The Dreyer Paratext

13. dec 2024. The filmmaker Carl Th. Dreyer believed that it was best for films to have no credit titles at all: they got in the way of the audience’s immersion in the story. This article discusses Dreyer’s claim…

The 'Skimmel' of the Film: The haptic, the lively and the discrete in the animated films of Bent Barfod

19. sep 2024. Bent Barfod (1920-2007) was a leading figure in Danish animation. His studio, Bent Barfod Film, trained at least two generations of animators and Barfod himself sustained a long career as a filmmaker…

Prevalence Rather than Popularity? A case study of wartime film programming in Southern Norway

16. maj 2024. This article reflects critically on the use of film programmes as a historical source to understand local screening contexts and cinemagoers’ preferences in a medium sized city and a nearby town in…

The Portal and the Screen – Icelandic National Identity and Foreign Cinema as Contagion

16. maj 2024. PEER REVIEWED. This paper explores how cinemas in Reykjavík became portals between foreign and local cultures, infusing Icelandic society with exotic influences in the first half of the 20th century…

Kashiko Kawakita and the 1932 Towa Shoji Film Diary

15. dec 2023. PEER REVIEWED. What follows is the first English-language examination of a crucial 90-year-old text that remarkably details the unique historical narrative concerning the Kawakita “film couple” as…

Men Who Hate Women – Sex, Evil, and European fin-de-siècle Culture in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist

26. okt 2022. LONG READ. This article analyses how Lars von Trier’s film uses the theme of sexuality and connects to European fin-de-siècle misogyny and dominating culture icons such as Nietzsche, Ibsen,…

Maren’s smile: Miracles of the everyday in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet

07. jun 2022. The most miraculous moment in Danish film history, the resurrection scene in Carl Th. Dreyer’s 'Ordet', invites us to reconsider the sense of wonder which animates the director’s film making.

The First Danish Film Shows Revisited: A Historiographical Study

03. feb 2022. PEER REVIEWED. Film historians agree that the first public presentation in Denmark of moving images on a screen took place on 7 June 1896. Using this show as a jumping-off point, we will dive into…

To be a female Hamlet: Asta Nielsen’s star image, cross-dressing films, and critical reception

03. feb 2022. PEER REVIEWED. This is a study of Asta Nielsen’s star image and how her cross-dressing films exemplify three different kinds of the ‘temporary transvestite film’. The focus is on her androgynous…

Pat and Patachon: Towards Preserving a Transnational Comedy Phenomenon

03. feb 2022. PEER REVIEWED. In this paper, we encourage a fresh look at the internationally successful Danish slapstick comedy team Pat and Patachon’s contribution to film comedy, explore their work’s relevance…

Four Devils and a Mutual Friend – or, why A. W. Sandberg went to Germany

03. sep 2021. PEER REVIEWED: Film was — and remains — an international medium, and the exchanges between various national film industries have often been enacted by the film professionals who carried out their…

Overlooked, untold and almost forgotten – Urban Gad, film pioneer

03. sep 2021. Would Asta Nielsen have become an international star without Urban Gad? Sorry, Urban who? We’ll never be able to answer that first question. The answer to the second question — well, you can find it…

Asta Nielsen: A Cosmopolitan Diva

23. jun 2021. PEER REVIEWED. This article examines how Asta Nielsen’s star persona developed in the Danish context in 1913, applying a transmedia perspective. The analysis covers the German film 'Die Suffragette' …

The People of the Borderland – A Forbidden Film, a Powerful Neighbour, and Film Censorship as Foreign Policy

23. jun 2021. This article analyses the complex case of the censorship of the film 'Grænsefolket' ('The People of the Borderland', 1925), and examines how power relations between Denmark and Germany impacted on…

Re-Enchanting the Nordic Everyday in 'Beforeigners'

24. feb 2021. PEER REVIEWED. Using 'Beforeigners' as a case study, this article argues that the recent shift to “glocalised” production has opened new possibilities for Scandinavian producers, allowing more niche…

