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This chapter examines the role of film and television in embedding sociotechnical imaginaries of civil defence during the early nuclear age (c. 1949-1965) by zooming in on Sweden and Denmark, two neighbouring countries that differed both in terms of their political position in the Cold War and in the scale of their civil defence efforts. Following a theoretical discussion of the psychosocial effects of films and their manner of circulation, we analyse Swedish and Danish films in two periods demarcated by the thermonuclear disruption of civil defence during the mid-1950s. The analysis highlights how films were used to frame technologies and script and perform social norms. We argue that films constitute an important source for understanding the difficulties of embedding sociotechnical imaginaries of civil defence.

The aim of this dissertation is to discuss and exemplify the use of theatre and theatricality in the film aesthetics of Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). The main primary material of the study consists of a selection of Bergman’s films: the nine commercials made for Bris soap (1951-1953) and the feature films Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Seventh Seal (1957), The Magician (1958), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), The Silence (1963), Persona (1966), The Ritual (1969), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), Fanny and Alexander (1983) and Saraband (2003). The dissertation also includes several other examples from Bergman’s rich intermedial oeuvre, and features theatre, film, radio and television productions. The interart approach is also applied on material from the Ingmar Bergman archives and to the author’s unique interviews that were carried out with Bergman in the fall of 2004 (some of his last interviews).

After an introduction in the first chapter, the second chapter discusses the history, aesthetics and terminology of theatricality. The term has accumulated an extraordinary variety of meanings, making it denote everything from an act to excess in the broadest possible sense, from a style to a semiotic system and from a medium to a message. In this dissertation theatricality is seen as a reference to a performance that is directed outwards; an act of showing, which reveals the relationship between the medium and the observer. A prerequisite for this is that the object is manifested with a parallel consciousness of the observer’s gaze, which is used as a part of the staging, thereby involving the observer in the work while making her realize that the author is aware of her gaze. This self-consciousness is illustrated in the three following analytical chapters.

The third chapter looks at the depiction and use of space, framing and long shot-composition, reveries, character entrances, movement and tracking shots in Bergman’s films.

The main foci of the fourth chapter are masks and Bergman’s famous close-ups, where the emphasis lies on the importance of the actor. In scenes where Bergman lets the actor face and speak directly into the camera, theatricality is characterized by oscillation; that is, it forms an act of showing that breaks the cinematic illusion, while simultaneously involving the observer in the film. The chapter also examines the use of photographs in Bergman’s films.

The fifth chapter focuses on some of the meta-aspects created by Bergman’s theatrical film aesthetics, for instance when the characters in the films visit theatres. The chapter also analyzes the play-within-the play structure of Bergman’s works and the "indirect" address from Bergman in his films, which is accomplished through the intervention of his voice and cameo appearances.

The sixth and last chapter of this dissertation consists of a brief summary and conclusions on the subject of cinematic style that show how ideas concerning theatricality have been a part of Ingmar Bergman’s film art.

The collected diaries of Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986), for the first time published in Swedish. They cover the director's life, work and the increasing difficulties he encountered in the Soviet Union and the time of his exile in Western Europe. Internationally Tarkovsky's diaries were widely reviewed and considered to be a valuable addition to the Tarkovsky canon. They are professional and personal: thoughts on film sit alongside household chores, notes about friends and family. The diaries have been translated from its Russian original by Håkan Lövgren. This Swedish edition of the diaries is the most complete edition to date.

Ingmar Bergman’s name is virtually synonymous with intellectual European films and high culture but lately scholars have been trying to show that Bergman worked in a variety of fields, including popular culture, and that his work often was commercial, popular and more easily accessible than his auteur image would suggest. This article explores some of the soap commercials that Bergman made in the early 1950s, which still remain a little known part of his oeuvre. The focus also lies on the publication of Bergman’s scripts as serial “filmnovels” in the weekly women’s magazine Allers Familjejournal (1959–1967) and on the transformation of the image of Bergman by his popular later works Scenes from a Marriage (1973) and Fanny and Alexander (1982) and through famous images that reappear throughout the spectrum of popular culture, most notably the image of Death from The Seventh Seal (1957).

