winner a few years ago....Read more

Pictures: my screenshots from The New York Times video