Hard Rain - New Nordic magic in Scandinavian film and television fiction

24. feb 2021. PEER REVIEWED. Taking the Danish Netflix series, 'The Rain', as a case, this article analyzes genre, theme and cinematic design in order to encircle the characteristics of New Nordic Magic

“I Smelled It on Him”  – Wonderful Trolls and Disgusting Humans in Border

24. feb 2021. PEER REVIEWED. This article analyzes how 'Gräns' (2018, 'Border') uses the emotions of wonder and disgust to combine the fantastic with realism in entirely new ways. 'Border' was received as…

The Not-So-Golden Age of Swedish Silent Cinema? Historiographies of Isepa (1926–1928)

21. okt 2020. PEER REVIEWED. Isepa AB was a short-lived subsidiary to Svensk Filmindustri set up in 1926 to produce a series of internationally co-produced films with a cosmopolitan appeal, all for the purpose of…

‘The Real Deal’: Queering Danish National Identity

21. okt 2020. PEER REVIEWED. Is Fenar Ahmad’s 'Ækte vare' (2014) ‘just another hip hop movie’? Or could it be seen as a vibrant queering – or deconstruction – of the very concept of Danish national identity? This…

A Common Film Culture? - Theme issue on Danish-German film relations during the silent era

15. jan 2020. The authors behind this issue of Kosmorama are all part of the three-year Danish-German research project: 'A Common Film Culture? Denmark and Germany in the Silent Movie Era, 1910-1930'. In this…

On the ‘Danishness’ of Danish Films in Germany until 1918

15. jan 2020. PEER REVIEWED. In Wilhelminian society, Denmark and Danishness were mostly constructed as part of a ‘north’ and a northernness sharing a deeply-rooted kinship with Germany, but at the same time as a…

Benjamin Christensen’s Wonderful Adventure: Film History and Practitioner’s Agency

15. jan 2020. PEER REVIEWED. In 1923, Danish director Benjamin Christensen made a film in Germany, 'Seine Frau, die Unbekannte', a comedy about a blinded war veteran who regains his sight, but fails to recognize…

World Agents and Mighty Filmmakers – The Transnational Business Relations of Palladium

15. jan 2020. PEER REVIEWED. The film company Palladium was highly successful throughout the 1920s, an exception in an otherwise troubled period for the Danish film industry. Films featuring Fyrtårnet and Bivognen…

Notes on Ingmar Bergman’s Stylistic Development and Technique for Staging Dialogue

24. apr 2019. PEER REVIEWED. Ingmar Bergman is heralded as a model for cinema as personal expression. What rarely comes to the fore is the extent to which he drew on pre-existing schemas for his characters and how…

Mocking the ‘Civilized’ Viewer-chimpanzee – Ruben Östlund’s 'The Square'

24. apr 2019. The article argues that Östlund’s 'The Square' (2017) can be seen as a kind of interactive cinematic experiment, serving both as a fierce indictment against contemporary Western humans’ fake morality…

Understanding Fashion Film, Form and Genre

29. jan 2019. PEER REVIEWED. In order to present a broader understanding of fashion film, this article discusses the phenomena as genre and as a boundary case defined by its ambiguous relation to established…

A Blue Rose Case: David Lynch’s 'Lady Blue Shanghai' for Dior

29. jan 2019. PEER REVIEWED. This article discusses the contradictory workings of symbolism and tone in the fashion film 'Lady Blue Shanghai' (2010) as part of David Lynch’s oeuvre in light of its viewing mode,…

Miu Miu’s "Women's Tales" - a fashion film celebration of art and females

29. jan 2019. This article analyses "Women’s Tales", an online short film series commissioned by the Italian luxury fashion brand Miu Miu and the way film style combined with a female contextualization promotes a…

Real and Reel Stockholm – Representations of Stockholm in I-Media-Cities, and current issues in archival film access

21. sep 2018. PEER REVIEWED. This article explores the representation of Stockholm on film, using as empirical material films from the interdisciplinary research project I-Media-Cities. More specifically, the…

Walking in Copenhagen, Hamburg and Oslo – Planned and Lived Space in Jørgen Roos' Early-60's City Symphonies

