Åsa Jernudd: Movies and Entertainment in Örebro 1897-1908 This dissertation is a historical study of film exhibition in the context of emerging popular entertainment in Örebro, a medium-sized town in Sweden, 1897 to 1908. It argues that since 80% of the population resided in towns and rural areas around 1900, studying the impact of film culture in a town setting is essential for an understanding of early film culture in Sweden. The local press is used as primary source of marketing schemes, venues and programming policies as well as of cultural debate and conflict. Across Europe, theatres and fairgrounds were the preferred venues of traveling exhibitors of film shows. In Örebro, however, film exhibition preferably took place in the ‘respectable’ halls of voluntary organizations. Of special importance to local film culture were two working class societies: the liberal Arbetareföreningen (AF) and the labor-based Arbetarekommun (AK) ― albeit in different ways. AF, which embraced reformist ideals, owned the most popular venue for film exhibition and transformed their hall into a movie theater in 1907. AK encouraged the working class population to spend leisure time (and money) on popular forms of cheap entertainment by opening an amusement park in town and by frequently organizing bazaars, funfairs and variety shows. Socio-cultural conflict was concentrated to the fairground around the turn of the century and later turned to AK’s bazaars and funfairs. The emerging film culture influenced opinion in the big cities of Sweden, yet in Örebro it only received sporadic public attention. In stark contrast to the situation in the big cities, the transformation of itinerant film exhibition to permanent forms was a gradual and relatively inconspicuous process in Örebro that took place in the shadow of AK’s more obtrusive culture of cheap amusements. Three movie theatres opened in 1907 and were accepted by the town’s public with relative ease. / <p>Also affiliated to Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Cinema studies. Diss. Stockholm : Stockholm University, 2007</p>

The main aim of this dissertation is to examine the different childhood discourses permeating Swedish children’s cinema. This is done through close readings of three films that, each in their own way, play an important role in the history of this tradition: THE CHILDREN OF FROSTED MOUNTAIN (Rolf Husberg, 1945), THE CHILDREN OF BULLERBY VILLAGE (Olle Hellbom, 1960) and ELVIS! ELVIS! (Kay Pollak, 1977). Other subjects analysed are media debates about children’s film from the periods in which the films were produced, as well as official reports on the same subject. Taken as a whole, these elements form a significant body of material, describing the notions of children and childhood, as well as ideas around children’s film as medium, that predominated in Swedish society at three given moments in the 20th century. The study shows, that the most striking characteristic is that ever since 1945, when the first film specifically made for children was produced in Sweden, such films have been created with the intention of ‘benefiting’ the young audience. This ‘cinema of best intentions’, in turn, contains a number of attributes that are not always as unequivocally positive as they might initially seem. One of the main starting points for this exploration comes from modern childhood studies, according to which every given time and culture has its own complex of ideas, understandings and representations of children and childhood. Another central theoretical source is Michel Foucault. His ideas of power and knowledge, discipline and oppression, as well as his methodology, permeate this study. From this point of view, there is an aspect of ‘best intentions’ children’s cinema that can be seen as imposing ‘the oppression of benevolence.’ The closing discussion shows how the Swedish children’s film, today as always, is inhibited by factors such as faithfulness to the written original, fear of upsetting the young audience and commercial demands.

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007) belonged to a generation of filmmakers that breathed new life into cinematic expression in the annals of modern-day European film history. By employing his background as a documentary filmmaker, Antonioni used these skills to help establish his own particular style. There was a distinct evolution of style which progressed during his triology L´Avventura, La Notte and L´Eclisse, 1959-1962. This theises presents a comperative study between his earlier films in black and white and his first color film - Il deserto roso, from 1964. By observing color in relation to narrative, dialouge, acting and elements of mise-en-scène, I suggest different answers than those previously discussed among critics concerning this interrelationship. I also discuss how camera technique has presented new possibilities in this area. Concerning references from the texts and books by influential critics, I add my own visions and interpretations concerning this subject. Moreover, I have looked at other filmmakers and their productions´use of colors. One of the crucial themes of this text is how these two formats - black and white and color - bring different modes of meaning and affect their specific films´narratives.

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>This paper is a study in press reception with the intent to examine how twelve female actionheroes have been portrayed in Swedish media between 1974 – 2006. The purpose is to discern patterns and differences in how the female movie character is received by their contemporary journalists and to relate their views to social and gender related theories.</p><p> The female actionhero is an independent and brutal character, often alone and without a mother or a child. This separates her from typical female roles, which historically been characterized by passivity, fear and dependency on the male characters in the movie.</p><p> The female actionhero as a character opens up for complex reception. One perspective in the research identifies the independent woman as a feministic icon. Other researchers and writers relate her masculine attributes, sexual charisma and the movies' financial driving force as a projection of male fantasies.</p><p> The summarization of the critique expressed by Swedish press journalists based on 124 movie reviews and other film related articles expose noticeable differences. From a girl who stood in the shadow of male heroes to a coarse woman who surpass them. But there are still areas in which 30 years haven’t changed a thing. Critics still fixate on the female heroe's physical appearance and her achievements are with few exceptions compared to men, and not other women. The critic reception also establishes that journalists since 1974 have become less inclined to apply gender or other social theories to the movies and female heroes. A gender related perspective is despite an independent and strong woman in the background for other perspectives while male critics are in comparison to female critics significantly more inclined to apply feministic theories to movies with female actionheroes.</p>