The primary argument in this thesis is that the common assumption that an actor has emotion inside him- or herself which can be evoked and projected outwards is an outdated misconception. A proposition is made to replace this possessive acting model, which underpins the realist tradition and is based on the popularized aspects of Stanislavsky’s system for actor training, by a situational acting model. This new model is founded on the idea that emotion is something that actors “do”. Furthermore, a theory of this situational model is advanced where the actor is seen to perform emotion in an interplay with action in three different ways: in the world symbolically as an expression, of the world phenomenologically as in-sensing or out-sensing, and with the world as a becoming – which opens the actor up to greater forces of nature and society.                           

          The material in this thesis has been focused on from both a contextualizing and a theoretic perspective. The contextualizing perspective places the actor’s doing of emotions in a historical context. The theoretic aspect concentrates on how performing emotions is realized in practice, and it proceeds from an analysis of two contemporary Swedish examples: the actresses Lena Endre in the role of Lady Macbeth at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in a production of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth from 2006, and Mia Skäringer in her stage show Horny as Hell and Really Holy from 2010. In exploring this material, a combination of Paul Ricoeur’s “hermeneutics of suspicion” and Paul Stoller’s ”sensuous scholarship” is applied.

          A synthetic theoretical approach is employed that is set on a phenomenological foundation in combination with theories of emotion and affect as well as gender theory and theatre theory. The discussion is informed by Michael Polanyi to gain an understanding of tacit knowledge and the role of kinesthesia; by Simone de Beauvoir to establish a perspective on the body as a situation; by Sara Ahmed to see the potential for a cultural politics of emotion and a queer view of intentionality; and by Maurice Merleau-Ponty to propose a way of looking at the human being as being of the world as opposed to in the world. Interpretations of a few of Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s concepts such as rhizome, becoming, and body without organs, are added to this list in order to provide a background for what the third way of doing emotion is about.

Pirate copied objects are fiery artifacts that have caused much anxiety and debate. This article explores the cultural biographies of one particular type of such objects; digital pirate copied films. More specifically, it traces two neglected aspects of such object's life histories: their entanglement in systems of standardization and quality control, and the ways in which new types of aesthetics and narratives are inscribed (or added to) pirated audiovisual content. Paying close attention to the layered and multifaceted dimensions of digital pirate copied film, the paper approaches the act of pirate copying as a form of transfiguration, and suggests that pirated objects are much more than plain replications. By housing a multiplicity of material identities and by carrying (and being surrounded by) alternative narratives of production, the article argues that these objects intervene, disorient, and disrupt the power dynamics of cinematic circulation and ultimately serve to queer commodity spheres.

In this article, we re-trace the history of the Swedish SF archive and reflect on how this collection of historic newsreels has been reappropriated and remixed through-out more recent media history. In particular, we focus on the work of director and film historian Gardar Sahlberg, who made extensive use of the SF archive, first in a series of documentary films, then in a number of historical TV programmes. We are interested in how historic film footage travels and circulates through time, but foremost we explore how algorithms can help identify instances of audio-visual reuse in large datasets. Hence the article discusses algorithmic ways of examining archival film reuse, introducing a method for mapping video reuse with the help of artificial intelligence or more precisely machine learning that uses so-called convo-lutional neural nets. The article presents the Video Reuse Detector (VRD), a tool that uses machine learning to identify visual similarities within a given audiovisual database such as the SF archive.

The chapter examines the philosophical dichotomy between Hellenism and Hebraism in order to show how Mighty Aphrodite may be seen as a contemporary example of merging cultural identities, previously thought in contradiction to one another. Allen's reiteration of Oedipal references may be read as a dismantling of Classical Hellenic culture and a rearrangement intended for a 21st century New York setting. Allen constructs a fictional tragic space that is embedded in the main plot and that manifests itself in the form of tragic dramaturgy and scenic conventions.

