Scandinavian Film and Television


Scandinavian Film and Television

Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Content Rating 96%(2,975 ratings)

WEEK
1
2 hours to complete
Contemporary Scandinavian Film and TV Culture and Dreyer's Classical Cinema
This module consists of two lessons. The first lesson offers an introduction to main trends in the contemporary Scandinavian film and television culture, focusing – among other things – on how the national film and television cultures relate to ideas of the welfare state. The module also addresses the international impact of film and television from Scandinavia. The second lesson deals with the early years of cinema in Scandinavia and the work of the Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer, from a silent film classic such as 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' to the sound film era.ist
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6 videos (Total 66 min), 2 readings, 2 quizzes
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WEEK
2
2 hours to complete
Ingmar Bergman and Lars von Trier
'The Seventh Seal', 'Persona' and 'Cries and Whispers' are just some of the famous films by the acclaimed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. The third lesson focuses on issues of influences, themes and style in his films as well as on Bergman's importance for the modern art cinema. The fourth lesson deals with the internationally renowned ideas and films by the Danish director Lars von Trier: 'The Europa-trilogy'; The TV series 'Riget'/'The Kingdom'; 'Breaking the Waves'; 'Dancer in the Dark' and 'Dogville'; The Dogma 95 Manifesto; 'Antichrist', 'Melancholia' and 'Nymphomaniac' ...
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6 videos (Total 69 min), 2 readings, 2 quizzes
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WEEK
3
2 hours to complete
New Wave, Art Cinema and Social Drama
Many people have heard of the French new wave cinema, 'la nouvelle vague'. The fifth lesson deals with the main tendencies of the Scandinavian new wave cinema and some of its 'auteurs'. The sixth lesson focuses on different tendencies in the Scandinavian art film and social drama after 1990, ranging from award-winning heritage films to harsh stories from the contemporary Scandinavian welfare societies.
6 videos (Total 75 min), 2 readings, 2 quizzes
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WEEK
4
2 hours to complete
Documentary and Early TV Drama
Scandinavian cinema has a long history of strong documentary film making. The seventh lesson moves from the early documentary filmmakers to the contemporary – global and digital – scene for Scandinavian documentaries. Television drama is important for the Scandinavian public service broadcasters, but the notions of good television drama have changed remarkably from the early days of television up until today. In the eighth lesson we focus on the main tendencies in these developments from 1960 to 2000.
6 videos (Total 81 min), 2 readings, 2 quizzes
SEE LESS
6 videos
7.2: A new look at reality: The modern Scandinavian documentary, by Professor Ib Bondebjerg12m
7.3: Documentary in a global and digital world, by Professor Ib Bondebjerg14m
8.1: A medium for education: Early television drama, by Professor Ib Bondebjerg10m
8.2: The birth of modern television drama, by Professor Ib Bondebjerg18m
8.3: Stories by instalment: Television and serial narratives, by Professor Ib Bondebjerg13m

2 readings
Additional resources10m
Additional resources10m

2 practice exercises
The Scandinavian Documentary6m
Scandinavian Television Drama 1960-20006m
·   WEEK
5
3 hours to complete
Modern TV Drama and the Digital Revolution
With 'Nordic Noir' such as 'Wallander' and 'Forbrydelsen/The Killing' becoming a 'brand' in the 2010s, some 'Scandi crime' series were suddenly of interest to international as well as national audiences. The ninth lesson focuses on Scandinavian television drama after the millennium and addresses some of the changes in the production framework that helped the series move from the national to the international realm. The tenth and final lesson discusses how to understand the contemporary Scandinavian film and television culture in a global and digital era. What might the transnational future bring?
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6 videos (Total 66 min), 8 readings, 2 quizzes
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1.1: Scandinavian cinema and the welfare state, by Professor Ib Bondebjerg

