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Between 1840 and 1940, more than one million people emigrated from Sweden to America. The fact that so many chose to leave to seek a better life across the Atlantic was a major trauma for the Swedish nation. Filmmakers were not slow to pick up on an exodus that proved to be of lasting importance for the Swedes’ national identity. In Welcome Home Mr Swanson, film studies scholar Ann-Kristin Wallengren analyzes the ways in which Swedish emigrants and Swedish-American returnees are depicted in Swedish film between 1910 and 1950, continuing on to recent films and television shows. Were Sweden’s emigrants seen as national traitors or as brave trailblazers who might return home with modern ide...
Educational media has been a contested arena in the creation and communication of the Swedish welfare system - it was an important instrument of modernization. In Neither Fish nor Fowl historians Bengt Sandin and Maija Runcis have a close look on how the educational broadcasting was negotiated between government agencies, public inquiries, political and professional interests. The state authorities, civil society organizations, educators and journalists had strong opinions about the role of educational broadcast media that reflected a desire to form the future. Educational programmes were also part of a public service system which increasingly emphasized its independence from state control. But was broadcast education to be a part of public service, a government agency or something else - a red herring? This study provides insights into the struggle over the role of educational media and the political communication in the welfare state.
This book seeks to place children and young people centrally within the study of the contemporary British home front, its cultural representations and its place in the historical memory of the First World War. This edited collection interrogates not only war and its effects on children and young people, but how understandings of this conflict have shaped or been shaped by historical memories of the Great War, which have only allowed for several tropes of childhood during the conflict to emerge. It brings together new research by emerging and established scholars who, through a series of tightly focussed case studies, introduce a range of new histories to both explore the experience of being young during the First World War, and interrogate the memories and representations of the conflict produced for children. Taken together the chapters in this volume shed light on the multiple ways in which the Great War shaped, disrupted and interrupted childhood in Britain, and illuminate simultaneously the selectivity of the portrayal of the conflict within the more typical national narratives.
This book reconsiders audiovisual culture through a focus on human perception, with recourse to ideas derived from recent neuroscience. It proceeds from the assumption that rather than simply working on a straightforward cognitive level audiovisual culture also functions more fundamentally on a physiological level, directly exploiting precise aspects of human perception. Vision and hearing are unified in a merged signal in the brain through being processed in the same areas. This is illustrated by the startling ‘McGurk Effect’, whereby the perception of spoken sound is changed by its accompanying image, and counterpart effects which demonstrate that what we see is affected by different sounds accompanying sounds. This blending of sound and images into a whole has become a universal aspect of culture, not only evident in films and television but also in video games and short Internet clips. Indeed, this aesthetic formation has become the dominant of this period. The McGurk Universe attends to how audiovisual culture engages with and mediates between physiological and psychological levels.
A compilation of carefully selected articles written by international film scholars, this record provides an in-depth look into the history of Swedish film. This scholarly account covers various phenomena, including the early screenings at the turn of the century, Swedish censorship, the golden age of silent films, 1930s' comedies and melodramas, documentaries, pornography, and experimental films. In addition, this volume examines the work of important contributors, such as Ingmar Bergman, Stefan Jarl, and Peter Weiss, and discusses film policies of the new millennium.
This handbook tackles the understudied relationship between music and comedy cinema by analysing the nature, perception, and function of music from fresh perspectives. Its approach is not only multidisciplinary, but also interdisciplinary in its close examination of how music and other cinematic devices interact in the creation of comedy. The volume addresses gender representation, national identities, stylistic strategies, and employs inputs from cultural studies, musicology, music theory, psychology, cognitivism, semiotics, formal and stylistic film analysis, and psychoanalysis. It is organised in four sections: general introductions, theoretical investigations, music and comedy within national cinemas, and exemplary case studies of films or authors.
"Film Music: A Very Short Introduction focuses on the most central issues in the practice of film music. What is film music? How is it composed? How does film music work? Why does film music work? The rich and deeply moving sounds of film music are as old as cinema. The very first projected moving images were accompanied by music around the globe as a variety of performers-from single piano players to small orchestras-brought images to life. Film music has since become its own industry, an aesthetic platform for expressing creative visions, and a commercial vehicle for generating increased revenue. The second edition updates coverage to 2022 and includes attention to recent developments in global film music, women in film music, and African -American and minority composers"--
Situated on Europe’s northern periphery, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden found themselves caught between warring powers during World War II. Ultimately, these nations survived the conflict as sovereign states whose wartime experiences have profoundly shaped their historiography, literature, cinema and memory cultures. Nordic War Stories explores the commonalities and divergences among the five Nordic countries, examining national historiographies alongside representations of the war years in canonical literary works, travel writing, and film media. Together, they comprise a valuable companion that challenges the myth of Scandinavian homogeneity while demonstrating the powerful influence that the war continues to exert on national identities.
Table of Contents 1. Introduction: The Lock of Synchronization 2. Synchronization: McGurk and Beyond 3. Sound Montage 4. Occult Aesthetics 5. Isomorphic Cadences: Film as 'Musical' 6. 'Visual' Sound Design: the Sonic Continuum 7. 'Pre' and 'Post' Sound 8. Wildtrack Asynchrony 9. Conclusion: Final Speculations Bibliography Index.
Scandinavian popular novels and films have flourished in the last thirty years. In Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia, Andrew Nestingen argues that the growth and visibility of popular culture have been at the heart of the development of heterogeneous �publics� in Scandinavia, in opposition to the homogenizing influence of the post-World War II welfare state. Novels and films have mobilized readers and viewers, serving as a preeminent site for debates over individualism, collectivity, national homogeneity, gender, and transnational relations. Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia provides insight into the changing nature of civil society in Scandinavia through the lens of popular culture. Nestingen develops his argument through the examination of genres where the central theme is individual transgression of societal norms: crime films and novels, melodramas, and fantasy fiction. Among the internationally known writers and filmmakers discussed are Henning Mankell, Aki Kaurism�ki, Lukas Moodysson, and Lars von Trier.