Against this backdrop, Allen's overall use of classical tradition may be considered self-referential: it points out to the director's own understanding of classical culture as a twenty first century Jewish New York film director. Ancient cultural forms mingle with contemporary film and mirror 'the two way relationship between the source text or culture and the new work and receiving elements'. Abort of their original context of antiquity, ritual, drama and myth, tragedy and the very figure of Oedipus are (paradoxically) cinematically deconstructed as humorous, and are granted a place within contemporaneity, finding a specific leeway of expression in classical Hollywood film narratives. The film is a commentary on the potentials of reinstating dominant structures of classical reception per se: Oedipus may become Anti-Oedipus, tragedy may turn into comedy and binary structures such as Hellenism and Hebraism may mingle together in perfect harmony.

Spartacus, the Thracian gladiator turned rebel leader, endures as a near-mythic hero who fought for the oppressed against a Roman oligarchy built on the backs of slave labor. The image of Spartacus as a noble if doomed avenger is familiar and his story has been retold through history as a cautionary tale about social injustice.The television series Spartacus takes a different view, with a violent depiction of the man and his times and a focus on the archetype of the gladiator—powerful, courageous and righteous. This collection of new essays studies the series as an exploration of masculinity.In the world of Spartacus, men jockey for social position, question the nature of their lives, examine their relationships with women and with each other, and explore their roles in society and the universe. The series also offers a compelling study of the composite nature of historical narrative in television and film, where key facts from original sources are interwoven with period embellishments, presenting audiences with a history and a fiction whose lines remain blurred by a distant yet all-too-familiar past.

Abstract: Spartacus (2010-13), although belonging to a genre comprised primarily of male-centered narratives about gladiators, redefines the genre's definition of heroism. Female characters in the TV series evolve from objectified females to strong and brave action heroines, thus marking the evolution of the perception of ancient female sexuality in popular culture.

Several films by Woody Allen (Interiors, Oedipus Wrecks, Match Point and Mighty Aphrodite) contain elements of classical tradition that have been neglected or oversimplified by film scholarship as references to the director’s personal engagement with psychoanalysis. Using Mighty Aphrodite (1995) as illustration, I argue that these films convey the expression of contemporary social issues through a complex and multi-layered reception of classical culture that goes beyond pure psychoanalysis. In Mighty Aphrodite, specifically, Allen deploys the strict formalism of tragedy and the myth of Oedipus as film mechanisms for contemporary societal discourse. Via evaluation of film and narrative, I demonstrate that Allen’s classical reception is self-reflexive as it refers back to the very processes of performative arts. Furthermore, Allen utilizes the classical tradition as a form of expression in contemporary classical Hollywood narratives and creates a rich cultural experience for his audience; a cinematic treatise on cultural remix, dramatic formalism and classical reception per se.  

his first full-length scholarly study about animal horror cinema defines the popular subgenre and describes its origin and history in the West. The chapters explore a variety of animal horror films from a number of different perspectives. This is an indispensable study for students and scholars of cinema, horror and animal studies.

The first academic study of the genre of animal horror cinema is essential for cinema and animal studies scholars as well as for fans of horror film. It defines this popular sub-genre, outlines its history and studies recent films as well as cult classics from a variety of perspectives. A central idea in the book is that animal horror cinema mirrors socially entrenched fears of and attitudes toward animals. Thus, animal horror cinema reveals attitudes toward the fabric of social life, the fragility of the eco-system and a deep uncertainty about what makes humans different from animals. The book contains chapters by scholars with different national and disciplinary backgrounds, and therefore offers a wide range of interpretations on the significance of the animal in modern horror film.