Transcript
[SOUND] Scandinavian film and television culture doesn't posses the galactic powers of the Star Wars series, nor do we inhabit the magic world of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. What Scandinavian film and television is famous for is not blockbusters and mainstream film and television dramas, although we may occasionally find such a Scandinavian hit. But even when it happens, as it did with the Millennium Trilogy from 2009 based on the late Swedish crime author Stieg Larsson's books, the global audience for each of these films in cinema was only between 6 and 9 million. If we compare this to the average of 50 to 60 million for the US, UK films about Harry Potter, we get a feeling of the global power of American English films compared to Scandinavia. All Scandinavian countries have a quite strong and diverse production of film and television genres, and national audiences tend to like the film and television they get. But Scandinavia is a small region in a very big and very global world, and each of the countries are small. Sweden has 9.5 milion inhabitants, Denmark 5.6 million, Finland 5.4 million, and Norway 4.9 million. In the European Union as a whole, the population is by now 739 million. So Europe is much bigger than US with its 311 million. But where Europe is fragmented in many different nations with different languages, USA is a unified and very firmly organized market with a strong tradition for international distribution. Smaller nations, such as the Scandinavian, cannot produce films on the budget American films can. All Scandinavian countries also produce popular mainstream genres, but only the national audiences watch them. What Scandinavian film and television is known for internationally is not mainstream genres and blockbusters. We are known for our auteurs, for those individuals that experiment and take chances. We're known for our contribution to the social and psychological realism, for putting existential and social problems on the agenda. Those trends dominate film, television and fiction, and documentaries. When Scandinavia, from time to time, produces genre films or genre television, as, for instance, the present Danish success series The Killing, critics abroad often point to special artist and thematic qualities that stand out compared to mainstream products. A special type of Scandinavian design is often defined In connection, for instance, with architecture and furniture. Perhaps some form of Scandinavian design is also visible in the film and television products we export successfully. Scandinavian countries are characterized by being highly developed welfare states. A core value is to secure equal opportunities for all, social solidarity and security. To reach this goal, the model promotes social rights and the principle that everyone is entitled to equal access to social and health services, education and culture. People in the Scandinavian countries pay a relatively high tax, but as a result of that, many things are free. Health service, education and also many cultural offers. The welfare state doesn't eliminate market forces and free enterprise, but the collaboration between the public and the private sector aims at securing the individual in the best possible way. The welfare model of Scandinavia also greatly influences film and television. Public support for cultural production in general and for film and television has a prominent place. As early as 1917, Norway established a municipal public cinema system. And in the 1930s, some countries established public-funded film support, for instance, SFC in Denmark in 1939 focusing on documentary film. But for film, the main institutional public initiatives came with the forming of national film institutes, in Sweden in 1963, in Denmark in 1972, and in Norway in 1988. This national support for film production has been developed since to meet the new challenges from globalization. To the national support system has been added the Nordic Film and Television Fund from 1990, and the various EU support mechanisms, through, for instance, Eurimages since 1988 and media programs since 1991. But why do the Scandinavian countries support film production? Well, the basic argument is that in a small country with between 5 to 10 million people, film production companies cannot survive without some public support. Cinema is an expensive art form and the market is simply too small. But behind this fundamental economic reason there are other more cultural reasons for support. If a market is very small, only very popular films would be made if there was no public support. The philosophy of the Scandinavian Film Institutes and the form of support aim at securing the diversity of filmmaking. The idea is that if we want a strong film culture as a whole, we have to make room for the production of a certain number of films per year. We also need to make sure that the films made cover different genres, drama, comedy, historical films, documentary film, children's films, etc. Now film production has always been both a national and very global phenomenon. American films clearly dominate in Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. Since 1945, American films have taken 60 to 70% of the total audience in cinemas in Europe and the national films dominate the rest. So for instance, in Denmark in 2007, American films took 61% of cinema admissions, Denmark took 23%, and European films counted for 14%, and 2% came from the rest of the world. Americans make excellent movies. That's one reason they are popular globally. But they also benefit from a huge home market giving their films a strong background for export. If we look just at the film history of Scandinavia, it is, in fact, rather unique that such small nations have contributed so much to the world film history. Before movies began to speak and language barriers became a problem, especially Denmark and Sweden had a strong voice in world film culture. Danish directors like Urban Gad, August Blom, Benjamin Christensen and Carl Th Dreyer were film world names. And in Sweden, directors like Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller were not far behind. Scandinavia has since contributed further with names like Ingmar Bergman, Bo Widerberg, Jan Troell, Lars von Trier, Susanne Bier, Bent Hamer and Aki Kaurismaki. In recent years many Scandinavian directors and actors have made their way to Hollywood, not just to collect prizes but also to make films. [MUSIC]



