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Kopi fra DBC Webarkiv Kopi af: Strategies in Danish Film Culture - and the Case of Susanne Bier Dette materiale er lagret i henhold til aftale mellem DBC og udgiveren. www.dbc.dk e-mail: [email protected] 7/3/2017 www.kosmorama.org/Artikler/Susanne­Bier.aspx DU ER HER: KOSMORAMA | TIDSSKRIFT FOR FILMFORSKNING OG FILMKULTUR / ARTIKLER / STRATEGIES IN DANISH FILM CULTURE STRATEGIES IN DANISH FILM CULTURE – AND THE CASE OF SUSANNE BIER 11 MARTS 2015 / GUNHILD AGGER PEER REVIEWED Dialogues between national and transnational film cultures take place incessantly. The question is: which kinds of dialogue? The principal lines in the history of encounters and exchanges between Danish and international cinematic cultures since the mid­1980s display different attitudes and experiments. On that background five main strategies in Danish film culture can be discerned. Taking the films of Susanne Bier as an example, the aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the complex patterns which have developed in Danish film culture as a result of the processes of international/Scandinavian cooperation and transnational transformation. Susanne Bier ­ a Danish director with an international career. Photo: Les Kaner. Domestic talent and international ambition It is a commonplace observation that domestic talent and ambition in cinema tend to move beyond national borders. However, as for Danish cinema or TV series, this movement is not sufficiently commonplace to go unnoticed. On the contrary, every single step is registered and analysed in the Danish press. This is evident from recurrent headlines such as “Lone Scherfig’s Danish eye on British class society” (“Lone Scherfig’s danske blik på det britiske klassesamfund”, Politiken December 4, 2014), “Danish Director to try his strength against American cult series” (“Dansk instruktør skal prøve kræfter med amerikansk kultserie”, referring to Janus Metz and True Detective, Berlingske Tidende, December 23, 2014), and “Morgenthaler using the sex icon of the 1980s as a battering ram” (“Morgenthaler med 80’ernes sexikon som rambuk”, Politiken January 6, 2015, referring to Morgenthaler’s film I Am Here, 2014 with Kim Basinger). These headlines reflect the interest typically shown by small nations in their international impact. But they also display the general tendency that Danish cinema is, to an increasing degree, entangled with international cinema, implying the concept of transnational cinema. The crucial question is whether certain strategies are discernible in the dialogue that has taken place during the past few decades between national and transnational film cultures. If this is so, we might then ask how these strategies can be described and mapped. The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the complex patterns which have developed in Danish film culture as a result of the processes of international/Scandinavian cooperation and transnational transformation. I shall begin by discussing the conceptual frame for the dialogue taking place between national and transnational film cultures. It is evident that the concept ‘transnational’ can be understood in several ways. I shall delineate and make use of reflections and typologies suggested by Nestingen & Elkington 2005, Hjort and Petrie 2007, Hjort 2010, Higbee and Lim 2010, Bondebjerg and Redvall 2011, Kuhn and Westwell 2012. The typological discussion calls for a historical perspective against which to assess and qualify the implied assumptions regarding prevalent lines of development. I shall therefore describe some principal lines in the history of encounters and exchanges between Danish and international cinematic cultures since the mid­1980s. This survey enables a distinction between five main strategies in Danish film culture, and I shall exemplify these in terms of prominent directors. One director in particular stands out in her experiments with strategies: Susanne Bier. I have therefore chosen the case of Susanne Bier to further illustrate advantages and drawbacks of the proposed strategies. Transnational Cinema Significantly, in 2005 Nestingen & Elkington called their book about the state of Nordic cinema Transnational Cinema in a Global North. The concept of transnational film seemed necessary to define the development: “Financing for Nordic cinema productions is often multinational; the cultural­political bodies that provide funding for cinema cannot be fitted neatly within the borders of a single nation­state; and the networks of production, distribution and exhibition through which all films pass are transnational” (Elkington 2005: 2). This understanding of the concept stresses the tendency to deal with relationships and processes in which more nations take part, and in which the