The Outlaw and No-Man’s Land: The International Circulation of Visual Repertoires in World War I
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Mark Sandberg
Abstract
This paper proposes a reevaluation of the relationship between Swedish feature films and World War I during the years 1914–18, suggesting that a widespread visual repertoire of war imagery circulating in Europe and Sweden through the illustrated weeklies and cinema newsreels created a production and exhibition context in which various visual tropes from the war formed a baseline, taken-for-granted cultural framework for the meaning of Swedish films, even though Sweden was not directly involved in the conflict. The paper chooses as its main case study Victor Sjöström’s 1917 film Berg Eyvind och hans hustru in order to suggest ways in which the film’s insistent verticality and location shooting in the wilds of Northern Sweden was in dialogue with the pervasive wartime visual repertoire of trench warfare and no-man’s land. Furthermore, when the film was exhibited in Germany and France after the war, the strong affective response of continental critics to the “primitive” natural landscapes can also be read in the context of a new imagination of landscapes that were devastated by and subjugated to technology, which was the constantly reinforced message of the circulating visual repertoire of the war.
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© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Vintervejen til de levendes land. En sammenlignende læsning af salmer af Kingo, Grundtvig og Sarvig
- Peter Seebergs poetik hinsides modernisme og realisme
- Nordischer Klang 2014: Grenzüberschreitungen im Skandinavischen Stummfilm – Border Crossings in Scandinavian Silent Film
- On the Periphery of the “National Film”: Danish Cinematic Border Crossings, 1918–1929
- Across Boundaries – Strategies of Silence and Sound in Sjöström’s A Lady to Love (1930)
- The Outlaw and No-Man’s Land: The International Circulation of Visual Repertoires in World War I
- Reviews
- Juliane Egerer / Bauer, Sybille:Norrönes Lern- und Arbeitsbuch. Zu Odd Einar Haugen „Norröne Grammatik im Überblick“
- Sverre Bagge:From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom. State Formation in Norway c. 900–1350
- Pernille Hermann et.al. (Hg.):Minni and Muninn. Memory in Medieval Nordic Culture
- Kurt Schietzel:Spurensuche Haithabu. Dokumentation und Chronik 1963–2013
- Elizabeth Ashman Rowe:Vikings in the West. The Legend of Ragnarr Loðbrók and his Sons (= Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia 18)
- Jónas Kristjánsson und Vésteinn Ólason (Hg.):Eddukvæði I–II
- Jon Stewart (Ed.):The Heibergs and the Theater - Between Vaudeville, Romantic Comedy and National Drama
- Niels Penke (Hg.):Der skandinavische Horrorfilm. Kultur- und ästhetikgeschichtliche Perspektiven
- Weisner, Anette:Großstadtbild und nordische Moderne. Untersuchungen zur Großstadtdarstellung in der skandinavischen Malerei von 1870 bis 1920
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Vintervejen til de levendes land. En sammenlignende læsning af salmer af Kingo, Grundtvig og Sarvig
- Peter Seebergs poetik hinsides modernisme og realisme
- Nordischer Klang 2014: Grenzüberschreitungen im Skandinavischen Stummfilm – Border Crossings in Scandinavian Silent Film
- On the Periphery of the “National Film”: Danish Cinematic Border Crossings, 1918–1929
- Across Boundaries – Strategies of Silence and Sound in Sjöström’s A Lady to Love (1930)
- The Outlaw and No-Man’s Land: The International Circulation of Visual Repertoires in World War I
- Reviews
- Juliane Egerer / Bauer, Sybille:Norrönes Lern- und Arbeitsbuch. Zu Odd Einar Haugen „Norröne Grammatik im Überblick“
- Sverre Bagge:From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom. State Formation in Norway c. 900–1350
- Pernille Hermann et.al. (Hg.):Minni and Muninn. Memory in Medieval Nordic Culture
- Kurt Schietzel:Spurensuche Haithabu. Dokumentation und Chronik 1963–2013
- Elizabeth Ashman Rowe:Vikings in the West. The Legend of Ragnarr Loðbrók and his Sons (= Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia 18)
- Jónas Kristjánsson und Vésteinn Ólason (Hg.):Eddukvæði I–II
- Jon Stewart (Ed.):The Heibergs and the Theater - Between Vaudeville, Romantic Comedy and National Drama
- Niels Penke (Hg.):Der skandinavische Horrorfilm. Kultur- und ästhetikgeschichtliche Perspektiven
- Weisner, Anette:Großstadtbild und nordische Moderne. Untersuchungen zur Großstadtdarstellung in der skandinavischen Malerei von 1870 bis 1920