1.2: Scandinavian cinema: trends and international impact, by Professor Ib Bondebjerg


Transcript
[SOUND] American movies dominate the world, but they do so mainly through mainstream genres with budgets that completely beat even the most expensive Scandinavian film. American films have become a kind of global mass culture for all, audiences all over the world. American film culture is, of course, much more than mainstream genres and blockbuster films. Even in America, we find what is often called an independent film culture, a culture outside the dominant major Hollywood studios. This more independent film culture often changes the major studios and experiment with genres and film aesthetics. The global American dominance has been a fact since the 1930s, the era of classical sound film culture and the era before television. But in the silent era, Scandinavian film, and especially Danish films, were much stronger in the world film culture. This was mainly due to Nordisk Film, but also a few other film companies like, for instance, Fotorama. Between 1907 and 10, Nordisk produces no less than 560 films. However, they were all pretty short films of around five to 15 minutes each. Through films like this, Nordisk and other companies developed a series of genres and also star systems, with Asta Nielsen at one, as one of the biggest stars. When really started the Danish international film adventure was the development of the long film, 30 to 45 minutes. This was unheard of in those days and gave silent cinema a major breakthrough with especially social, social and erotic melodramas like the White Slave Trade, the Abyss or the Flying Devils. For a short period between 1910 and 1920, Danish and also Swedish silent cinema had a strong world position, not just with artistic auteur films, but with films covering all genres. The First World War and the following years with the development of sound films changed that and paved the way for the global American era. But even though the dream of Scandinavian world dominance was shattered, the silent era developed the basis for a strong film culture in times to come. A number of Scandinavian directors from the silent period remain international names in film stories, in film history. A few like Danish Carl Th Dreyer continued an international career, but the balance between the Scandinavian films that were only seen and appreciated by a national audience and the films that became an international success had changed fundamentally. The international success for Scandinavian cinema during the silent cinema period was a private enterprise, unlike the culture, gradually developed over the next decades. As already pointed out, around 1970, all Scandinavian countries had developed the system where public support for films supplemented the still very important role of private production companies. In Scandinavia, very few films since the 1980s have been made without some sort of public support, either from the National Film Institute, from public service television stations, or from co-production funding systems in Europe. If we look at the films produced in Denmark between 2009 and 10, we see a clear pattern where a number of films can be very popular with the national audience, but never shown outside its own country of production. Whereas other films can have a much broader international profile, even without necessarily having a big national audience. Of the 40 Danish films from those two years, two films stand out as having an international strong profile. Number one is Susanne Bier's In a Better World from 2010, an Oscar winner seen by around 1.4 million people all around Europe, and also in other parts of the world. And Lars Von Trier's Antichrist from 2009, internationally seen by approximately 900,000 international. What we see here are two examples of the auteur cinema in different forms that speak to an international audience, and in Bier's case, also a national. Both Bier's and Trier's films are furthermore major international co-productions. But for instance, the number four on this is My Sister's Kids in Jutland, is only not nationally financed and only has a national audience. It is a typical example of a national mainstream film, very popular with the local audience, but completely unknown abroad. The auteur is definitely an important international brand for Scandinavian cinema. As already pointed out, world audiences hardly expect to find blockbuster movies from any of these countries. The Millenium Trilogy in 2009 is an exception, but also an indication that co-production can make a difference. But still, even though Scandinavian crime is a strong brand in literature and on film and television, the major Scandinavian contribution to world cinema is auteur films. The very concept of auteur is not Scandinavian, but French. And it was coined by the French in a European New Wave film generation of the 1960s. The concept is in opposition to the American form of filmmaking, the dominance of commercial criteria and formulas, the producer's strong role and the too literary and predictable European films. This young generation of film makers, for instance, Jean Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Francois Truffaut, spoke on behalf of the new European generation that wanted films that were original, based on life, not literature, and where the director was in artistic control. Some of the icons were Scandinavian, like Carl Th Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman, directors that redefined language of cinema. It is no surprise then, that it was a group of Danish directors who launched Dogme 95 in Paris, where also, the first attack on mainstream cinema took place. Inspired by the New Wave generation, Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg called for a new kind of international cinema to bring cinema back to its artistic roots and engagement with reality. The modern Scandinavian cinema's contribution to the international film culture is still the different forms of auteur cinema, ways of creating alternatives to the global mainstream cinema. It is directors like Lucas Moodysson, a harsh global Swedish realist with films like the intense portrait of Swedish teenage life took, Together, from 2000 or the global drama Mammoth from 2009. It is the Norwegian European art cinema director Bent Hamer who dir, who makes humorous images of life in Norway in Kitchen Stories. Or the internationally acclaimed Finnish film director Aki Kaurismaki with his portrait of Finnish life in, for instance, Drifting Clouds, or the international co-production Le Havre from 2011 about migration and ethnic conflicts in Europe. Thank you for your attention. [MUSIC]




