Description
Book Synopsis"Nordic Explorations: Film Before 1930" includes twenty previously unpublished essays written for the 1999 retrospective of Nordic cinema at la Giornate del Cinema Muto in Italy. It brings together leading research on early cinema in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and includes essays on some of the major figures in Nordic cinema including Dreyer, Christensen, Sjostrom and Stiller. Much current research in Nordic film before 1930 is also represented in this anthology with studies of the Norwegian travel genre, Nordic animated film, the relation of Nordic cinema to German and Russian film, the development of educational cinema and industrial film, as well as studies of individual films, filmmakers and national styles, and the relation of the medium to other forms of popular entertainment.The essays make a timely contribution to the more general study of cinema, afford authoritative and stimulating insight into research in the field and challenge many assumptions regarding Nordic cinema before 1930.
Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Denmark A Small Danish Player in a Big Market: A/S Filmfabriken Danmark's Output in Russia, 1913-1917, by Jan Nielsen; Nordisk Films Kompagni and the First World War, by Thomas C. Christensen; Red Satan: Carl Theodor Dreyer and the Bolshevik Threat, by Casper Tybjerg; Benjamin Christensen in Germany: The Critical Reception of His Films in the 1910s and 1920s, by Ib Monty; Palladium and the Silent Films with 'Long and Short', by Marguerite Engberg; A la recherche des films perdus: A Substantial Find of Early Danish Cinema, by Bo Berglund2. FinlandBorn Under the Sign of the Scarlet Flower: Pantheism in Finnish Silent Cinema, by Antti Alanen; Silents for a Silent People, by Peter von Bagh3. NorwaySisters of Cinema: Three Norwegian Actors and their German Film Company, 1917-1920, by Gunnar Iversen; Travel Films in Norway: The Persistence of the 'View' Aesthetic, by Bjorn Sorenssen; Caricatures, Cartoons and Advertisements: The Pioneers of Nordic Animated Film, by Gunnar Strom4. Sweden Exchange and Exhibition Practices: Notes on the Swedish Market in the Transitional Era, by Jan Olsson; Educational Cinema and Censorship in Sweden, 1911-1921, by Asa Jernudd; Seeing the World with Different Eyes, or Seeing Differently: Cinematographic Vision and Turn-of-the-Century Popular Entertainment, by John Fullerton; Towards Classical Narration? Georg af Klercker in Context, by Astrid Soderbergh Widding; 'A Dangerous Pledge': Victor Sjostrom's Unknown Masterpiece, Masterman, by Tom Gunning; Spearhead in a Blind Alley: Viking Eggeling's Diagonal Symphony, by Gosta Werner; Snow-White: The Aesthetic and Narrative Use of Snow in Swedish Silent Film, by Marina Dahlquist; Victor Goes West: Notes on the Critical Reception of Sjostrom's Hollywood Films, 1923-1930, by Bo Florin; Industrial Greta: Some Thoughts on an Industrial Film, by Mats Bjorkin