21. sep 2018. In the wake of an Oscar nomination for his 1960 short 'A City Called Copenhagen', Danish documentarist Jørgen Roos accepted invitations to make similar films from the city authorities of Hamburg and…

Beyond Fame and Fortune - Analysing three complex documentary portraits

06. dec 2017. PEER REVIEWED. This article demonstrates how the analysis of portrait documentaries depicting famous public figures can benefit from using theories of celebrity culture, thereby extending the…

Carl Dreyer's "Michael" - Digitalization and the Rediscovery of a classic Kammerspiel-film

06. dec 2017. This brief article traces the popular and critical reception of Dreyer’s Michael (1924) from its theatrical release to its DVD editions. Michael was largely considered a lost and forgotten…

Of Unknown Origin - Identity, Nationality, and Ethnicity in "Gipsy Anne" (1920)

29. sep 2017. This essay will discuss one of the most important feature films in Norwegian film history, Rasmus Breistein’s Fante-Anne (Gipsy Anne) in the context of Norwegian and Scandinavian early silent cinema,…

A Swedish Renaissance: Art and Passion in Victor Sjöström's "Vem dömer" (1922)

29. sep 2017. PEER REVIEWED. A focus on art and mystique, cinematography that channels the Old Masters, and an interesting narrative structure, the 1922 Renaissance period piece Vem dömer (Love’s Crucible/Mortal…

Nordic Landscape Discourse in Scandinavian Silent Cinema: "Morænen", Nature, and National Characters.

29. sep 2017. This article looks at different configurations of discourse about Nordic nature, national character, and the cinema. Examining these ideas will help us get a more precise idea of notions of cultural…

Norwegian Tableaux - "Synnöve Solbakken"

29. sep 2017. This article discusses the Swedish 1919 film Synnöve Solbakken (A Norway Lass), directed by John Brunius from a short story by the Norwegian author and Nobel prize winner Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. The…

The Woman's Point of View: "Thora van Deken" (1920)

29. sep 2017. PEER REVIEWED. The Swedish film Thora van Deken from 1920, though little-known and rarely seen, is a strikingly well-made and well-acted psychological drama. Based on a short novel by Henrik…

Following the Swedish Model: The Transnational Nature of Finnish National Cinema in the early 1920s

29. sep 2017. PEER REVIEWED. This article demonstrates why Swedish cinema of the golden age (1916–1924) became an important model for Finnish filmmakers in the early 1920s. In relation to this, the article…

Analysing Production Design: Positions and Approaches

16. jun 2017. PEER REVIEWED. This article discusses the challenges of understanding production design and reviews dominant approaches to production design analysis.

Spies at Home – How the design of the domestic interior in "Tinker Tailor Soldier, Spy" conveys character and narrative

16. jun 2017. The home has traditionally implied a safe place often signifying stability, privacy and comfort. However it can also be used to explore fear, where danger resides in the home itself.

PD4C21 - Production Design for the 21st Century

16. jun 2017. This provocation challenges the idea of a single author and linear narrative as industrial-age constructs that have not evolved for the twenty-first century. It introduces world building not only as…

Art Nouveau, Production Design, and the Contemporary Horror Film

16. jun 2017. This article explores the relationship between the contemporary horror film and Art Nouveau design, mise-en-scène, and thematic. In the era of Art Nouveau’s ascendancy, around the turn of the 20th…

Valdemar Psilander – A World Star in Danish Film

06. mar 2017. Around the world, thousands of women’s hearts throbbed when Valdemar Psilander lit up the darkness of the silent cinema house. He spent six years at the top of the charts before it all ended suddenly…

Screenwriting for a Star: The Scripts for Valdemar Psilander's Films

06. mar 2017. PEER REVIEWED. A star surely needs suitable scripts, but the question of how scripts contributed to creating a star and a star image is seldom raised. This article examines Psilander’s screenwriters…

"Young Apollo, Friend of an old Damsel": Psilander and Finnish Film Culture

06. mar 2017. PEER REVIEWED. How was film star adoration understood and how was film publicity constructed in Finland in the 1910s? This article examines how Psilander’s popularity in Finland became visible and…

