According to zipcodesexplorer, ioneer of Swedish cinematography, one of the first to treasure the inventions of T. Edison, the Lumière, M. Skladanowsky and later the lesson of G. Méliès, and to found a production company (Svenska Bio, in 1907, in Kristianstad) which even experimented with sound, was the operator and journalist Ch. Magnusson (1878-1948). Taking over the technical and artistic direction of Svenska Bio, he favored outdoor shooting and national folklore: in 1910 he discovered the prestigious operator J. Jaenzon (1885-1960) and in 1911 he moved the company’s headquarters to a suburb of Stockholm, starting there a regular production controlled by government censorship but oriented towards adult films. Two theatrical filmmakers hired by Magnusson made their contribution from 1912: V. Sjöström and M. Stiller. It was the golden age of silent cinema: although different in school and style, they shared a love for the country’s cultural heritage and were able to establish a tradition that is unique of its kind and still valid today: artistic independence. under a commercial system. In 1919, from the merger between Svenska Bio and competitor Skandia, Svensk Filmindustri was born, a real cinecittà installed in the suburb of Råsunda in Stockholm, equipped with two studios and a circuit of cinemas, and of which Sjöström himself ensured on several occasions the Artistic direction. But the golden period (which G. Molander tried to continue since the 1920s) was soon undermined by Hollywood, which bought the major signatures, from Sjöström and Stiller to the actors G. Garbo and L. Hanson, and from the advent of sound, which reduced a world-first market to the internal consumption of Swedish-speaking spectators. So that in the Thirties Swedish cinema was forced to survive with theatrical products and in the following two decades it began to recover thanks to isolated personalities: A. Sjöberg, winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946 with the film Iris fiore in the north and in 1951 with The night of pleasure; A. Mattsson, A. Sucksdorff, and their internationally successful films: Spasimo (1944), Fröken Julie and He danced only one summer (1951), winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin in 1952 and The Great Adventure (1953). Among these personalities, I. Bergman was the one who gave back to the auteur film the weight it once had, his victory of the Golden Bear in Berlin with the film The place of strawberries dates back to 1958. By the same director also the films The fountain of the virgin (1961) and Come in a mirror (1962), both of which won the Oscar for best foreign language film. Bergman although forced to isolate himself in a personal and existential quest unknown to his distant masters, gathered around his name, the national pictures of cinema and, while the actresses of the gray decades, from I. Bergman to V. Lindfors, from S. Hasso to M. Zetterling, had been absorbed elsewhere, a new generation of actors (E. Dahlbeck, I. Thulin, Bibi and H. Andersson, L. Ullmann, G. Björnstrand, M. von Sydow) and operators (G. Fischer, S. Nykvist), although sometimes requested abroad, was always present at major events at home. But just as Bergman’s fame grew, the simultaneous explosive growth of television threatened cinema by dropping production from 40 to 10 films annually. In the seventies, the state reacted wisely to this situation by abolishing tax rights on tickets and by law assigning 10% of the proceeds to the Svenska Filminstitutet, created not only as an archive, but to concretely favor quality production. This explains the flowering of new talents, from B. Widerberg to V. Sjöman and J. Troell, winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin with the film Anghingò who, even in opposition to the “father”, have developed the cinema of “children” and restored to the social and political context the importance that had seemed attenuated in the solitary teacher. In the 1970s, Bergman rather hardened than sweetened his worldview, continuing his exceptional path, broken in 1976 by the painful voluntary exile after a confrontation with the Swedish police and tax authorities, but fortunately resumed later. During Bergman’s absence, perhaps the most relevant phenomenon was that of female directors, some of them former Bergmanian actresses such as G. Lindblom, who made an excellent debut with Paradiso d’estate (1977), followed by Sally and freedom (1980), and I. Thulin, who collaborated with and played Noi due, unappia (1978), and then created the remarkable, autobiographical Sky Agitated (1981) by herself. The decade was however characterized by phenomena of “ebb” even in the once more combative filmmakers and by the remoteness of the major actors, who preferred to work abroad. And curiously, Bergman, always criticized for social indifference, once returned to his homeland offered a testimony of civil commitment with Fårödokument 1979. Even Troell, who in Bang! (1977) had unsuccessfully attempted a stylistic renewal, returned from the United States to shoot Il volo dell’Aquila, presented in Venice in 1982, while Bergman was finishing his award-winning “testament”, Fanny and Alexander (1984), followed by the telefilm After the trial (1985). Strongly indebted to the magisterium of the great filmmaker is the luckiest of the new Swedish authors, B. August, author of Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997) and already winner of an Academy Award for best foreign film with Skin to conquer the world (1989) and the Palme d’Or at Cannes for With the best intentions (1992), a work based on Bergman’s biography. We should also mention L. Hallstrom, able to combine the pathetic and the comic in retracing the misadventures of a teenager in My life on all fours (1986). Other contemporary directors also enjoy widespread public success: H. Alfredsson, S. Osten and L. Moodysson; the latter is responsible for Tilsammans (2000) and Lilja 4-ever (2004). Finally, the comedies Vägen ut by DL Lagerlof (1999) and Kopps by J. Fares (2003) had good results. Director Roy Andersson’s film A Pigeon Sitting on a Branch Reflects on Existence (2014), winner of the Golden Lion at the 2014 Venice Film Festival.
