| Swedish Film 1909-1917 In part one of the Swedish Silent Film The Outlaw and His Wife (Berg Ejvind och hans hustru, 1918) Victor Sjostrom on screen portays a character that is introduced with an iris out, the previous scene which included secondary characters having concluded with an iris in; he is drinking from an Icelandic stream in medium close shot, the camera then cutting to a wider angle, it photographing him from the waist up to show more of the stream in the background. After a cut in, Sjöström cuts back to the shot, but only briefly, to show that his character is to the right of the screen, in profile, looking at what is offscreen to the left of the screen. Almost on action, he then abruptly cuts to a full shot in which the character has reversed the relation of his look to the side of the frame, his then cutting to a longshot as his character leaves the frame. He cuts to a vignette shot of his character facing the opposite direction that he does in the scene, and then to another accompanying a dialouge intertitle so that it is as though the line of dialouge has been delivered in close shot. Throughout the rest of part one Victor Sjostrom carries the story forward, it introducing the woman he will marry in a sidelighted, near over the shoulder, near quarter shot, it being that she hires him for a month and then later makes him steward. While part two begins with establishing shots of the exterior, the horizon line often parallel to the top of the frame line ( a wall is later used to show a vertical division of frame as two lovers meet behind it), there is no interruption of continuity between it and part three, the two not linked by any camera device, but the scene is quickly moved to an interior. In part three she asks him to marry her and he tries to decline while declaring his love for her (Sjöström cuts back and forth between their dialouge and a retrospective scene during which he uses iris in and iris out to show ellipsis). The rest of the film is of their journey together. In part four he cuts from a three quarter full shot of his character facing the right of the screen going towards her to embrace her to a shot of both of them in medium shot, her in his arms while he is facing the left of the screen. Rather than using suture between shot reverse shots, he holds the camera on them during the dialouge and concludes it by cutting to a closer angle of his character having lowered his body and putting his head on her stomach. During the dialouge which beings part seven an expository intertitle accompanies his interpolating a shot which would have been included in a previous scene and the shot from part four of his being near to her is repeated, their dialouge during while snowbound then continuing. Bille August has recently filmed an adaptation of Lagerlof's Jerusalem- for Victor Sjostrom and AB Svenska Biograteatern it became The Sons of Ingmar (Ingmarssonera,1918) starring Harriet Bosse and Tore Svennberg with the director. -------Writing about The Sons of Ingmar, Bengt Forslund notes, "The most striking change that Sjöström introduces in his screenplay is to treat, daringly, the Kingdom of Heaven as a realistic setting...The scenery provides comic relief without seeming ridiculous. " Shooting the film mostly on location, "Sjöström developed dramatic moments that do not have the same intensity in the book" (Forslund). Forslund concludes by writing, "Otherwise, I still find The Sons of Ingmar less cinematic than The Outlaw and His Wife, less personal in its narrative technique." Of the actors in the film, he remarks, "Harriet Bosse seems a little mI'm iscast in the role of Brita, which certainly should have been played by an actress ten years younger." Mary Johnson during 1918 appeared in the Swedish Silent Film Storstadsfaror, directed by Manne Göthson and photographed by Gustav A Gustafson. Appearing with her in the film were Agda Helin, Tekla Sjoblom and Lilly Cronwin. In 1918, Fred Niblo, who would later direct Norma Talmadge in Camille (1927, nine reels), also began directing, his films having been The Marriage Ring, Fuss and Feathers (five reels), Happy Though Married (five reels) and When Do We Eat?. Director Paul Powell during 1918 teamed Rudolph Valentino and Marry Warren for the film All Night (five reels). m Directed by Carl Barcklind was the film En un mans vag Danish Film director Robert Dinesen in 1919 filmed the first of two films in Sweden, Jefthas dottar, with Signe Kolthoff, the second having been Odets redskap with Astri Torsell and Clara Schonfeld filmed in 1922. Sidney Franklin in 1919 would again direct Norma Talmadge, her starring in the six reel film The Heart Of Wetona. Conrad Nagel appeared in his first films, The Lion and the Mouse (Tom Terriss, five reels), Redhead and Little Women (H. Knoles, six reels), with Dorothy Bernard, Isabel Lamon and Lillian Hall. Ingmar Bergman has said, "I think Stiller with his Erotikon and Herr Arne's Treasure is alot of fun. And his Atonement of Gosta Berling, too, is a fresh, powerful, vital film." Of the film, Robert Payne writes, "he employed every trick known to cinema: close ups, dissolves, masks, superimposed images, sudden changes of tempo- a slow dreamy pace for the visionary scenes and an unbelieveably fast pace for the scenes of fighting...The film was tinted, thus giving it a heightened sense of reality." Wanda Rothgardt also appears in the film. |
