Sweden



THE FIRST DECADES OF SOUND

After the departure of Sjöström and Stiller, Swedish film production declined in quantity as well as quality, reaching a low point in 1929, when only six indigenous works premiered. Non-Swedish films, largely from the United States, made up the slack. The arrival of simultaneous sound and image recording at the beginning of the new decade brought profound changes to the industry. With the language barrier hampering exports, the domestic market predominated, but as movie going became increasingly popular, film production expanded again, to about twenty-five features per year during the 1930s. Chains of movie theaters were established throughout the country, the number doubling over the course of the decade, and several production companies arose in competition with Svensk Filmindustri, notably Europa Film(1930) and Sandrews (1937). In response to continuing Hollywood imports, the industry favored subtitles rather than dubbing, a consensus that still applies today.

The 1930s was a period of enormous change in Swedish society: the Social Democratic Party came to power in 1932 and the fundamental social legislation of the welfare state was put into place, but the country was also experiencing an economic depression. Almost all films of the decade responded to this social and economic instability by offering comforting images of security that focused on the preservation of the status quo, with conventionally happy endings rewarding virtue and punishing deviant, scandalous, or sinful behavior. The dominant film genres were comedy, generally with stage roots, and melodrama, where narrative patterns often were borrowed from Hollywood. Though the somewhat derisive term "pilsner-film" characterizes 1930s comedies as light, frothy entertainment, the focus in popular film on the family, domesticity, and conservative traditional values provides insight into the prevailing attitudes and concerns of the period.

Among the more skillful, versatile, and productive directors was Gustaf Molander (1888–1973), who had gained professional experience as a scriptwriter for Sjöström and Stiller. Two Molander films, Swedenhielms ( Swedenhielms Family , 1935), a comedy that exemplifies supposedly typical traits of the Swedish aristocracy, and Intermezzo (1936), a melodrama about an extramarital affair between a concert violinist and his accompanist, featured Gösta Ekman (1890–1938), the reigning matinee idol of the day, and a fresh discovery, Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982). The latter made several more films with Molander before leaving for Hollywood, the English-language remake of Intermezzo , titled Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), and an international career. During World War II, Molander skirted censorship restrictions aimed at preserving Sweden's neutrality by directing three films that condemned Nazi oppression. His sixty-two films over a four-decade period include three scripted by Ingmar Bergman.

Spared direct involvement in the war, Sweden experienced a period of remarkable economic prosperity in its aftermath, with an influx of workers going from the countryside to urban areas as industry expanded. During the 1940s the number of Swedish films produced reached an all-time high, an average of more than forty each year. Film imports resumed after a wartime hiatus and movie attendance soared. While the pre-war orientation toward escapist comedy and farce receded, contemporary social reality remained conspicuously absent in the indigenous subgenre that dominated the 1940s and 1950s, the rural melodrama, which expressed nostalgia for Sweden's agrarian past. By idealizing and romanticizing the hardworking, self-reliant, God-fearing farmer and promoting the central unifying values of loyalty to the land and a traditional way of life, these films convey a fossilized image of Swedish national identity and a world-view that has little sympathy for social change. Conversely, the forces of modernity, associated with the city and the allure of its superficial lifestyle, are viewed with skepticism.

One of the most popular films of the period, Hon dansade en sommar ( One Summer of Happiness , Arne Mattsson, 1951), embodies the city versus country motif in a doomed love affair, narrated in an extended flashback to underscore a sense of fatalism. Documentary filmmaker Arne Sucksdorff (1917–2001) also focused on the pastoral in nature shorts like Skuggor över snön ( Shadows on the Snow , 1949), using cross-cutting to introduce dramatic tension and narrative continuity. Genre distinctions are blurred in Sucksdorff's feature-length Det stora äventyret ( The Great Adventure , 1953), which combines extensive documentary footage of animals and the natural world with a fictional parable about the lost paradise of childhood innocence. Nostalgia is communicated both visually and verbally through the reminiscences of the voice-over narrator.

