Journal of Scandinavian Cinema - Volume 11, Issue 2, 2021

This article discusses transnational television and what strategies public service broadcaster NRK Drama has pursued to make the Norwegian crime series Monster: Brutally Far North travel. Monster was the first Norwegian-language television series bought by a major American cable network, Starz. Using the concept of production values, we argue that NRK has made a series that is able to ride the Nordic noir wave of success while also offering a new northern Norwegian version of the western. These two factors made Monster a good fit for the American market. The series is a result of strategic changes within NRK Drama and a commitment to the private and regional film business. Furthermore, NRK views drama productions as key for reaching audiences and has increased their budgets significantly. The analysis encompasses the industry context, media articles, the ‘North’ as location, the series itself and interviews with important stakeholders.

A selection of Corona-related trade stories from the field of ‘creative documentary’ is examined and connected to a discussion about government film policy – long-term support structures as well as ad hoc measures to counter the effects of COVID-19 – all in an effort to gauge the pandemic’s ramifications for Scandinavian cinema and the film industry’s navigation of conditions of radical uncertainty.

The Swedish film star Eva Dahlbeck (1920–2008) is now remembered mainly for her contributions to Ingmar Bergman’s comedies in the 1950s. The epithet ‘Pansarskeppet kvinnligheten’ (‘Battleship Femininity’), allegedly given to her by the director, has integrated her stardom into the myth-making process driven by Bergman and the press. This can erroneously give him sole credit for Dahlbeck’s fame despite her already established star status. To reconsider such an auteurist misconception, this article examines Dahlbeck’s stardom from 1946 to 1956, drawing on Richard Dyer’s seminal theorization of a film star as a media construction. By analysing Dahlbeck’s star image and its relationship to three characters she plays in Bergman’s films, the article situates these films in the dynamics formed by diverse media texts and elucidates their historical and cultural context while also providing a case study of film stardom in post-war Sweden.