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Introduction
Films were first screened in Denmark at an exhibition of the Lumière Cinématographe in Copenhagen on 7 June 1896. Local filmmaking began two years later, and 1904 saw the opening of the country’s first permanent cinema. In 1906 Nordisk Films Kompagni was founded (it is still in existence, claiming to be the world’s longest established continuously active film production company). In the years between 1909 and 1914, Denmark was Europe’s most successful film centre: indeed by 1910 the output of Nordisk alone was over a hundred films a year. The career of Asta Nielsen, superstar of European early cinema, was launched in her native Denmark with the controversial erotic melodrama Afgrunden/The Abyss (1910), co-directed by Hjalmar Davidsen and Nielsen’s husband, Urban Gad. Nielsen’s role as a seductress in Afgrunden is indicative of two distinctive types of early Danish cinema: the sensational subject and the ‘vamp’ film (see stereotype). Prominent early directors include Viggo Larsen, Holger Madsen and, perhaps most famously, Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vampyr, 1932), who later also worked in Sweden and France. Following the success of Denmark’s first sound feature film, Præsten i Vejlby/The Clergyman of Vejlby (George Schnéevoight, 1931), around nine features were made annually for the remainder of the 1930s. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Denmark, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 31 May. 2021
In the library's collections/Searching the online catalog
- motion pictures denmarkThe call number range is PN 1993.5 .D4 located on Baker Level 4.
Selected book titles
The Danish directors: dialogues on a contemporary national cinema by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781841508306In response to the resurgence of Danish film, this book presents a collection of indepth interviews with 19 of Denmark's finest filmmakers. Profiling the canonized figures alongside recently established filmmakers, this collection features interviews with Lars von Trier, S(c)ren KraghJacobsen, Thomas Vinterberg and Henning Carlsen among many others. It poses questions that engage with ongoing and controversial issues within film studies, which will stimulate debate in academic and filmgoing circles alike. ...
The name of this book Is Dogme95 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .D4 K45 2000ISBN: 9780571203321A spectre is haunting world cinema - the spectre of a Danish 'new wave' led by mercurial director Lars Von Trier. In 1995, when Von Trier and three comrades issued a 10-point 'Vow of Chastity' for the making of simpler, more truthful movies, cynics in the film business refused to take it seriously. Five years on, the international success of the raw, uncompromising 'Dogme95' films - Festen, The Idiots, Mifune, The King is Alive - has fired a volley of shots across the bows of a staid and bloated industry. Richard Kelly's investigation of the Dogme95 movement is a piece of 'gonzo journalism' in which Kelly sallies forth in search of the Dogme brothers and their accomplices, seeking to hammer out the truth from the lies in this austere and anarchic piece of cinematic mischief.
Nordisk Films Kompagni 1906-1924: the rise and fall of the polar bear by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780861969302Nordisk Films Kompagni 1906-1924: The Rise and Fall of the Polar Bear is the first comprehensive study of the Danish film company, Nordisk Films Kompagni, in the silent era. Based on archival research, primarily in the company's surviving business archives, this volume of KINtop describes and analyzes how Nordisk Film became one of the leading players in the world market and why the company failed to maintain this position. This volume is written from perspective of Nordisk Film as a business and organization, from its establishment in 1906 until 1924 when founder Ole Olsen stepped back. ...
On The Five Obstructions by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1997.2 .F46 O5 2008ISBN: 9781905674756The film comprises five episodes, each a re-creation of Leth's classic film The Perfect Human (1967), but with five different creative constraints, or 'obstructions'.
Short films from a small nation: Danish informational cinema, 1935-1965 by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781474424134For three decades, state-sponsored short filmmaking educated Danish citizens, promoted Denmark to the world, and shaped the careers of renowned directors like Carl Th. Dreyer. The first book-length study in English of a national corpus of state-sponsored informational film, this book traces how Danish shorts on topics including social welfare, industry, art and architecture were commissioned, funded, produced and reviewed from the inter-war period to the 1960s. ...
Small nation, global cinema: the new Danish cinema by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780816646487Small Nation, Global Cinema engages the effects of globalization from the perspective of small nations. Focusing her study on the specific cultural context of the international film market, Mette Hjort argues that the New Danish Cinema presents an opportunity to understand the effects of globalization within the culture and economy of a privileged small nation. Hjort offers two key strategies underwriting the transformation and globalization of contemporary Danish cinema—the processes of cultural circulation and the psychological efficacy of heritage. ...
Other library resource(s)
Scandinavian film from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286This bibliography covers the cinemas of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. These are usually called the Nordic countries, while Scandinavia is sometimes defined more narrowly, with reference to geography or linguistics. Here, however, Scandinavian and Nordic are used as synonyms. While the Nordic countries certainly share parts of their film histories with each other, there are also notable differences.
Selected movie titles
Find more Danish language films in the library's online catalog.
Arven = Inheritance by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #3201ISBN: 9780780029941Christoffer, who four years earlier abandoned the family steel business for an idyllic life as a restauranteur with the woman he loves, Maria, a rising actress. But when Christoffer's father commits suicide, Christoffer's domineering and manipulative mother compels him to return home to take control. Maria's worst fears for Christoffer are tragically realized as he must contend with a business on the brink of financial ruin and a brother-in-law scheming for control. Christoffer must make wrenching decisions that threaten to tear his family apart and destroy his soul.
Efter brylluppet = [After the wedding] by Call Number: Jones Media DVD # 6303ISBN: 9781594446474Jacob, a Danish expatriate, runs a struggling orphanage in one of India's poorest regions. Desperate to save the orphanage from closing, he returns to Denmark to meet Jorgen, a wealthy businessman and potential benefactor. Jorgen invites Jacob to his daughter's wedding, seemingly as a friendly gesture, but the terminally ill Jorgen is also trying to find a new husband for his wife Helene. When Jacob meets Helene, he recognizes her as a person from a past he is trying to forget. The wedding invitation leads to a devastating series of surprises that change Jacob's life and force him to make a bitter choice.
En säng för Martin = A song for Martin by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5559ISBN: 9781592411139In midlife, two soul mates finally meet, and their passion is fueled by their duel love of music. Martin is a famous composer-conductor and Barbara is a gifted violinist. Abandoning their lackluster lives they plunge into a new and exciting world. When their blissful existence is threatened, Barbara is courageously determined to prove that love conquers all.
Gamle mænd i nye biler = Old men in new cars by Call Number: Jones Media DVD # 7512When hardened criminal Harald is released from prison, he joins up with two former henchmen. Before he resumes his criminal ways, his dying surrogate father asks him to find his biological son.
Mifunes sidste sang = Mifune's last song by Call Number: Streaming videoKresten has quickly become a whirlwind success in business in Copenhagen. The morning after his wedding (to the boss' daughter), he receives a distressing phone call—his father has just died. He has trouble explaining this, because he told everyone—including his wife Claire (Sofie Gråbøl)—that he has no living relatives. Returning to his father's dilapidated, run-down farm, he comes across his elder brother, Rud, a mentally handicapped, childlike creature quite unable to fend for himself. While taking care of his father's funeral arrangements, Kresten distracts Rud by pretending to be samurai Toshiro Mifune—a favorite game from their youth. ...
Internet resource(s)
- Danish Film InstituteThe Danish Film Institute is the national agency for funding and promoting Danish film and cinema culture.
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