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and Mauritz Stiller were both trained as actors in the theatre, and they brought to the cinema a set of values which differed considerably from that held by most of their contemporaries in other countries. They had a working familiarity with the great stage dramas and they were strongly influenced by the Swedish writers. The result was not a stage-conscious cinema content with the translation of works from other media. Instead the association with the writers and dramatists stimulated Sjostrom and Stiller to produce films which would stand comparison with the best plays and novels.
There were other influences working on the directors. The French films with their strong theatrical flavour had been widely shown in Sweden with an inevitable impact on the film-makers. The technique was static, with an emphasis on acting. As more and more American films reached the country, however, the Swedish directors saw how much freedom could be given to the camera. Contemporary critics speak of two different styles in the early Swedish films, French in the interiors and American in the exteriors. It was not long before the two styles were fused and the best elements of both combined.
Stiller's first film was Mother and Daughter (191 2) in which he also acted. Sjostrom also played the leading part in his first film, The Gardener (1912). During the next ten years each director made about forty films — an output which can hardly be equalled in any country in the world. When we remember that Sjostrom acted in many of the films he directed, his creative record is even more impressive.
The work of both directors had much in common. Both were conscious of the contribution which national legend and national character could make to the screen. Both turned instinctively for material to the works of Selma Lagerlof with their combination of ardent puritanism and a passionate love of nature. And both were sensitively aware of the virtue which the camera could draw out of inanimate objects. The qualities which they shared were the qualities which gave the Swedish cinema its brief period of flowering.
Stiller was the lesser artist and his record was uneven, although it includes some notable work. Whereas Sjostrom made his films, as it were, from the inside, expressing his emotion through a deepening of the conflict and an intensification of the actor's part, Stiller employed the external devices of camera work and editing to secure many of his effects. One of his earliest films, De Svarta Maskerna {The Black Masks) (1912), which he wrote in collaboration with Charles Magnusson, has over a hundred scenes, a constantly changing combination of interiors and exteriors, close-ups and panoramic shots.
Stiller continued to produce a steady flow of films including comedies and lighter works. Among them were Den Moderna Suffragetten (191 3), a story based on the activities of Mrs. Pankhurst, Dolken (1914) which launched Lars Hanson on his long career in films, Hans Hustrus Forflutna (191 5) with a very young Wanda Rothgardt, Balettprimadonnan (191 6) in which Jenny Hasselqvist made
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