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AUTHOR'S PREFACE
SWEDEN and Denmark have made a contribution to world cinema out of all proportion to their size. No other country with a population of four, or even seven, million has made so many films or has influenced film-making elsewhere to the same extent. The volume of production in the Scandinavian countries has fluctuated and the influence, for long decades negligible, has varied greatly; but at different periods in the history of the cinema the Danish and the Swedish films have led the world. Even when few of the films were being seen outside Scandinavia, there was always an actress appearing in German, American or British films to remind us that film-making was still an active, creative force in Stockholm and Copenhagen.
When films were silent and the Scandinavian producers could sell their films — as they did — all over the world, their achievement was remarkable in that they were competing successfully with stronger units in larger countries. When sound reached the cinema, the possibility of wide international circulation of Scandinavian films ended, and the mere survival of film-making in these small countries with their severely limited markets became remarkable. If the urge to make films had not been strong, if a tradition in cinema had not been firmly founded, it is hard to believe that men would have accepted all the cramping economic problems involved in making films for a maximum audience of a few million people.
But from the beginning the urge was strong. The old folk tales were a rich source of material and the strongly national films they inspired were full of visual beauty and poetry. More than in the large producing countries, men in Sweden and Denmark have gone into cinema, not to make money quickly, but because they wanted to use film to express their ideas. The fact that there are no large profits to be made out of Scandinavian films has both a stabilizing and a stimulating effect: extravagant production means suicide, while Spartan budgets demand resource, imagination and a generous co-operation in craftsmanship. With these conditions met, film-making in small countries can survive and even flourish.
I am grateful for the friendly assistance and advice I have received from filmmakers and film students in Scandinavia in writing this book. I would especially like to acknowledge the help given by Christian Tenow and his colleagues of Svensk Filmindustri, Stockholm; Ebbe Neergaard, Director of the Statens Filmcentral, Copenhagen, and the Danish documentary directors; and Hans Aanestad of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I am also indebted to Bengt IdestamAlmquist and Hugo Wortzelius for the guidance of their critical writings on the Swedish cinema.
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