Abstract This paper is a study in press reception with the intent to examine how twelve female actionheroes have been portrayed in Swedish media between 1974 – 2006. The purpose is to discern patterns and differences in how the female movie character is received by their contemporary journalists and to relate their views to social and gender related theories.  The female actionhero is an independent and brutal character, often alone and without a mother or a child. This separates her from typical female roles, which historically been characterized by passivity, fear and dependency on the male characters in the movie.  The female actionhero as a character opens up for complex reception. One perspective in the research identifies the independent woman as a feministic icon. Other researchers and writers relate her masculine attributes, sexual charisma and the movies' financial driving force as a projection of male fantasies.  The summarization of the critique expressed by Swedish press journalists based on 124 movie reviews and other film related articles expose noticeable differences. From a girl who stood in the shadow of male heroes to a coarse woman who surpass them. But there are still areas in which 30 years haven’t changed a thing. Critics still fixate on the female heroe's physical appearance and her achievements are with few exceptions compared to men, and not other women. The critic reception also establishes that journalists since 1974 have become less inclined to apply gender or other social theories to the movies and female heroes. A gender related perspective is despite an independent and strong woman in the background for other perspectives while male critics are in comparison to female critics significantly more inclined to apply feministic theories to movies with female actionheroes.

This essay deals with the idea of women as the ”the other sex” within the field of authorship, and aims to bring to together feminist, film and auteur theory with analysis of historic documentations of reception as well as context for academic treatments of Mai Zetterling as an auteur/director. This, in attempt to, through intertwined discussion, catch a glimpse of better understanding how gender specificity may have influenced and continue to influnce perceptions of auteurs of female gender and their works, yet keeping focus on the case of Mai Zetterling and hers in specific.

In this thesis I focus on the artistry and essential work, behind the scenes that storyboard artists have contributed to, since the early days of film history. The works I will focus on are the important phases of pre-planning of feature films and animated films. I theorize on the aspect of what makes a good story and how it is brought to life on the screen, as well as how the story is actually conveyed with this drawings. The hypothesis maintains the importance of storyboards, as well as defining their main purpose. Using a formalistic point of view and historical argumentation, I examine and compare five different directors´ use of storyboards and how their respective collaborative teams (i.e director of photography, production designer and story artists, editors etc) create each film´s particular nuances and cinematic expressions. The source materials used are works by Bill Krohn, Giuseppe Cristiano, Steven D. Katz and Robert Kapsis, amongst others. The films/DVDs for my research have consisted of numerous behind-the-scenes materials and storyboards that have been featured with these filmic references. My conclusion is that the subsequent cinematic expression in each work is already apparent in the early process. This is revealed sometimes in the sketchbook of the director, but most often in the important collaborative work of the whole production team. In this we discover aspects as to what makes an elaborate, filmic masterpiece, facts most often unknown to a normal cinema audience.

Denna uppsats undersöker hur samma historiska händelse kan ha olika betydelser i film. Idag är människor mer benägna att se en film om en historisk händelse än att läsa en historiebok, och detta innebär att vi måste lära oss att förstå de konventioner som används för att placera historia på film. Historiefilmen kan sägas besitta en palimpsestisk historiskt medvetenhet där lager av fakta och myt smälter samman, hellre än att skiljas åt. Men för att en historisk händelse ska passa in i filmens tidsram måste den bearbetas och detta resulterar i att vissa människor, händelser och rörelser prioriteras, medan andra utesluts. Därför undersöker denna uppsats vad som lagts till / uteslutits och effekterna på sammanhanget och trovärdighet, hur filmen hävdar sin autenticitet, och hur upphovsmannen påverkar trovärdigheten. Analysresultaten av två filmer om den kubanska revolutionen, visar att beroende på vilken del av den historisk händelsen som skildras, skapar filmerna helt olika berättelser med olika budskap. Medan filmen Che-Argentinaren (2008) fungerar som en hyllning av gerillanledaren Che Guevara som Kubas frälsare, visar en vänsterideologi och uttrycker USA förakt, skildrar däremot den andra filmen The Lost City (2005) revolutionens baksida. Den visar en högerideologi, familjevärderingar och USA som frihetens och drömmarnas land. Båda filmerna använder sig av liknande stilistiska strategier för att uppnå illusionen av autenticitet, och filmernas upphovsmän påverkar filmernas trovärdighet i olika grad. Vad jag i uppsatsen till sist menar är att historiefilmen inte bör tas som sanning, utan har en viktig roll som intresseväckare, som förhoppningsvis leder till att åskådaren blir intresserad av att söka sig mer kunskap. / This paper examines how the same historical event can have different meanings in films. Today people are more likely to watch a film about a historical event than to read a history book, and this means that we must learn and understand the conventions used to place history on film. The history film can be said to possess a palimpsetic historical consciousness in which layers of fact and myth come together rather than be separated. But for a historical event to fit within the film's time frame, it must be processed and this results in that certain people, events and movements are given priority, while others are excluded. Therefore, this paper studies what has been added/excluded and the effects on the context and credibility,how the film claims its authenticity, and how the author/filmmakers affects the credibility. The results of the analysis of two films about the Cuban revolution, shows that depending on which part of the historical event depicted, the films create entirely different stories with very different message. While the film Che-Part One (2008) serves as a celebration of the guerrilla fighter Che Guevara as Cuba's savior, according to a leftist ideology and the film is expressing U.S. disdain, the other film The Lost City (2005) however, portrays the revolutions backside, it shows a right-wing ideology, family values and the U.S. as the land of freedom and dreams. Both films use similar stylistic strategies to achieve illusion of authenticity, and the films' creators affect the films credibility in different amounts. What I finally conclude, is that the history film should not be considered as truth, but serve to arouse interest, which will hopefully lead the spectator to seek more knowledge about the historical event.