Bøger i Nordic Film Classics serien

Touches on issues of censorship and the cinema of small nations, while shedding light on the shifting views of Bergman and auteurist film, high art, and popular culture.

Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg's searing film Festen ("The Celebration") was the first film from the Dogme 95 stable. Adhering to Dogme's cinematic purity -- no artificial lighting, no superficial action, no credit for the director, and only handheld cameras for equipment -- Festen was a commercial and critical success, winning the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1998 and garnering worldwide attention.The film is set at the sixtieth birthday party of Helge, the wealthy patriarch of a large Danish family. The birthday festivities take a turn when Helge's son Christian raises a toast and denounces Helge for having raped and abused him as a child, along with his twin sister, who recently committed suicide. The film explores the escalating consequences of Christian's announcement, from the stunned dinner party's collective denial, to violence, to an unexpected catharsis.

Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg's searing film Festen ("The Celebration") was the first film from the Dogme 95 stable. Adhering to Dogme's cinematic purity-no artificial lighting, no superficial action, no credit for the director, and only handheld cameras for equipment-Festen was a commercial and critical success, winning the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1998 and garnering worldwide attention.The film is set at the sixtieth birthday party of Helge, the wealthy patriarch of a large Danish family. The birthday festivities take a turn when Helge's son Christian raises a toast and denounces Helge for having raped and abused him as a child, along with his twin sister, who recently committed suicide. The film explores the escalating consequences of Christian's announcement, from the stunned dinner party's collective denial, to violence, to an unexpected catharsis.C. Claire Thomson's study examines the history and context of the film, setting it within the Danish cultural and sociopolitical milieu. It examines the place of the film as a work of national cinema and examines its pioneering role as an experiment in digital cinema.

Lukas Moodysson is one of the most accomplished and unconventional filmmakers of his generation in Sweden. Moodysson, now well known for his English-language filmMammoth (2009) as well as his heartbreaking indictment of sex-trafficking in Sweden, Lilya 4-Ever (2002), debuted as a writer and director while still in his twenties with Show Me Love(1998). The film received four Guldbaggar - the Swedish equivalent of the Academy Awards - including best film, best director, best screenplay, and best actresses. A coming-of-age and coming out film about two young women in a stiflingly oppressive small town, Show Me Love is widely considered a youth film classic and was called a "masterpiece" by Ingmar Bergman.This book, which is the first study of Moodysson in any language, includes discussions of the film's genre, aesthetics, and style, and situates the film in both contemporary Swedish cinema and broader Swedish culture. It includes sequence and dialogue analysis and discusses how and why this particular film became so important: its queer significance, its unusually realistic depiction of youth, and its critical reception. Anna Stenport conducted extensive interviews with the cast and crew, including several enlightening discussions with Moodysson himself. Lukas Moodysson's Show Me Love offers an incisive introduction to Moodysson for readers interested in contemporary film, as well as a history and close analysis of changes in the Swedish film industry.Anna Westerstahl Stenport is director and associate professor of Scandinavian studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she also teaches cinema and media studies. She is the author of Locating August Strindberg's Prose: Modernism, Transnationalism, Setting.

Lone Scherfig was the first of a number of women directors to take up the challenge of Dogme, the back-to-basics, manifesto-based, rule-governed, and now globalized film initiative introduced by Danish filmmakers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg in 1995. Entitled Italiensk for begyndere (Italian for Beginners), Scherfig’s Dogme film transformed this already accomplished filmmaker into one of Europe’s most noteworthy women directors. Danish and international critics lavished praise on Scherfig and her film, and their reactions harmonized with those of festival juries. Battered by life, but by no means defeated or destroyed, the characters in Italian for Beginners are all in touch at some deep intuitive level with the truth that is the film’s basic message: that happiness and a sense of self-worth are sustained by love—by romantic love, to be sure, but also by inclusion in a community of like-minded people. The book includes the Dogme manifesto and interviews with the filmmaker as well as with the cast and crew. Mette Hjort is Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Visual Studies at the Liberal Arts University of Hong Kong, Lingnan University

Ingmar Bergmans film fra 1963 Tystnaden (eng. The Silence) er en ægte klassiker. Filmen giver et spændende indblik i samtidens filmiske, kulturelle og sociopolitiske temaer. Tystnaden blev skabt på et tidspunkt i Bergmans karriere, hvor hans status som én af de største kunstfilminstruktører tillod ham at rykke grænserne for, hvad der var acceptabelt i både Sverige og USA. Trods det afslører Bergmans notesbøger og manuskripter, at han havde tendens til selvcensur, der bl.a. bestod i, at han nedtonede den litterære kvalitet i dele af sine manuskripter. Maaret Koskinen, der som den første forsker har fået adgang til Bergmans private papirer fra den sidste periode af hans liv, tegner i bogen et billede af Bergman, som udfordrer det traditionelle syn på ham som auteur. Koskinen afdækker Bergmans forsøg på at overgå sit eget image som skaber af seriøs filmkunst og samtidig gøre sit arbejde relevant for en ny generation. Bogen behandler spørgsmål som censur og film i små nationer og belyser de skiftende syn på Bergman, auteurfilm, finkultur og populærkultur. Maaret Koskinen er professor i filmvidenskab ved Stockholms Universitet. Hun har tidligere skrevet adskillige bøger om Ingmar Bergman.