http://www.kosmorama.org/Artikler/Susanne­Bier.aspx 1/12 7/3/2017 www.kosmorama.org/Artikler/Susanne­Bier.aspx tendency to deal with relationships and processes in which more nations take part, and in which the specific national elements may be difficult to discern. During the past few decades, film scholars have investigated the implications of the term ‘transnational’ in relation to ‘national,’ ‘international’ and ‘global’. Although from its invention cinema was international, the idea of a national cinema has been indispensable in connection with language, legislation, film policy, film history, production procedures, film culture, and administration of genre traditions. In The Cinema of Small Nations Mette Hjort and Duncan Petrie lean on Katzenstein’s definitions of globalisation and internationalisation. Consequently, they point out that globalisation “serves to erode the cohesion of nations, whereas internationalisation reaffirms the nation­state as the primary actor in the world system” (Hjort and Petrie 2007: 14). These definitions support the concept of national cinema as a prerequisite of internationalisation, understood as any type of exchange across national borders, a concept that is still viable, not least to small cinematic nations with their own languages. As proposed by Jean K. Chalaby, the transnational may be understood as a new phase indicating a development beyond internationalisation and globalisation: “The transnational media order belongs to this emerging context, challenging boundaries, questioning the principle of territoriality and opening up ‘from within’ the national media” (Chalaby 2005: 32). In the light of increasing cross­cultural cooperation on all levels, it is obvious that the understanding of national cinema has been challenged and is gradually changing. It is illuminating that Andrew Higson in 1989 spoke in favour of the concept of national cinema, but in 2000 critically highlighted the relevant questions this might raise: “I want to suggest that the concept of the ‘transnational’ may be a subtler means of describing cultural and economic formations that are rarely contained by national boundaries” (Higson 2000: 64). In her conceptual survey “Deconstructing and Reconstructing ‘National cinema’”, Deborah Shaw (2013) points to Higson’s article as one of the key essays introducing the concept of the transnational into film studies. Since then it has been the ambition of film scholars to remodel the concept of transnationalisation from just another buzz word (basically signifying the same as globalisation) to a more precise and useful term. Significantly, in 2010 a new film journal with the title Transnational Cinemas was launched. In their platform article in the very first issue of Transnational Cinemas, Higbee and Lim (2010) ask for critical forms of transnationalism in film studies and make their own contribution by mapping out dominant understandings as well as by focusing on sore spots. According to Higbee and Lim, three approaches prevail. The first “focuses on a national/transnational binary” (Higbee and Lim 2010: 9), understanding the concept of national cinema as limiting and inadequate, especially vis­à­vis “questions of production, distribution and exhibition” (ibid.). The second approach sees the concept as a regional phenomenon, e.g. in Nordic or Chinese cinema, whereas the third approach uses the concept to highlight the postcolonial and diasporic developments challenging traditional constructions of nationality. Each approach has its own implications; on this background the proposed tripartition seems useful. Higbee and Lim critically point out that the concept of the transnational implies the risk that the national level is underestimated, and especially that the uneven balance between national and international film makers in terms of power inequality is neglected: “Can transnational film studies be truly transnational if it only speaks in English and engages with English­language scholarship?” (Higbee and Lim 2010: 18). In her article “On the plurality of cinematic transnationalism”, Mette Hjort (2010a) is even more critical in her conceptual analysis. She understands cinematic transnationalism as an open phenomenon “with the potential to develop in many different directions” (Hjort 2010a: 30). To be more precise, Hjort recommends using transnationalism “as a scalar concept allowing for the notion of strong or weak forms of transnationality” (Hjort 2010: 13), related to specific levels: production, distribution, reception, the cinematic work. Further, she suggests using “a distinction between marked and unmarked transnationality” (Hjort 2010 a: 13). Marked transnationality foregrounds transnational elements which are used intentionally. On the whole, precision is the keyword

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