1.3: Scandinavian television culture, by Professor Ib Bondebjerg
Transcript

 [SOUND] Welcome to this last part of the first lecture, where we are going to deal with Scandinavian television culture. Just as Scandinavian film culture is dominated by public support, Scandinavian television is dominated by public service stations, or PSB stations, as I will call them in the following. The present television culture has also many examples of commercial stations. The Danish PSB main station DR started to broadcast in October 1951, and was followed in 1956 by the Swedish SVT, in 1958 by Finnish YLE, and in 1960 by Norwegian NRK. PSB television can be defined as a model of television paid by the tax or license fee, and not by commercials. The idea is to secure television culture that is both independent of commercial interests and of course, also the state and the political system. PSB broadcasting is defined through a broad set of obligations to serve all parts of the population, and develop programs that cater to all sorts of taste, including minorities. A principle of culture diversity is important. As an example, the Danish Law on DR states the following about public service programming. First, to secure a broad variety of programs and services, including news, information, education art and entertainment. Secondly, to secure quality, versatility, and diversity. Third, to secure freedom of information and speech, and impartiality and objectivity. Fourth, to secure special obligations towards Danish language and culture. And five, to secure a broad representation of art and culture reflecting the diversity of cultural interests in the Danish society. These applications are pretty much the same in all Scandinavian countries. Although, the historical development of the television cultures in Scandinavia vary. In Finland, we see the first commercial channel in Europe, even before PSB television, namely MTV3 in 1957. Finland and Sweden were also the first Scandinavian countries to start dividing its PSB channels into several, with YLE2 in 1965 and SVT2 in 1969. But the major changes in Scandinavian television culture came in the 1980s, where the last monopolies of PSB stations were abandoned and a dual system of commercial and PSB television was developed more broadly. In Denmark, TV2 was established in 1988 with a mixture of commercials and license fee, and the same happened in Norway with TV2 Norway, and in 1996 also TV2. Since 1990, the number of television channels in Scandinavia has exploded. With the digital development of television, a whole new form of television culture with video-on-demand services, and a more individualized viewing pattern is under development. There is a long tradition for both Scandinavian and European co-operation, and corporate arsenal television. Nordvision was established in 1959 to further co-production and collaboration between the Nordic countries. And in 1990, the Nordic film and television fund grew out of this cooperation between the Nordic countries. The fact that the Nordic film and television fund covers both film, and television indicates that the two sectors are now working very much together, both in terms of funding and distribution. A similar development can be seen on a European level, where the European broadcasting union, EBU was formed already in 1954, as an organization aiming at developing collaboration and program exchange between the European broadcasters. In 1990 this television initiative was further developed by the EU initiative media. And the intention of creating a more integrated European television market. This year the European Union gathered all its cultural and media programs under the name Creative Europe. One of the main genres of Scandinavian television is television drama, both in terms of single drama and serial drama. Much more than cinema and film, television drama has been important in gathering the nation in front