This short subject assessing the current state of the academic field of film studies as practiced at sites of higher learning in Sweden is based on experiences and knowledge the co-authors gained as members of a national committee to evaluate the ‘academic quality’ of programmes from a comparative point of view

Einer der bekanntesten Texte über das Leben der Samen ist Jens Andreas Friis’ norwegischer Roman Lajla aus dem Jahr 1881. Sein Status als Klassiker wurde durch zwei Verfilmungen von Georg Schnéevoigt (Stummfilm von 1929 und Tonfilm von 1937) untermauert. Während es die Intention des Autors war, in unterhaltsamer Form ethnographische Informationen über das Leben der Samen zu vermitteln, wurde der Roman vor allem als eine romantische Liebesgeschichte über das einfache Leben in der Finnmark rezipiert. Der folgende Aufsatz beleuchtet den Handlungsgang um das „vertauschte Kind“ neu, indem er verschiedene Aspekte der Mobilität ins Zentrum stellt: des Textes selbst, des Mediums Film und vor allem der Konzeption der Ethnizität, die durch Betonung von Mobilität ihre dichotomische Starrheit verliert.

The long-awaited Hollywood remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), by director David Fincher, came with warnings from its lead actor, Daniel Craig, that it contained very violent material, and was for adult eyes only. The film’s reviewers duly noted its graphic and ‘slick’ violence (Scott 2011; Phillips 2011) but it is rather surprising how the rape and revenge scenes — which are central to the film and to the Millennium trilogy as a whole — are elided in the film’s critical reception in North America and the UK. Sexual violence is not seriously discussed, debated, or indeed in some cases even mentioned, in the film’s reviews, possibly because at this stage in the cultural retelling of the bestselling Millennium trilogy, the story is so familiar.

This article critically interprets the  aesthetics of the handheld digital camera—whereby the entire film consists of  “footage” shot by its characters in the style of a home video—using The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Cloverfield (2008) as case studies.  Riffing off the science-fiction technology of SQUID in Kathryn Bigelow’s film, Strange Days (1995), the aesthetics of  the handheld digital camera are analysed from three aspects: mobility,  omnivoyance and spectatorship.

Bör filmarkiv främst bevara eller förevisa sina samlingar? Noggrant tillvarata och katalogisera – eller visa och sprida film? Henri Langlois, grundaren av Cinémathèque Français menade att om film aldrig visas, utan endast förvaras i metallburkar, kommer den att sluta som skosmörja. Den digitala utvecklingen förefaller givit honom rätt; bred tillgäng­ lighet till filmens historia är allra viktigast på en sajt som filmarkivet.se.

Samtidens digitala utveckling återverkar idag på flera sätt medialt på arkivsektorn. Frågan är därför vad ett filmarkiv numera egentligen är för något – och vad det ska ägna sig åt? Arkivet innehåller ju inte bara det förflutna; snarare får det alltid sin innebörd i relation till nuet och framtiden – och den kommer inte att vara analog. Ny teknik påverkar alltid arkiv och deras bestånd. Digitaliseringen av filmens historia innebär naturligtvis stora möjlig­ heter, både forsknings­ och folkbildningsmässigt, men också nya format­, arkiv­ och urval­ sproblem. Frågan är komplex och tål att diskuteras, vilket flertalet filmvetare och filmarkivarier gör i denna bok. Ju mer arkivens filmer tillgängliggörs digitalt – desto mer kommer dock intresset för Sveriges filmarv att växa; det gäller såväl forskning som undervisning, liksom publikt – och förstås även politiskt. Digital tillgänglighet är idag det bästa medlet för att bevara det rörliga bildarvet.

This article analyzes the television science-fiction show Doctor Who as a cultural forum within the context of British eco-activism of the 1970s. It examines four serials which aired during the 1970s during the first wave of eco-activism in the UK: "The Green Death" (1973), "The Invasion of the Dinosaurs" (1974), "The Seeds of Doom" (1976), and "Nightmare of Eden" (1979). Two environmentalist concerns-pollution and species conservation-put forward by the early British eco-activist movement as underscored in texts such as The Blueprint for Survival from 1972 are evident in these serials. While affirming the validity of some elements of environmentalist concerns, each serial also proposes that the ends do not always justify the means. The Doctor, although a supporter of eco-activism, rejects seemingly utopian approaches to reset the Earth's ecosystems. Rather than presenting viewers with a guide to sustainability, these Doctor Who serials offer dystopian visions of future realities steeped in ecological transgressions – these are the blueprints for destruction.