Psilander, Dreyer, and Lydia

06. mar 2017. PEER REVIEWED. Of all the many films that Valdemar Psilander made, Carl Th. Dreyer made a credited contribution only to one: Lydia, a film directed by Holger-Madsen and released in 1918, for which he…

Garrison, Star of the Russian Screen

06. mar 2017. PEER REVIEWED. In Russia, Valdemar Psilander rose to stardom under the name of Garrison. This article details Nordisk Film and Psilander’s rise and fall in Russia prior to and during the First World…

"The Arbiter of Elegance": Psilander’s Stardom and Elite-Oriented Film Culture in Rio de Janeiro

06. mar 2017. PEER REVIEWED. This article examines how Valdemar Psilander’s stardom in Brazil built on the risqué reputation of Nordisk’s erotic melodramas and tapped into persistent links between moviegoing and…

Under the Tropical Sun – Paul Fejos' Film Expedition to Madagascar and the Seychelles

27. jan 2017. In 1934, Nordisk Films Kompagni hired the Hungarian director Paul Fejos to modernize its studios and internationalize its film production. Fejos’s three Danish feature films were such critical and…

Max Rée - A Danish Pioneer in Hollywood

11. nov 2016. Most Danes are familiar with Oscar winning directors such as Susanne Bier, Bille August and Gabriel Axel. Few these days however realize that many years ago another Dane, and the first Scandinavian…

Global Impact of Danish Drama Series - A Peripheral, Non-commercial Creative Counter-Flow

13. maj 2016. PEER REVIEWED. In recent years Danish TV series have experienced a global export boom. This article maps the regional and global export patterns over the last fifteen years in order to assess the…

True Comediennes: A Case Study of Comedy Verité and Performance of the Self in the Danish TV Series Ditte & Louise

13. maj 2016. PEER REVIEWED. How does the comedy series Ditte & Louise merge real-life elements with fictional storytelling? The focus of this article is to examine, in relation to contemporary theories of…

The Danish Way to do it the American Way

13. maj 2016. PEER REVIEWED. This article critically discusses two seemingly contradictory explanations as to what turned the Danish main public broadcaster DR’s TV series into an international success story,…

Sensation in Serial Form - High-end Television Drama and Trigger Plots

13. maj 2016. The main interest of this article is to discuss the aesthetics of high-end television drama, drawing on two series with a pan-Scandinavian production identity, Acquitted and Occupied. Of key interest…

Production Design and Location in the Danish Television Drama Series The Legacy

13. maj 2016. Television fiction is most often referred to as the writer’s medium, whereas feature film is generally perceived as the vision and work of the director. In this article we turn our focus to the role…

Refusing the Reality Pill: A Film Studies Perspective on Prosthetic Memory

10. mar 2016. PEER REVIEWED. This article is a critique of Alison Landsberg's concept of prosthetic memory. It has been highly influential in the fields of history and cultural memory studies, but here the focus…

The Battle of Dybbøl Revisited: The Danish Press Reception of the TV-series 1864

17. nov 2015. PEER REVIEWED. “What on earth just happened in the rotten kingdom of Denmark?” This may well have been Hamlet’s reaction had he witnessed the fierce debate in the Danish media occasioned by the…

History unmade: Dreyer's Unrealised Mary. Queen of Scots

03. jul 2015. PEER REVIEWED. One of Dreyer’s great unrealised films was an account of the life and loves of Maria Stuart, or Mary, Queen of Scots. Dreyer’s archive contains extensive research materials and notes…

The National Pomander: Sørensen og Rasmussen

03. jul 2015. Sørensen og Rasmussen (1940), directed by Emanuel Gregers for the production company Nordisk Film, is a recognized minor classic of Danish film comedy. It is not only witty and well-acted, it…

When Fiction Points the Finger – Metafiction in Films and TV Series

11. mar 2015. Self-reflexive concepts are common in newer films and TV series, which invite the audience to examine their texture or criticise our media-voyeuristic demands. With examples from House of Cards,…

