A History of Danish Cinema

The contribution of Denmark to world cinema has been substantial: not just relative to the size of the population, but by any measure. In the silent period, the pioneering work of the company Nordisk Films Kompagni, and the emergence of early film stars such as Asta Nielsen, secured Denmark a place as a leading film nation. The auteur Carl Theodor Dreyer won global renown during his five-decade career. Documentary and educational filmmaking flourished after the Second World War; the late 1980s brought successive Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film; and Dogme 95 aimed to reinvigorate cinema by stripping filmmaking back to basics. The notoriety of arthouse auteur Lars von Trier has been complemented by the emergence of a generation of Danish filmmakers whose work is characterised by compelling stories, high production values and a strong sense of realism. This book covers all these aspects of Danish cinema history, and also encompasses a range of genres, figures and institutions that have received little coverage in English to date, such as children’s films, popular comedies, immigrant filmmakers, women documentarists, and Greenlandic cinema. The contributors situate filmmakers, genres and trends in their cultural and historical context, taking account of the influence of national film institutions and policies. The volume is organised into four parts: i) From the first ‘Golden Age’ to the Occupation; ii) National Genres; iii) Auteurs and Institutions of the New Golden Age; and iv) Decentring and Diversifying Danish Cinema. List of Figures Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Introduction PART I: FROM THE FIRST ‘GOLDEN AGE’ TO THE OCCUPATION 1. Surviving a Crisis: Nordisk Films Kompagni as a World Player 2. Asta & Co.: The Politics of Early Danish Film Stardom 3. The European Principle: Art and Border-Crossings in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Career 4. Derailed: Danish Film during the German Occupation PART II: NATIONAL GENRES 5. The Art of the Popular: The Folkekomedie Tradition 6. Social Realism of the 1940s: Between Paternalistic Care and Dignifying Humanism 7. Imagining Denmark: Danmarksfilm as Documentary Portraits of a Nation 8. Rural Dreams: Landscape, Family, Sexuality and Queerness in Homeland Cinema 9. The Olsen Gang in Denmark – And Abroad 10. Making a Life of Your Own: Films for Children and Young People in the 1970s and 1980s 11. Pornography and Censorship PART III: AUTEURS AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE NEW GOLDEN AGE 12. Into the Dark Forest: The Cinema of Lars von Trier 13. ‘I Am No Longer an Artist’: Heritage Film, Dogme 95 and the New Danish Cinema 14. Stories of Scandinavian Guilt and Privilege: Transnational Danish Directors 15. Danish Television Drama in the Twenty-First Century: New Synergies between Film and Television 16. New Danish Screen and The Sketch: The Role of Imposed and Self-Imposed Constraints in Talent Development PART IV: DECENTRING AND DIVERSIFYING DANISH CINEMA 17. Danish Documentary Production: An All-Female Company 18. Welcome to Denmark: Immigrants and Their Descendants in Danish Cinema 19. Dirty Films: Grimy Materialism and Ecological Aesthetics 20. Regional Film Funds and Production 21. ‘Finally, We’re Beginning to Tell Our Own Stories’: Filmmaking in Greenland References Index This wide-ranging collection places well-known auteurs such as Carl Th. Dreyer, Lars von Trier and Susanne Bier in their cultural context, and introduces a number of genres and themes that are less familiar to international audiences, including film stars of the silent era, children’s film, folk comedies, porn film, trends in documentary and Greenlandic cinema. With twenty-two chapters, all of them specially commissioned for this volume, A History of Danish Cinema explores the role of screen representations and film policy in shaping Denmark’s cultural identity, but also emphasises just how internationally mobile Danish films and filmmakers have always been ― showcasing this small nation’s extraordinary contribution to world cinema. The first English-language book to cover Danish cinema from the 1890s to the present day.