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- Volume 13, Issue 1, 2023
Journal of Scandinavian Cinema - Volume 13, Issue 1, 2023
Volume 13, Issue 1, 2023
- Editorial
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Editorial
More LessContributors to this issue consider different aspects of Scandinavian film and TV culture, from the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on film and television production, to Finnish hip hop on film and Turkish Viking films. Each article explores the rich field of Scandinavian audio-visual culture or how aspects of Scandinavian culture are represented in international film productions.
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- Articles
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Orientalism meets Occidentalism in Tarkan versus the Vikings
More LessTarkan Viking kani (Tarkan versus the Vikings) (Aslan 1971), a low-budget feature film made in the heyday of Turkey’s prolific Yeşilçam film industry, anachronistically pits Viking against Hun in an allegory of Turkey’s position between East and West. By figuring Vikings as representatives of an essential westernness, this film partakes in what I propose is a Viking-film commonplace, but does so from a rare non-western perspective, positioning Vikings within a discourse that is both Orientalist and Occidentalist. This article examines Tarkan versus the Vikings in its historical and ideological contexts, using this film as a critical vantage point from which to consider the (mostly) western Viking film genre, and the stylized image of the West that is the cinematic Viking.
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Localized hip hop authenticity in early 2000s Finland: Retaining representations of race, class and gender in Beauty and the Bastard
Authors: Elina Westinen, Sanna Karkulehto and Mervi TervoBeauty and the Bastard (Karukoski 2005), a pioneering and award-winning youth film set within the emerging Finnish hip hop culture, draws on early twenty-first-century music-related youth films produced in the United States and reaches out thematically and musically to both African American and Finnish hip hop culture and rap music. Set in a predominantly White Finnish society, the film confronts many representational challenges concerning diversity, whether racial, class or gender. Based on contextual analysis of audio-visual representations, we discuss how such categories contribute to the construction of the film’s ‘authenticity’ – a key notion of hip hop culture – as a localized representation. We argue that in its project of localizing hip hop authenticity in early 2000s Finland, the film retains, rather than challenges or questions, representations of normative Whiteness, oppressive class distinctions and unequal gender norms.
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- In Focus
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Introduction: Intertwining histories of film and television in the Nordic countries
Authors: Tobias Hochscherf and Kimmo LaineThe last few years have increasingly shown that the boundaries between film and television are porous. This In Focus section re-examines historical intermedial connections, calling into question the dominant narrative of rivalry and contest. Case studies on specific genres, film and television viewing practices and discourses on the emergence of television demonstrate that there were numerous points of contact and cooperation between the two media in the 1950s and 1960s, a reassessment that opens up new perspectives and paves the way for further intermedial research on film–television relations.
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- Articles
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From television genre to film genre: Finnish Schlager music on small and big screens
More LessSchlager shows were one of the main attractions on early Finnish television. Featuring a popular music genre, the shows were soon followed by a wave of Schlager films. In this article, I discuss Schlager film as an intermedial genre that sheds light on the early forms of cooperation between television, film and record industries. Focusing on the Schlager film Hit parade (1959), I suggest that while television was often seen merely as a competitor of the film industry, contributing to the crisis of Finnish film production, the relation between the two was more ambiguous than that: the case of Hit parade indicates that the film industry was also interested in the potential provided by the new medium.
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Television theatre as a mode of production: Adapting The Word for Finnish television in 1962
By Jukka KorttiThe focus in this article is on the role of television theatre in the early years of television broadcasting in Finland. The production context in which Kaj Munk’s play Ordet (The Word) (1932) – best known from Carl Th. Dreyer’s internationally renowned film classic of the same title – was adapted for transmission via Finland’s Swedish-language television theatre serves as an example. The teleplay (1962) was directed by Tom Segerberg.
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Remembering television as a new medium: Conceptual boundaries and connections
Authors: Jono Van Belle and Åsa JernuddAcademic and industry discourses in Sweden blamed the rapid decline of cinema-going in the late 1950s on the introduction of television. Complicating the issue, Swedish television ties in with radio as a domestic medium, making the conceptual links between television and cinema seem less obvious. If we write a history of media characterized by replacement, we tend to overlook how new and old media exist simultaneously in everyday life. Our article investigates how television features in memory narratives of cinema in the context of quotidian life in the late 1950s and 1960s in Sweden. The study draws on memories collected through 60 oral history interviews in two large-scale projects. With a focus on cultural practices and Lisa Gitelman’s concept of ‘associated protocols’ in media use, we ask how cinema and television are conceived in relation to each other in hindsight when remembering television as new.
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Did television kill cinema? Contemporary writings on film and early television in Finland
By Kimmo LaineThe aim of this article is to survey and re-examine writings on the emergence of television in Finnish film journals and newspapers in the 1950s and early 1960s. While film history has typically pictured film and television mainly as rivals, here the relation is discussed in terms not only of competition but also of interaction and cooperation. I classify the early writings into three groups according to the mode with which the relations between television and cinema are discussed: separationist, protectionist and cooperative. Based on this classification, I argue that it was only after 1963 that the narrative about television taking over – or, indeed, killing – cinema was retroactively established.
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The Finnish film and TV industry in the COVID-19 crisis
Authors: Jose Cañas-Bajo, Heidi Rintala and Ilkka MatilaThis article focuses on the challenges confronted by Finnish production companies as a consequence of the COVID-19 health crisis. We report on the decisions and strategies on the part of producers attempting to overcome the crisis and the production overcost, including shooting practices, teamwork and market relations. We collected quantitative responses to a detailed questionnaire and conducted in-depth interviews with producers to add a nuanced qualitative perspective. Despite the many uncertainties and difficulties associated with increased costs, human resources and complex shooting practices, the respondents showed flexibility in adjusting to the crisis and foresaw some positive trends for the future.
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