Among the directors who established themselves during the 1940s, two stand out: Alf Sjöberg and̈berg, a theoretician who experimented with different cinematic styles, was seldom constrained by genre conventions. Several of his films nevertheless incorporate characteristic rural settings and iconographic imagery, in particular Himlaspelet ( The Heavenly Play , 1942), an allegorical Everyman narrative that draws on provincial folkloristic motifs. Bara en mor ( Only a Mother , 1949) delineates the life trajectory of an impoverished farm laborer's wife but also addresses broader social concerns, as does Hets ( Torment , 1944), a scathing indictment of the hierarchical, regimented structure of the school system and the bourgeois family. Though scripted by Bergman, visually the film is Sjöberg's, with expressionistic use of shadows and frequent high- or low-angle shots.

As a stage director, Sjöberg was renowned for innovative approaches to the classics, including works of August Strindberg (1849–1912), Sweden's greatest dramatist. Sjöberg's film version of Strindberg's Fröken Julie ( Miss Julie , 1951) opens up and extrapolates from the play to include interpolated scenes, characters, even subplots. Eschewing the conventional dissolve to indicate a flashback, Sjöberg positions past and present within the same space, even the same frame, a striking visual technique that also reinforces the theme of hereditary influences on character development. With a definitive performance by Anita Björk (b. 1925) in the title role, Miss Julie won international accolades. Two later Strindberg adaptations, Karin Månsdotter (1954) and Fadern ( The Father , 1969), were less successful.

In Sweden, Bergman has generally been perceived as outside the mainstream, but several films of the 1950s, in particular Sommarlek ( Summer Interlude , 1951), Sommaren med Monika ( Summer with Monika , 1953), and the many-layered comedy Sommarnattens leende ( Smiles of a Summer Night , 1955), use nature to frame and highlight the story in ways that recall both Sjöström and the visual repertory of the rural melodrama. The subject matter of Torment and Summer with Monika , youthful rebellion against societal constraints, is a cinematic commonplace not restricted to that period.

Bergman was the first Swedish director since Ingmar Bergman. Sjöström and Stiller to figure importantly in an international context. He frequently explored complex psychological, interpersonal, and existential issues, in historical settings in Gycklarnas afton ( Sawdust and Tinsel , 1953), Det sjunde inseglet ( The Seventh Seal , 1957), Ansiktet ( The Magician , 1958), and Jungfrukällan ( The Virgin Spring , 1960) and in contemporary milieus in Smultronstället

INGMAR BERGMAN
b. Ernst Ingmar Bergman, Uppsala, Sweden, 14 July 1918

Bergman was the only Swedish film director of the post-war period to achieve international renown; in his homeland he was equally celebrated for his groundbreaking theater productions. The son of a prominent Lutheran minister, he studied briefly at the University of Stockholm but soon turned his attention to writing and directing plays. In 1943 he was recruited as a scriptwriter for Svensk filmindustri and gradually assigned more responsibility, directing his own screenplay for the first time in 1949, with Fängelse ( Prison ). Though considered the quintessential auteur, Bergman collaborated closely with a small team of actors, including Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow, Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom, and Liv Ullmann as well as technicans such as the acclaimed cinematographer Sven Nykvist. For von Sydow and Ullmann in particular, appearances in Bergman films led to international careers.

The sophisticated comedy Sommarnattens leende ( Smiles of a Summer Night , 1955), which illustrates and comments on different kinds of love through the interaction of four couples, won an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956. Thenceforth, each Bergman film attracted international attention. In Det sjunde inseglet ( The Seventh Seal , 1957), the convincingly recreated medieval setting also functions allegorically, with the Plague a stand-in for potential nuclear disaster or a new pandemic. The Knight's existential doubt as he tries to outwit Death in a game of chess has similarly modern overtones and has been parodied by, among others, Woody Allen in Love and Death (1975). Smultronstället ( Wild Strawberries , 1957) pays tribute to Victor Sjöström's by casting him in his final, memorable role and to Sjöström masterpiece, Körkarlen ( The Phantom Carriage , 1921), byemulatingits theme and flashback structure. In these and other black and white films of the 1950s, the cinematographer Gunnar Fischer employs high contrast to create images of striking plasticity.

The trilogy Såsom i en spegel ( Through a Glass Darkly , 1961), Nattvardsgästerna ( Winter Light , 1963), and Tystnaden ( The Silence , 1963) expands on the existential questioning of The Seventh Seal in a contemporary context, tentatively suggesting in the first film that love and open communication can replace an absent God, questioning that conclusion through the doubting minister of Winter Light , and seemingly rejecting it entirely in The Silence . The daringly experimental Persona (1966) illustrates a more profound breakdown—of communication, of identity, of the film medium itself. The vulnerability of the performer or artist is another recurring topic in, for instance, Gycklarnas afton ( The Naked Night or Sawdust and Tinsel , 1953), Ansiktet ( The Magician , 1958), and Vargtimmen ( Hour of the Wolf , 1968).