| Greta Garbo photographer William Daniels continued his early career as second camerman under the direction of Eric von Strohiem, one film having had been being The Devil's Passkey (1920, seven reels), starring Una Tevelyan, Mae Busch and Maud George. Although one of the best films of the decade, the silent Blind Husbands, was concerned with marriage and the marital, one actress that had made several marriage dramas had been Katherine MacDonald. Of those she had appeared in were The Beauty Market (Campbell, 1919, nine reels), The Woman Thou Gavest Me, The Notorious Miss Lisle (1920) and Passion's Playground (1920). To add to any new look at marriage that was taking place as Hollywood peered through the keyhole into a modernity of what was being shown of the bedroom, DeMille in 1919 directed Why Change Your Husband (six reels), Male and Female (nine reels) with Lila Lee and For Better or Worse (seven reels), his having begun a series of films on marital relations in 1918 with Old Wives for New (six reels), each film scripted by Jeanie Macpherson. Macpherson, who had begun writing screenplays fmor DeMille with the 1915 film The Captive, starring Blanche Sweet, in 1920 continued with the director by scripting the film Something to Think About (seven reels), starring Gloria Swanson. Fred Niblo directed the film The Marriage Ring (five reels) in 1918. It has been offered that the films of DeMille are not only erotic comedies but reflect the becoming a commodity of matrimony and the reification of married life through the exchange values employed within suture and the syntax of shot reverse shot, the commodification of female sexuality within gendered spectatorship; within a model of the new woman a female subjectivity is constructed that is a result of consumerism. Whether or not the influence is direct, Einar Lauritzen has attributed the success of Mauritz Stiller's film Erotikon (When We Are Married, 1920), starring Lars Hanson, Tora Teje , Guken Cederborg and Karin Molander, to the films of DeMille. Added to that, in that there is a connection between the marriage dramas of De Mille and von Stroheim and the early film of Ernst Lubitsch, author Kenneth Macgowan having written that "in a wittier way" than the earlie two directors, Lubitsch had, "contributed to the delinquency of the screen", in particular with the silent film The Marriage Circle, in regard to the influence Mauritz Stiller may have had, Birgitta Steene writes, "They have often reminded foriegn critics of the comedies of Ernst Lubitsch, but actually the elegant eroticism characteristic of both Lubitsch and Bergman finds its source in the works of the Swedish motion picture director Mauritz Stiller." The film was photographed by Henrik Jaenzon. Greta Garbo had seen the film Erotikon before her having met Mauritz Stiller. Erotic comedy was later explored by the Finnish director Teuvo Tulio in his film You Want Me Like This (Sellaisena kuin sina minut balusit, 1944). The Phantom Carriage (The Phantom Chariot,Korkarlen, 1920, also listed as 1921) adapted from a novel by Selma Lagerlöf, directed by Victor Sjostromfrom his screenplay, has often been compared to the opening symbolic sequence to Bergman's Wild Strawberries. In part, what may account for Bergman's feeling that the film had become more of a contribution that Sjöström had made rather than one of his own is the structure of the film's narrative, its use of a protagonist as narrative address. Victor Sjostrom stars in both films.  The Phantom Carriage(Korkarlen) was filmed by Arne Mattsson in 1958. Danish film director Lau Lauritzen directed five films in Sweden in 1920 En hustru till lans with Karen Winther, Flickorna i Are, with Kate Fabian, Karleck och bjornjakt with Si Holmquist, Vil de vare min kone-i morgen and Damernes ven. In 1920, Greta Garbo would begin watching the silent films of Clara Kimball Young, Charles Ray and Thomas Meighan- it was also that year that she would espy the actor, later to become director, Sigurd Wallen at a performance of his, there also being an account of her having had a brief conversation with the actor Joseph Fischer. The films of Clara Kimball Young were the springboard for scriptwriter Lenore Coffee, whose first films as a screenwriter, The Better Wife (William Earle, 1919,five reels) and The Forbidden Woman (1920) had starred the actress. Finnish silent film director Erkki Karu directed two films for Suomen Biografi in 1920 both photographed by Finnish cinematographer Frans Ekebom, War Profiteer Kaikus Disrupted Summer Vacation (Sotagubishi Kaiun Hairitty Kesaloma) and Student Pollovaara's Betrothal (Ylioppilas Pollovaaran kihlaus). |
| Mary Pickford was portrayed by Swedish actress Agneta Ekmanner in the 1974 teleplay Bakom masker, directed by Lars Amble and based on the play by Hjalmer Bergman. |
| Clarence Brown directed his first film, The Great Redeemer (five reels) with Marjorie Daw and John Gilbert in 1920 Lowell Shermann, who appeared with Greta Garbo in the film The Divine Woman began in film in 1920 with Yes and No (Roy W. Neill, six reels) with Norma Talmadge and in 1921 with The Gilded Lady, (seven reels) Molly O (eight reels) and What No man Knows (six reels). Covergirl for Photoplay Magazine, Norma Talmadge was also that year directed by Roy W. Neill in the film A Woman Gives (six reels). A Daughter of Two World (James Young, six reels) and She Loves and Lies were also to star Norma Talmadge that year. Norma Shearer appeared in films in the year 1920, among them being The Sign On the Door ( Herbert Brenon, seven reels), The Flapper (Alan Crosland, five reels), The Restless Sex (six reels) written by Frances Marion and The Stealers (seven reels, William Christy Cabanne). In 1920 Dorothy Gish not only starred in the film Little Miss Rebellion (five reels), directed by George Fawcett, but also had begun filming with the director F. Richard Jones, under whose direction she starred in Flying Pat (1920, five reels), with Kate Bruce, The Ghost in the Garret (1921) and The County Flapper (1922) with Glenn Hunter and Mildred Marsh. Lillian Gish writes about Garbo's later asking her to introduce her to Griffith, which she did, and of Garbo's asking her how she should dress. Garbo had said to her, "It would be nice to have dinner at your house." 