Strategies in Danish Film Culture – and the Case of Susanne Bier

11. mar 2015. PEER REVIEWED. Dialogues between national and transnational film cultures take place incessantly. The question is: which kinds of dialogue? The principal lines in the history of encounters and…

'Kunst og kino': The art of early Danish Cinema

11. mar 2015. PEER REVIEWED. This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing historiographical inquiry into, and reevaluation of, the European silent film, by questioning specifically what the “artistic” nature of…

Forget About Love - Sex and Detachment in Lars von Trier's 'Nymphomaniac'

11. mar 2015. PEER REVIEWED. In Lars von Trier’s cinematic universe, sexuality only rarely appears as a shared passion between partners who embrace feelings of intimacy and bonding. Trier’s characters wear…

Movie Stars in the Flesh: The Live Red Carpet Oscars Event

02. dec 2014. PEER REVIEWED. In this article the live red carpet event at the Academy Awards is regarded as a specific media genre which has become a matrix of recognition and success in contemporary film and…

Making Love Detumescently: Some Preliminary Notes on the Body Language of the Penis

02. dec 2014. PEER REVIEWED. Although body language in the moving image may to a large extent be transparent, some aspects of body language are regulated by generic conventions, rating systems, and, historically,…

Expressing Suppression: Body Language, Information Distribution and the Frustrated Quest for Fictional Truth in Haneke's Caché

02. dec 2014. PEER REVIEWED. In Michael Haneke’s Caché body language emerges as the only criterion of fictional truth. The main character, Georges, is again and again subjected to scrutinizing gazes as he tries to…

Figures in Landscapes: Cognitive Theater Theory and Expressive Bodies in 1920s Scandinavian Film

02. dec 2014. PEER REVIEWED. This article examines the relationship between the actor and the environment, particularly in 1920s Scandinavian films, with Mauritz Stiller's Johan as the main example. This…

The Moving Image: Body Language and Media Context

02. dec 2014. Every day we are presented with bodily expressions in audiovisual media – by anchors, journalists and characters in films for instance. This article explores how body language in the moving image has…

Gentlemen of the Press

27. jun 2014. Since the beginnings of cinema journalists have been amongst the professionals most frequently portrayed on the big screen. This article analyzes the image of journalists and media workers in Billy…

Beauty in Bacon: "The Pattern of Co-operation and the export of postwar Danish democracy

27. jun 2014. PEER REVIEWED. The co-operative movement shaped daily life in mid-20th-century Denmark and attracted much international attention. Agricultural co-operation was therefore an obvious topic for a short…

After the Celebration: The Effect of Dogme on Danish Cinema

13. dec 2013. PEER REVIEWED. Lars von Trier’s invention Dogme 95 has been celebrated by some as one of the most important events in European film history and dismissed by others as a publicity stunt. This article…

The Marshall Films and the Red Short Film Gang

13. sep 2013. The story of the Marshall films in Denmark has been an overlooked chapter in Danish film history. In 1949, as Germany was being divided into two blocs and the now mighty People’s Republic of China…

Like a gap. Media in "Paris, Texas"

13. sep 2013. The status of Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas as a film classic is built on its sensitive rendition of American landscapes – including the interior landscapes of people who are unable to live with each…

Lamps, Light, and Enlightenment: Poul Henningsen's Denmark and Ole Roos' PH Light

31. maj 2013. This article situates PH Light in the context of Henningsen’s film-related criticism and practice, and concludes by offering a reading of the film as a text which employs light effects to activate…

The White Slave Trade Gets Religion in "A Victim of the Mormons"

31. maj 2013. In 1911 the film A Victim of the Mormons about a relatively obscure American religious community was produced by Nordisk Film. The commercial success of this film in Britain and the U.S. inspired a…

Pissing into the Well: Dreyer, Film Propaganda and Cognitive Theory

31. maj 2013. In 1946, Carl Th. Dreyer's short film Vandet paa Landet ("The Water in the Country") was shelved because it was feared that it might harm Danish agriculture's image abroad. The film was intended to…