In the increasingly politicized Sweden of the 1960s, Bergman's focus on religious and philosophical issues and individual psychology was judged an irrelevant anomaly; Skammen ( Shame , 1968), a powerful antiwar statement, was criticized because it did not delineate the ideology of the opposing sides. In Viskningar och rop ( Cries and Whispers , 1972), the symbolic use of color underscores Bergman's exploration of female psychology, which continued with Hoestsonaten ( Autumn Sonata , 1978), a study of mother-daughter relationships that marked the return to Swedish film of Ingrid Bergman, in her penultimate role. Ingmar Bergman's official farewell to the cinema came with Fanny och Alexander ( Fanny and Alexander , 1982), a masterful summing up of his thematic preoccupations and simultaneously an affirmation of the magical, transformative power of art. Bergman's parallel career as a theater director continued until 2003, interspersed with the publication of memoirs and scripts and occasional directing for television ( Larmar och gör sig till [ In the Presence of a Clown ], 1997 and Saraband , 2003).

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Sommarlek ( Summer Interlude , 1951), Sommarnattens leende ( Smiles of a Summer Night , 1955), Det Sjunde inseglet ( The Seventh Seal , 1957), Smultronstället ( Wild Strawberries , 1957), Jungfrukällan ( The Virgin Spring , 1960), Såsom i en spegel ( Through a Glass Darkly , 1961), Nattvardsgästerna ( Winter Light , 1963), Tystnaden ( The Silence , 1963), En Passion ( The Passion of Anna , 1969), Viskningar och rop ( Cries and Whispers , 1972), Trollflöjten ( The Magic Flute , 1975), Ansikte mot ansikte ( Face to Face , 1976)

FURTHER READING

Bergman, Ingmar. Images: My Life in Film . Translated by Marianne Ruuth. New York: Arcade, 1994.

——. The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography . Translated by Joan Tate. New York: Viking and London: Hamish Hamilton, 1988.

Simon, John. Ingmar Bergman Directs . New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

Steene, Birgitta, ed. Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide . Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005.

Wood, Robin. Ingmar Bergman . New York: Praeger and London: Studio Vista, 1969.

Rochelle Wright

Ingmar Bergman.

( Wild Strawberries , 1957), Såsom i en spegel ( Through a Glass Darkly , 1961), Nattvardsgästerna ( Winter Light , 1963), Tystnaden ( The Silence , 1963), and Persona (1966). Bergman's intensely personal vision—he wrote most of his own screenplays—aligned him with other European auteur directors of the 1950s and 1960s (such as those associated with the French New Wave) who situated cinema as an intellectually challenging and artistically sophisticated medium. In Sweden Bergman's films were often admired but seldom popular, and within the film industry his international prominence elicited both pride and resentment.

Several contemporaries of Sjöberg and Bergman also made significant contributions in the 1940s and 1950s. The prolific Hasse Ekman (1915–2004), son of Gösta, specialized in screwball comedy but also scripted and directed sensitive and psychologically convincing dramas such as Ombyte av tåg ( Change of Trains , 1943), which prefigures the British film, Brief Encounter (1945); the antifascist Excellensen ( His Excellency , 1944); and Flicka och hyacinter ( Girl with Hyacinths , 1950), where the lesbian motif is treated sympathetically and without sensationalism. Hampe Faustman (1919–1961) established a unique profile by introducing political and social topics such as the rights of farm workers ( Närängarna blommar [ When Meadows Bloom ], 1946), arms smuggling during the Spanish civil war ( Främmande hamn [ Foreign Port ], 1948), and the situation of outsider figures ( Lars Hård , 1948 and Gud Fader och tattaren [ God the Father and the Gypsy ], 1954). By the early 1960s, however, Faustman had died and Ekman had retired; Sucksdorff, lacking financing for his projects, had moved abroad; and Sjöberg was working mostly in the theater. Though continuity was provided by, among others, Bergman, a paradigm shift occurred in the film world as a younger generation of directors gradually came to prominence.



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