The article analyses an adaptation process in two steps, from Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway, to Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours, to Stephen Daldry’s film The Hours. Close readings are carried out with focus on three themes: haunting, identity and failure, which all exhibit different intertextual links between the texts. The theme of haunting, of repetition, is necessarily present in both versions of The Hours, since they as postmodern intertextual works rely heavily on their predecessor as well as on the creator of this predecessor. The theme of a woman’s whole life in a day is similarly a theme repeated from Mrs. Dalloway, and the novel itself surfaces repeatedly in both Cunningham’s and Daldry’s texts, sometimes as concrete inspiration, sometimes in the form of more oblique references. The thematic affinities between the women in The Hours are also connected to the theme of haunting, this time in the way their lives reflect and influence each other. Visually, this is illustrated by linking devices: flowers, sleeping positions and relationships to partners, to mention only the opening scenes. The water imagery—born from an echo of Mrs. Dalloway’s opening chapter—comes into the theme of haunting but takes on a powerful visual significance also in relation to the theme of failure where river water comes to represent Virginia’s choices in the writing process and how these have a direct effect on Mrs. Brown. It is argued that the move from quintessentially modernist fiction to postmodern polyphony, and the fact that Woolf is one of three central characters, has required different authenticating strategies in the film adaptation. Seemingly simple match cuts establish visual links between the central characters while simultaneously separating each woman into her own clearly identifiable space and context. Media specific modes of narration, such as set design, lighting and musical themes are similarly used to achieve polyphony. Subtle intertextual elements found in the guest text are transformed into visual linking devices, ensuring that Mrs. Dalloway remains a powerful element both in symbolic and concrete form, a result indicating that the symbiotic relationship is one of mutualism.

Historically, disability in comedy has taken the form of joking at the expense of disabled persons. In modern times, it is first and foremost through media that the public is exposed to representations of disability, and media is considered societys most far-reaching (re)producer of cultural values. This degrading ridicule in combination with the pervasiveness of media has made disability and humour a controversial combination. Through discourse analysis this article analyses three contemporary mainstream cinema comedies about disability with the overall aim to contribute to enhanced knowledge of how different articulations promote or challenge hegemonic presumptions about disability. The analysis shows that empowering images and stereotypes of disability exist simultaneously as competing discourses in media representations. The conclusion is that aware decisions about how to represent disability are indispensable for film-makers due to the major role of media in forming public perceptions.

The construct of the deviant woman is analysed from literary, sociolinguistic and historical-cultural perspectives, revealing insights about cultures and societies. Furthermore, the studies recognise and explain the significance of the concept of deviance in relation to gender that bespeaks a contemporary cultural concern about narratives of femininity.

Recent scholarship on cinephilia has sought to expand on contemporary cinephilic practices—particularly in view of new technologies such as video, DVD, and the Internet—to showcase the multi-variegated ways in which cinephiles love cinema today, despite (and defying) Susan Sontag’s 1996 “end of cinephilia” declaration. This essay does not attempt to add to that discussion, but instead sketches in broad strokes an overarching theory, via an overview of its past and present forms, to suggest cinephilia’s own unifying goal. Might there not be a singular tapestry of disparate threads of cinephilia, woven across cinema’s different technologies, in which a guiding myth to this love may be discerned? Taking Andre Bazin's construction of the paradigmatic structure of myth guiding the invention of cinema towards a higher, more elemental drive, this essay discusses the question: How to originate a myth of total cinephilia?

