Locating inter-Scandinavian silent film culture : connections, contentions, configurations

The cover picture represents the Swede Julius Jaenzon shooting a
nature short for A/S Norsk Kinematograf in Vestvågøy in Lofoten
on March 10, 1910. It brings together several threads discussed in
this thesis: geneaologies of ‘national cinema’; transnational mobility
of film practitioners within Scandinavia; nature as a trope moving
from still photography into silent cinema, a practice in which
Danish film production eagerly partook; and in Anders Beer Wilse’s
photo a theoretical backdrop of visual culture and archival issues.
One of Jaenzon’s works counts as the first Norwegian fiction film,
but he is above all one of the emblematic figures from the Swedish
feature-film successes around 1920. These cornerstones in the
conception of Swedish national cinema often staged and performed
Scandinavian-nesses and inspired or provoked production practices
in both Norway and Denmark. In the thesis, I will return on
occasion to Lofoten and other geographical sites used to embody
a particularly resonant specificity and topographic authenticity on
multiple, concurrent levels: local, national and Scandinavian.