A Fortune Hunter (En Lyckoriddarre, 1921 six reels) starring Gösta Ekman, Mary Johnson, Hilda Forsslund and Greta Garbo, her appearing with her sister Alva Gustafsson in a scene that takes place in a tavern. ----------------:-- Danish Silent Film director A. W. Sandberg in 1920 wrote and directed two films for the Nordisk Films Kompagni in which the actress Clara Wieth starred, House of Fatal Love (Kaerlighedsvalen) and A Romance of Riches (Stodderprinsessen), in which she starred with Gunnar Tolnaes. Sandberg also that year directed the film Adrift (Det dode Skib), with Valedmar Psilander, Stella Lind and Else Frolich. Klaus Albrecht during 1921 directed Lili Ziedner in the film The Bimbini Circus (Cirkus Bimbini). Tyra Ryman was introduced to her later costar Greta Garbo in 1922 at PUB by Eric Petschler, who directed both in Luffar-Peter. Writing about another film directed that year by Mauritz Stiller, Tom Milne sees the film Johan as having contributed to the technique and to the look of the film The Bride of Gromdal directed by Carl Th. Dreyer. Carl Th. Dreyer in 1921 directed the silent film Leaves from Satan's Book (Blade af Satans Bog). That year Sjöström also directed The Surrounded House (Det omringade huset), starring Wanda Rothgardt and Hilda Forsslund. ----------++++++++++++ Sigurd Wallen during 1923 directed his first film Andessonskans Kalle with Stina Berg and Anna Diedrich, his following it with Andessonskans Kalle pa nya upptag with Edvin Adolphson, the debut film of Mona Martenson. ++++++++++++++++++ That year Ragnar Ring wrote and directed En Vikingafilm, with Harald Wehlnor and Sigrid Ahlstrom. Karin Boye, the Swedish poet began publishing in 1922 with the volume Clouds. She continued in 1924 with Hidden Lands and in 1927 with The Hearths. Swedish poet Birger Sjoberg in 1922 published Frida's Songs. Writing about the 1922 Finnish Silent Film, Tytta Soila notes, "Perhaps one might say that the fortune of Suomi-Filmi, and thus the future of Finnish cinema, was established by portraying the lives of two strong female characters: Anna-Liisa and Hannah. Subsequently, many Finnish films were to have a strong female character at the center of the action." |
| In 1922 Rudolf Valentinowas in an early role, starring with Gloria Swanson in the film Beyond the Rocks (Sam Wood); the only existant copy of the film was found recently and the film, readying for distribution in United States during 2005, had its premiere in Amsterdam at the Filmuseum's Biennale festival. In her autobiography Swanson on Swanson, the actress gives an account of making of the film. "Everyone wanted Beyond the Rocks to be every luscious thing Hollywood could serve up in a single picture: the sultry glamour of Gloria Swanson, the steamy Latin magic of Rudolph Valentino, a rapturous love story byb Elinor Glyn, and the tango as it was meant to be danced, by the master himself. In the story I played a poor but aristocratic English girl who is married off to an elderly millionaire, only to meet the lover of her life on her honeymoon." After describing the fun she had off the set with Valentino, with whom she often had dinner, she concludes, "Several months later he married Natacha Rambova, and from then on he and I saw each other seldom." Valentino had in 1921 starred in the silent film Camille (Ray C. Smallwood, six reels) with Patsy Ruth Miller and Consuelo Flowerton. |
| It is only with sincere appreciation for for the Silent Film series aired on Turner Classic Movies on Sunday Nights that the best of luck should be wished to Robert Osborne and Charles Tabesh at their appearing at the screening of silent films- Robert Osborne was present at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival for the July 14, 2007 showing of Camille. The film was included in the Greta Garbo Signature released in 2005 near to the 100th birthday of the actress Greta Garbo along with a section entitled TCM archive: Greta Garbo Silents. |
| Lon Chaney in 1922 starred in the film Flesh and Blood (five reels). Norma Shearer first appeared in a starring role in 1922 in the film The Man Who Paid (five reels), directed by Oscar Apfel. Rudolph Valentino in 1922 would appear with Wanda Hawley in the film The Young Rajah (Phil Rosen), the screenplay to the film written by June Mathis, who adapted the script from a novel by ames Ames Mitchell. Valentino would also that year appear with Dorothy Dalton in Moran of the Lady Letty (George Melford). |