Don Marquis once wrote a poem about a fly who argued that he was ‘a vessel of righteousness scattering seeds of justice’ by helping to rid the world of alcoholics and the iniquitous who succumbed to the germs he carried to them. In justification stretched to absurdity, Marquis makes the point that grime, poverty and squalor do not constitute attractive subjects— surely it is easier to be enticed by bright lights and beauty, more tempting to revel in glitz, glamour and grandeur. Yet Pasolini’s Rome as depicted in his early films centers precisely on such wretchedness: set predominantly in the urban periphery, Pasolini’s camera determinedly avoids the more pleasant sights of the Pantheon or the Trevi Fountain, preferring instead the grimness of the borgate or the wilderness in the city outskirts. This essay focuses on Pasolini’s cinematic representation of the Roman slums, or the borgate, in Accattone by analysing on various levels its significance as a specific topographical space. My primary argument is that Pasolini’s alternate take on the borgate, replete with myth, utopian idealism and ideological ambition, nonetheless remains a flawed striving of romanticism,  whose redemption remains out of reach, and whose doom is inescapable.

This article examines the film activities of Civilförsvarsstyrelsen, a Swedish state-controlled civil defense authority under the Ministry of the Interior. Studies of the film activities of the Swedish state, especially from the years following 1945 until the breakthrough of television in 1956, are rare. This study captures the period between 1949 and 1952, a time characterized by an increase in welfare reforms, an escalation of the Cold war and the highest attendance rates in Swedish cinema history. It was also the time when Civilförsvarsstyrelsen started to produce films, and did so to a greater extent than at any other period. The aim is to provide a deeper understanding about how the civil defense used and related to the film medium. The investigation shows that the civil defense expressed a positive attitude towards the use of the film medium as a means of reaching a bigger audience. Furthermore, there was great awareness of the medium’s potential as a tool for propaganda and information. But despite the positive attitudes there was also ambiguity towards the medium. For example, the civil defense board wanted to use the films as a means to influence the citizens to embrace the civil defense ideals, but at the same time there existed a general concern in society towards film as a psychological weapon. And despite its popularity, the film medium was never institutionalized and funding was not very generous. The explanation for this ambiguity could be the general uncertainty and lack of understanding of what effects film as a medium had on its audience.

Documentary film is a popular resource amongst peacebuilding organisations and practitioners. Despite this popularity, research on documentary film is still emerging in peace and conflict studies. This article explores documentary film’s role in the study and practice of peacebuilding by examining the documentary Demons in Paradise and its engagement with issues of peace and conflict in post-war Sri Lanka. This article makes conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions. Drawing from empirical research, I identify and discuss documentary film’s engagement along three analytical angles: documentary film as a text, within social processes, and within research processes. Under each angle, I explore how empirical observations and understanding of peace emerge through the visual, using diverse methods and data, including interviews, participant observation, visual elicitation in post-screening focus groups, and film analysis. I conclude that documentary film can contribute to the study and practice of peacebuilding by offering multiple analytical angles that elucidate plural, disparate understandings of peace in post-war societies.

Chapter 4 is devoted entirely to the history of the TV show KVN (Club of the Merry and Witty), one of the most popular comedy shows on Russian TV, and the role it plays in the creation and validation of the State-approved political satire. KVN is not just a TV show but a whole media empire consisting of several leagues and thousands of teams in different countries. The show is an exemplary case of the dynamics of censorship vis-à-vis self-censorship on television that highlights the limits of permitted dissent. Apart from that, KVN is the site of approved satire and humor, which is used by the State not only for occasional PR campaigns but also for promoting political myths that bestow legitimacy on those in power. Finally, another important aspect of the KVN show is that it functions as a sort of gateway to the Russian show business, thus effectively determining the scope and content of Russian entertainment TV.

This chapter discusses how satire on Russian TV evolved from a relatively unrestrained period of the 1990s to Putin's era, analyzing the content (texts and media techniques) of the programs and their reception by the viewers and authorities. It describes the gradual transformation of entertainment television into a platform devoid of any disloyal critique and begins with the story of the closure of the highly popular satirical program Kukly (Puppets, 1994–2002) which is often considered the first case of sanctions against political satire by the authorities that in many ways predetermined the disappearance of satirical content from mainstream television. The chapter examines the attempts of the State to co-opt satire for the creation of "approved" myths, mainly through nostalgic discourse, substituting satire with depoliticized humor, direct propaganda and "agitainment."