of the screen. One of the most prominent examples of this is the Danish series in 24 parts, Matador, broadcast for the first time from 1978 to 1981 on DR. The series was written by the popular Danish writer Lise Norgaard, and directed by the master of Danish genre films, Erik Balling for Nordisk film. Based on life in the fictional provincial town, Korsbaek, the series tells the story about how Denmark changed between 1929 and 1947. Seeings through the lives of different families. The series was an instant success with a huge Danish audience. And has been sent seven times and sold in millions of copies of VHS and DVD. In 1986, the series, in one episode, was seen by 3.6 million in Denmark out of a population of 5.5 million. The highest viewing figure ever measured in Denmark for a single program. Historical drama series on television often get very hard viewing figures. In Sweden for instances, Jan Troell's series The Emigrants and New Land from 1971 to 2 based on Vilhelm Moberg's novels. About those people that immigrated to America around the turn of the century became a major success. Television can gather the nation and create a feeling of being together of a national community, and can combine the past and the present in ways that raise debate. Some of the big auteurs in Scandinavian film have created strong television. This is of course, the case when Jan Troell's already mentioned series. But another very interesting example is Ingmar Bergman's challenging series, Scenes From a Marriage, 1 to 6 from 1973 >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] Marianne [LAUGH] [FOREIGN] >> [LAUGH] >> Johan [FOREIGN] >> [LAUGH] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> Marianne [FOREIGN] [LAUGH] >> [FOREIGN] >> When broadcast in Sweden, and since in other parts of Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. This series created strong reactions and debate. By showing us the tearing apart of a marriage and letting us all experience the dark side of human relationships and love, this series challenged its audience. In 1982 Bergman did it again, with a television version of his childhood memoirs, Fanny and Alexander. A tale divided into a bright and lively part with his theater family, and a part as dark as hell and death in the house of Fanny and Alexander's very severe religious and authoritarian stepfather. Television drama in Scandinavia has very little to do with mainstream television genres, although they also exist, mostly in the form of comedy series and crime series. When the Danish director Lars Voin Trier in 1994, released all his talents onto television, the result was a gorgeous genre mix called The Kingdom. Where thriller, ghost story, satire and comedy met the supernatural. It became a major breakthrough for Voin Trier to a larger natural audience than normal >> [SOUND] [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] [LAUGH] [SOUND] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] [SOUND] [COUGH] >> Today, Scandinavian and in particular Danish TV is experiencing an unprecedented international success. But also Swedish crime series are popular abroad. Wallander for instance has been made in several Swedish versions exported to numerous countries, and also remade in a UK version with Kenneth Branagh as Wallander. But Danish television drama since 2000 has received five Emmys for the crime series Unit One from 2002. The romantic comedy series, Nikolaj og Julie from 2003. The crime series, The Eagle from 2005. And the political thriller series, The Protectors from 2009. And finally also for the historical Biopic on Hans Christian Andersen, Young Andersen from 2005. In 2010, The Killing furthermore won the BAFTA prize for the best foreign television drama. So, the Scandinavian television culture had certainly left its mark on also the international television culture. [MUSIC]





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