| Filmed in Sweden by Danish silent film director Benjamin Christensen, 1922 saw the release of the long awaited film Haxan (Witchcraft Through the Ages). The film, recently included in the films of Janus Films and in the silent film from Criterion, in the United States, was photographed by Johan Ankerstjerne and written by Christensen, who appears in the film with Ella la Cour, Emmy Schonfeld, Kate Fabian, Elisabeth Christensen, Astrid Holm and Elith Pio. Notably Alice O Fredricks and Tora Teje also appear in the film. In a film that to Sweden was to be its Intolerance, Christensen numerously uses the iris in to punctuate the end of a particular scene and the iris out in the subsequent shot to begin the adjacent scene; he goes so far as to use both during the same shot. Raymond Sptossiwoode remarked upon the fade in and fade out, along with the dissolve and wipe, as being something that was to "produce a softening effect, an indeterminate space between successive shots", his delegating it to being "the mark of the termination of an incident or of a defined period of time". German director Paul Wegener, two years earlier than Christensen's film, released a remake of his film The Golem (Der Golem), which he had first filmed in 1915. |
Gustaf Molander. Continuing the filming of the novels of Lagerlöf, he directed Birgit Sergelius and Pauline Brunius in Charlotte Lowenskold (1930). Charlotte Lowenskold is the second in a trilogy of short stories written by Selma Lagerlöf, each of them having the Scandinavian landscape of Varmland as their background. The beginning volume, Lowenskolska Ringen was published in 1925, the third volume, Anna Svard having appeared in 1928.
If as though to either to complement or to counter the use of mise en scene and Victor Sjöström's use of landscape in early Swedish cinema, Molander is a director of the interior scene. Tytti Soila writes, "Particularly in the melodramas, Molander used the composition of the image with the purpose of showing something essential about the existential situation of the characters. The pictures are 'tight' and on the verge of being claustrophobic, as props and other details of the set fill the frame, competing for room with the characters." ---------- Gustaf Edgren directed in 1924 with The King of Trollebo (Trollebokungen), an adaptation of the 1917 novel scripted by Sölve Cederstrand and photographed by C.A. Söström, the film having starred Ivar Kalling, Weyeler Hildebrand and Signe Ekloff. ------------------ William Larsson, directed Jenny Tschernichin, Jessie Wessel and Frida Sporrong in his first film Halsingar during 1923. Halsingar was also to be the first of many films photgraphed by Swedish cinematographer Henning Ohlson. Per Lindgren that year directed a second film scripted by Hjalmar Bergman, Anna Klara and her Brothers (Anna Clara och hennes broder), it starring Anna-Britt Ohlsson, Hilda Borgström, Karin Swanström, Linnea Hillberg, Hilda Borgström and Margit Manstad in what would be her first appearance on the siler screen. The film was photographed by Ragnar Westfelt. Bror Abelli in 1923 directed his first two films, including the film Janne Modig. Froken Fob (1923) was directed by Elis Ellis and photographed by Adrian Bjurman. Sven Bardach photographed his first film in 1923, Andersson, Petterson och Lundstrom, under the direction of Carl Barklind. The film stars Vera Schmiterlow and Mimi Pollock, both of whom were aquaintances of Greta Garbo, Inga Tiblad, Gucken Cederborg and Edvin Adolphson. Danish actress Olga d'Org starred in three films for Nordisk Films Kompagni, all of which were directed by A.W. Sandberg, including the 1923 film The Hill Park Mystery (Nedbrudte nerver). Finnish film director Karl Fager in 1923 brought the film The Old Baron of Rautakyla (Rautakylan Vanha Parooni) to the screen. Theodor Berthels in 1924, wrote and directed the film People of the Simlanga Valley (Folket i Simlangsdalen) with Mathias Taube and Greta Almroth and directed the film The Girl from Paradise (Flickan fran Paradiset). Both films were photographed by Swedish cinematographer Adrian Bjurman. Ragnar Ring that year directed Bjorn Mork and Nar millionera rulla. Rune Carlsten in 1924 wrote and directed The Young Nobleman (Unga greven tar flickan och priset). Silent Film SILENT Film SILENT Film SILENT FILM Danish Silent Film |
