A History of Danish Cinema

Abstract

Without a doubt, Danish cinema has been one of the hot spots of twenty-first-century world cinema. Turning the success of Dogme 95 into a springboard, so many Danish filmmakers have experienced remarkable international success—and an unparalleled one, considering the small size of the country. The success of Danish cinema is evident at the domestic box office, the international film festival circuit, and even Hollywood. And by Hollywood, I don't mean only the Academy Awards, where Danish films have received seven nominations for best foreign film this century and won twice, but also in the making of English-language films competing in the Hollywood market. This newfound interest has been given some historical weight with the continued interest in celebrated auteur Carl Theodor Dreyer.Not surprisingly, this success has been accompanied by plenty of academic interest and some solid scholarly publications. In English, we have seen numerous books on the Dogme phenomenon and even monographs on specific Dogme films. Many auteur studies have seen the light of day with scholarship on Lars von Trier constituting a field all its own. Other scholars have taken a broader view but still confined their reach to New Danish Cinema. Television has not been left out of the equation, and much work has been done on the comparable global success of Danish television. But what we have not had until now is a work that presents itself as A History of Danish Cinema overall.As the editors C. Claire Thomson, Isak Thorsen, and Pei-Sze Chow freely admit in their introduction, such an enterprise is fraught with challenges and difficult decisions. Do you aim for a broad overview or close analyses of specific issues? Do you summarize previous research or privilege new findings? Do you focus on the films themselves or their institutional context? Instead of favoring a single approach, the editors have tried to find a balance between multiple, and not necessarily always reciprocal, goals. Indeed, despite the book's title emphasizing a single history (albeit with an indefinite rather than a definite article), the editors refer to its many chapters as so many histories in the plural. And as with any other important decision, something is won but also lost by this particular approach: “The richness of perspective that is gained from an anthology of critical voices also sacrifices the cohesiveness of a monograph” (p. 6). While there is truth in their forthrightness here—readers should not expect a straightforward overview of Danish cinema from the volume—the editors have nonetheless aimed for a certain cohesiveness. For starters, the entries are arranged in a chronological order, or as much as possible, as their time span can vary quite a bit, and are furthermore split into four different parts defined by historical time period. The editors and authors have also provided a plethora of cross-references to assist readers in linking different chapters together.Most importantly, they have gone out of their way in trying to cover as many types of Danish film as possible. Niels Henrik Hartvigson provides chapters on both folk comedies (folkekomedie) and homeland cinema, Birger Langkjær provides one on social realism, Stephan Michael Schröder on the Olsen Gang series, Christa Lykke Christensen on children and teen films, Thorsen on pornography, Meryl-Shriver Rice on transnational cinema, and Eva Jørholt on immigrant cinema. More contentiously, they have also included the cinema of Greenland, but respecting its border case status when it comes to Danish cinema, that chapter consists mostly of an interview with film producer Emile Hertling Péronard. Furthermore, the volume is far from limited to narrative features, as the reader will also find chapters on documentary films by Ib Bondebjerg and Anne Jerslev, respectively, one on “sketches” by Mette Hjort and on television drama by Eva Novrup Redvall. And even that leaves out chapters with a specific historical focus like Lars-Martin Sørensen's contribution on filmmaking during the German occupation or an institutional emphasis like Chow's on regional film funds.As can be deciphered from this partial overview, we find among the contributors both well-known scholars, familiar to all with an academic interest in Danish cinema, and many new names—at least in terms of English publications. Many are Danish, but clearly all contributors are experts in their particular fields. Therefore, this extensive range of contributors is not a problem, but rather one of the strengths of the volume. However, it does lead to some inconsistences when looking at the completed work. I am less concerned about chapters emphasizing social or institutional context than about a discrepancy within chapters specifically devoted to actual films, as while some of them engage in film analysis, others barely include any discussion of the film texts themselves. For example, Julie K. Allen's essay on early Danish film stardom focuses on the careers of Asta Nielsen, Olaf Fønss, Clara Wieth Pontoppidan, and Valdemar Psilander, but does not really discuss any of their films or even their acting styles. This may not be a problem in and of itself for this particular chapter, but in this overview of Danish cinema, the films of the silent period are barely represented, as the focus on that period emphasizes institutional or other contextual material. A different anomaly is found in the fact that the film that receives the most extensive analysis in the volume is the comparatively little known Vinterbrødre (2017; Winter Brothers), that, albeit a Danish film, is directed by Icelander Hlynur Pálmason, while the celebrated classics of Dreyer and von Trier are given much briefer overviews. On no account does this suggest any shortcomings of either Benjamin Bigelow's eye-opening analysis of Winter Brothers or the overviews contributed by the Dreyer and von Trier experts, Casper Tybjerg, and Peter Schepelern, respectively. But perhaps there was an opportunity here for a bit of editorial risk, precisely because of their extensive and renowned scholarship. Why not have someone other than Tybjerg write about Dreyer? As it appears in the volume, the chapter adds little for readers familiar with Tybjerg's work, while certainly a solid overview for the newcomer. In that way, the chapters on Dreyer and von Trier stand out quite a bit. In a book emphasizing both new research and more marginal aspects of Danish cinema (as regards English publications at least), they are much closer to straightforward summaries. But as already stated, it may be difficult to avoid such discrepancies in the anthology format.Another possible drawback stemming from the format is the lack of real engagement with major historical changes in Danish cinema. Of course, the volume does that work indirectly as we move from one period to another, but what is missing often is an explicit commentary on such changes. Because the chapters are so focused on specific topics, they rarely engage in analyses of major filmic transformations. One exception to that is found in Thomson's “‘I Am No Longer an Artist’: Heritage Film, Dogme 95 and the New Danish Cinema,” where the author is looking into the dramatic shift from the heritage cinema of the 1980s to Dogme 95, by equally considering aesthetic and institutional factors. It is a very strong essay, with the comparison between Babettes gæstebud (1987; Babette's Feast) and Festen (1998; The Celebration) one of the highlights of the whole book. In fact, I wanted to keep reading as the chapter hinted at many other relevant issues, including the role of Dreyer. There was clearly more material being addressed here than a single chapter could fully contain. In other words, there is a book hidden in this chapter—a monograph about Danish cinema, or the kind of book that A History of Danish Cinema is not. And I think we still need that kind of book. However, by no means should that by seen as critique of this book—these are simply two different things, and we need both of them.What we have here instead is a work that opens up Danish cinema for English readers—introducing films, filmmakers, genres, institutional projects, and historical periods that we were not familiar with or knew very little about beforehand. There has been so much focus on Dreyer, von Trier, and Dogme 95 that our understanding and view of Danish cinema has risked becoming seriously skewed, and this volume is a welcome corrective to that. It truly does transform the understanding of Danish cinema for readers viewing the country and its films from the outside.