On the Periphery of the “National Film”: Danish Cinematic Border Crossings, 1918-1929

TY - JOUR

T1 - On the Periphery of the “National Film”

T2 - Danish Cinematic Border Crossings, 1918-1929

AU - Tybjerg, Casper

PY - 2015/10/1

Y1 - 2015/10/1

N2 - This article examines four Danish filmmakers whose careers took them across borders: Urban Gad, Gunnar Sommerfeldt, George Schneevoigt, and Carl Theodor Dreyer, focusing on the films the last three made in Norway, Dreyer's Prästänkan (1921, a Swedish production) and Glomdalsbruden (1926), Sommerfeldt's Hamsun adaptation Markens Grøde (1921), and Schneevoigt's Laila (1929), as well as Gad's unsuccessful attempt to set up an inter-Scandinavian film company. At the same time, the article tries to assess the usefulness of a theoretical concept that seems suitable for the investigation of such bordercrossing filmmakers: Jurij Lotman's concept of the boundary. The article concludes that this concept is useful as a heuristic device, because it calls attention to figures and works often treated as marginal by national film historiographies, but also that Lotman's model of cultural dynamics, which emphasizes the periphery, does not fit well with the centrality of the dominant Swedish film industry to the development of Scandinavian silent film during the 1920s.

AB - This article examines four Danish filmmakers whose careers took them across borders: Urban Gad, Gunnar Sommerfeldt, George Schneevoigt, and Carl Theodor Dreyer, focusing on the films the last three made in Norway, Dreyer's Prästänkan (1921, a Swedish production) and Glomdalsbruden (1926), Sommerfeldt's Hamsun adaptation Markens Grøde (1921), and Schneevoigt's Laila (1929), as well as Gad's unsuccessful attempt to set up an inter-Scandinavian film company. At the same time, the article tries to assess the usefulness of a theoretical concept that seems suitable for the investigation of such bordercrossing filmmakers: Jurij Lotman's concept of the boundary. The article concludes that this concept is useful as a heuristic device, because it calls attention to figures and works often treated as marginal by national film historiographies, but also that Lotman's model of cultural dynamics, which emphasizes the periphery, does not fit well with the centrality of the dominant Swedish film industry to the development of Scandinavian silent film during the 1920s.

U2 - 10.1515/ejss-2015-0010

DO - 10.1515/ejss-2015-0010

M3 - Journal article

SN - 2191-9399

VL - 45

SP - 168

EP - 187

JO - European Journal of Scandinavian Studies

JF - European Journal of Scandinavian Studies

IS - 2

ER -