[SOUND] Scandinavian cinema was right from the beginning, both a cinema of fiction and a cinema of non-fiction. Filmmakers were already, around 1899, eager to document the real world, the local world around them, the world of the famous and the more mundane world of everyday life. Soon, cameras also started following adventurers to exotic parts of the world, unknown to the audience. Some of the first documentary films would have titles like Photographing the Royal Family from 1899, in which one of the Danish film pioneers, Peter Elfelt, could show that even the royal family in Denmark could act rather relaxed and with humor in front of the camera. Other films would document important public events like the inauguration of Ribe Cathedral in 1904, or daring inventors like the Danish flight pioneer Ellehammer and his first attempts to fly. The tendency only to film the famous and official public events was soon supplemented by documentaries with all aspects of everyday life, like in A Tour Through Copenhagen, made by Nordisk film in 1907, or Child Welfare Day in Copenhagen, also by Nordisk film in 1907. Before the arrival of television, documentary film was also the first visual news medium. The short early documentary films documented events that could be shown before feature films in the cinema. And in 1908 the French film company Pathe made the first real film newsreel, which stopped in 1969, when television finally took over. The newsreels soon became an important institution, and the international newsreels reached many countries. In each of the Scandinavian countries, national newsreels were made, for instance in Denmark by Nordisk Film already from 1917, the newspaper Politiken from 1949 to 1957, and in Norway, Norwegian news reels from 1946 to 1964. Documentary film became an important window towards a much bigger world than national audiences had every seen before. Events such as wars far away suddenly entered the reality of Scandinavia in the form of live reportage. Both the Boer War, from 1898 to 1902 and the first World War, from 1914 to 1918, were some of the first wars to be documented by newsreels. Newsreels were fascinating for people living in the early period of cinema. These early documentary images of a local and more exotic faraway world were the only access for many people to life outside the local community they lived in. People did not travel very much, and therefore travel documentaries became immensely popular. Norway has international famous and adventurous explorers like Roald Amundsen, who discovered the Northwest Passage and is also famous for being the first to reach the South Pole in 1911. Amundsen's expeditions became part of four long documentary films produced between 1923 and 1926. These films were very popular all over the world. But other exotic parts of the world was also documented by explorers in Norway, for instance, Carl Lumholtz' Borneo film The Land of Head Hunters from 1920. The travel film remained popular for many decades and a more developed documentary film form can be found in the films by another famous Norwegian explorer, Thor Heyerdahl. His 101 days travel on a raft from Peru to Polynesia in 1947 was an international top news story and is reported in the film Kon-Tiki from 1950. The film combines factual information, scientific experiment, and a dramatic human story, and points towards more modern and dramatized forms of documentary. Travelling to faraway places was of course a fascinating thing. However, discovering your own country was equally fascinating, and also became part of a public push to construct and develop a sense of belonging to a nation and a community. Documentary films could help audiences to better imagine and understand the nation they lived in. One of the first Scandinavian films in this genre was the Finnish film Finlandia by Erkki Karu in 1922, a 95 minutes long film showing aspects of Finland's nature, cities, and life in general. In Norway, the Norway film because an important national genre and institution. And it was from the beginning supported by public money, from among other the Municipal Film Board. One of the first films was Norway: a Description in Six Parts from 1923. This was in many ways a compilation film building on national newsreels and reportage, and it was basically a visual travel through different parts of Norway. A Swedish parallel is Lasse Ring's Sweden: Our Beautiful Country from 1924. The early films of national cinema in each of the Scandinavian countries are mostly visual reportage, showing us how things look, and clearly also celebrating the nation, through its nature, cities, and people. Later films in this genre develop a much more diverse film language and a more independent critical look at the nation. We can illustrate this through two very different Denmark films. The most famous of the early Danish documentary sound films, Poul Henningsen's Denmark, from 1935, was commissioned by the foreign minister, the National Tourist Association of Denmark, and some of the business organizations in Denmark. And they wanted the film to be used both in Denmark and abroad. The result of Poul Henningsen's work is considered a classical masterpiece of Danish documentary cinema. But the official Denmark at that time viewed it differently. [MUSIC] Poul Henningsen was a radical, modern designer, author and critic. And he knew the contemporary form of documentary developed in England. And he was a big admirer of jazz music. He asked the modern Danish composer Bernard Christiansen to make the music to the film, music played by Danish jazz musicians, often using elements of Danish song in a creative way. The editing of the film follows the music, and much is shot in motion from a car, giving the film an extremely modern and unusual look. Poul Henningsen's commentary is rather dry and factual, sometimes a bit ironic, and not at all like the kind of official voiceover that documentaries had at that time. Considered as a film about Denmark, just about everything is there, though, the different landscapes and cities in Denmark, agriculture, fishing, industries, Danish design and culture. But the public reaction was furious, a rejection of the film as a caricature of Denmark and a strong reaction towards the music and the editing style of the film. And it was basically seen as a left-wing undermining of Danish nationality and culture. The film was not shown for a broader public when it came out. It was destroyed, and not recovered until 1964, where it became one of the most celebrated Denmark films ever. The Denmark film, as a genre, changed in many ways after 1960, where documentary filmmakers became more independent and developed new artistic strategies. In 1970, the Danish Tourist Council, the Organization of Danish Banks, and the National Film Board of Denmark wanted another official film. They asked one of the most controversial Danish modernist poets at that time, Klaus Rifbjerg, to write the script. And in 1970, the film, Danish Pictures, directed by Lars Brydesen and Claus Oersted, came out. >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> Rifkin wrote a poem for to film which is used as voiceover, giving the film a very poetic dimension. He had also announced the film wanted to underline that the nationalist, big nationalistic times were over. The film is a loving, but critical portrait of Denmark with many classes and social groups. And for the first time in a Danish film, we hear the voice of many different Danes expressing their views on Denmark. Unlike Poul Henningsen's film, there is a direct critical dimension of the film concerning social inequalities, pollution, the negative sides of the consumer societies, etc. The more traditional images of Denmark are also there, but again, the music is made by the modernist composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen and national songs are deconstructed in several ways. However, despite this, no scandal followed. It had been accepted that documentary filmmakers had their creative freedom. Thank you for your attention. [MUSIC].
